Articles by Joseph Romm

Review of climate change impact economics

Paul Krugman has a blog post about one of my favorite economists, Marty Weitzman. He has the central point right, which is that “on any sort of expected-welfare calculation, the small probability of catastrophe dominates the expected loss.” But Krugman’s general lack of understanding of global warming — and his willingness to believe anything Bjørn […]

Grape-Nuts releases global warming ad

I have no idea what this ad means. But I saw it in Newsweek and had to scan it onto the blog:

The offshore drilling hoax, part 2

In part 1 we saw that lifting the moratorium on coastal drilling can't possibly reduce gasoline prices. After all, two years ago, we opened most of the Gulf of Mexico -- with its estimated 41 billion barrels of oil -- and oil prices then doubled. The remaining prohibited coastal areas have only 18 billion barrels, of which 10 billion is off of California and likely to be blocked by the state. Another four of the 18 billion is in the Eastern Gulf off of Florida, which most Republican bills do not fully open for drilling since that would piss of Sen. Martinez.

Tom Cole, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, sent out an email (reprinted below) titled "Democrats Want You To Pay High Gas Prices." The email quotes a conservative publication claiming, "Given that lower gasoline prices would defeat the purpose of their entire environmental program, Democrats are in a very awkward position on the energy issue."

That is among the most laughable things I've read. It is conservatives who want high gas prices because energy companies are among their biggest donors, and high prices mean bigger profits. That's why Republicans have consistently opposed serious efforts on energy efficiency, fuel economy standards, conservation, and alternative for over a quarter of a century. That's why former maverick and now card-carrying hard-core conservative John McCain flip-flopped on this position.

Deep Throat said, "Follow the money." Duh!

Solar thermal expected to double every 16 months for the next five years

Solar baseload, concentrated solar thermal electric (with a few hours of storage), is a core climate solution. Earth Policy Institute has a useful update with lots of data,"Solar Thermal Power Coming to a Boil" (reprinted below). Key factoid:

With concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) capacity expected to double every 16 months over the next five years, worldwide installed CSP capacity will reach 6,400 megawatts in 2012-14 times the current capacity.

You can find the existing large solar baseload plants and the 50 or so currently proposed solar baseload plants here.

EPI has an astonishing goal of "cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020," with a goal of 200,000 MW of solar baseload worldwide. I think the solar baseload goal is doable, but the carbon goal makes me a techno-pessimist -- heck, it makes Al Gore a techno-pessimist. Here is the update by Jonathan G. Dorn:

Note: The rest of this post is the EPI article.