After eight extensive posts about the Ontario electricity sector, I am expanding my geographic coverage to look at the electricity sectors in selected OECD countries. My focus will be on the historical and relative performance of each country’s sector with respect to decarbonization and prices. As in the case of Ontario, whole volumes could and have been written about each [...]
Energy
Thomas Perrett reports on the new methods used by big energy associations to influence the media and those in power
by Gary Gardner
The recent news that scientists moved a step closer to fusion energy was greeted with enthusiasm and awe in much of the media, a bright spot of cheer amid the ongoing drumbeat of existential global threats. Only the most cynical of curmudgeons could pooh-pooh this hopeful development—right?
After all, energy is the foundation of human development. Civilizational advance is a tale of ongoing successes in shaping energy for human ends.
The post Fusion Energy: A Different Take appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Big energy companies are piling money into increasingly inefficient oil and gas investments, reports Thomas Perrett
Gerardo Ferrara, Gerardo Martinez, Pelagia Neocleous, Pierre Ortlieb and Manesh Powar The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and subsequent sanctions led to unprecedented increases in key commodity prices. While prices briefly abated in late spring and early summer, these surged again over late July and August, with EU and UK gas prices reaching … Continue reading ‘There is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid’: margin calls and liquidity demand in volatile commodity markets
Apologies – the recent period of inactivity is caused by a period for me – of what the Americans would call ‘off grid’. For those that follow, the unfortunate details are that my mother, a widow, died at the respectably young age of 102¾… Having informed British Gas, they told me to do nothing (by... Read more
A lot has already been written about different aspects of why most distributed blockchain-based consensus systems are just… bad. And yet we are still able to find new such reasons. At least I think this is a new one. I have not seen it mentioned anywhere so far.
Distributed blockchain-based consensus systems, as they are currently implemented, are an energy-waste ratchet.
I am specifically talking about systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and any other system that:
Price inflation, marginal cost pricing, and principles for electricity market redesign in an era of low-carbon transition
Economies across Europe face unprecedented challenges arising from the soaring cost of energy which holds the prospect of turning into major social and political crises. In the UK, without any intervention, total household consumer expenditure on energy is set to rise from £64bn in 2021 to around £200bn – an increase exceeding defense and education expenditures combined. The rise is dominated by expenditure on electricity and gas, split (on average) roughly equally between the two. Energy costs are a prime factor driving general inflation in the UK to at least 10%, whilst poor households face cost-of-living increases of almost 20%.
Moving away from fossil fuels, towards a system with a far greater contribution from variable renewables, means that the current system is not fit for purpose.
The current energy market structures, including the short-run-marginal-price-on-all nature of the current wholesale market, are not fit for a transition to a renewables-dominated system.
The present emergency responses to the energy crisis across Europe are unsustainable and are generating acute economic and political tensions, which could grow. The UK moved from targeted fiscal supports to a more general price cap on electricity, which, due to its cost (to government) is now set to end after this winter, with a search for new approaches. In the EU, following an acute focus on gas prices, attention is turning to the scale of unequal cost burdens and windfall profits in the European electricity market, precipitating urgent debate about reforms that could also align with the need to further accelerate the move away from fossil fuel generation.