Todd Suomela's Library tagged energy →  View Popular, Search in Google

Energy consumption is critical to economic growth and quality of life. America’s energy system, however, is malfunctioning. The status quo is characterized by a tilted playing field, where energy choices are based on the visible costs that appear on utility bills and at gas pumps. This system masks the “external” costs arising from those energy choices, including shorter lives, higher health care expenses, a changing climate, and weakened national security. As a result, we pay unnecessarily high costs for energy. New “rules of the road” could level the energy playing field. Drawing from our work for The Hamilton Project, this paper offers four principles for reforming U.S. energy policies in order to increase Americans’ well-being.

energy environment cost economics

"The thread that unites the two books is an idea Marx called "the theory of compensation as regards the workpeople displaced by machinery" and Keynes criticized as the doctrine of self-adjustment. William Stanley Jevons described the doctrine as "a principle recognised in many parallel instances." Specifically, with regard to workers displaced by machinery, Jevons observed,
> The economy of labour effected by the introduction of new machinery, for the moment, throws labourers out of employment. But such is the increased demand for the cheapened products, that eventually the sphere of employment is greatly widened.
Jevons related the doctrine to the consumption of fuel, arguing, "Now the same principles apply, with even greater force and distinctness, to the use of such a general agent as coal. It is the very economy of its use which leads to its extensive consumption." This rebound effect has become known as the "Jevons Paradox" and is the central argument of Owen's book. "

economics efficiency rebound-effect environment energy production technology

conference archive video environment global-warming climate-change energy sustainability

conference archive video environment global-warming climate-change energy

"So, in other words, the tens billions we are going to spend on cybersecurity is mostly a waste of time/money. It's not only a waste of money, it's yet another example of how the US national security system is not producing real, tangible security for the people it expects to pay for it. The real solution to network vulnerability? Decentralized production. The tech is available. If the billions spent on cyber were spent on growing local production by building resilient communities, it wouldn't only make us safer it would likely ignite an economic Renaissance. "

government military cyberwar resilience electric-grid energy risk security vulnerability

Analysis of speculative Luna Ring project by a Japanese company that would put a solar power station on the moon.

futures futurism space moon lunar energy solar power environment

environment oil energy

"Peak oil poses a host of systemic risks to the global economy, and will increasingly disrupt supply chains in our globalized world. Contra to Yergin's view that Ricardian Comparative Advantage will produce abundant oil for export, oil-producing nations will continue to feed their domestic populations, leaving less for sale on world markets. OECD consumers will be increasingly priced out of oil markets as their disposable income adjusts downward to reflect energy costs. "

peak-oil energy environment oil business

"In the TED video below, Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation Energy Policy Initiative gives a fascinating 17-minute talk on the political psychology and the political economy of oil… and how the former distracts us from the latter."

oil energy psychology design politics

nuclear power energy accidents crisis country(Japan) environment risk

"Shell uses scenarios to explore the future. Our scenarios are not mechanical forecasts. They recognise that people hold beliefs and make choices that can lead down different paths. They reveal different possible futures that are plausible and challenge people’s assumptions."

futurism future scenario-planning scenario business energy environment

Relies too much on two sources but summarizes some serious concerns.

country(Japan) nuclear power energy environment tsunami earthquake crisis

magazine geology science environment news energy earth popular journalism earth-science

nuclear crisis disaster energy communication country(Japan)

journalism media nuclear energy crisis risk country(Japan)

journalism media nuclear energy crisis risk country(Japan)

"This is a collection of papers translated from the Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. According to the authors, official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments. "

nuclear power energy environment risk accidents disaster country(Russia)

"On 13 March, an essay entitled "Why I am not worried about Japan's nuclear reactors" appeared on a new and unknown blog. Within hours the post had gone viral – a testament to the power of hyperlinking and social media."

information diffusion rumor country(Japan) nuclear energy risk disaster crisis viral

"A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium. "

country(China) country(Japan) nuclear energy risk safety disaster crisis environment technology america fear

nuclear power energy environment country(Japan) disaster risk crisis