Earth Track Blog

BP acknowledges that it lobbied for early release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi in 2007, in order to boost the chances of an oil deal it had going with Libya. Released on compassionate grounds because he was supposedly near death's door, the very same doctor who made that prouncement...

Following the general approach used for Kentucky, researchers from Downstream Strategies and the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy have canvassed detailed budget materials for both Tennessee and West Virginia to estimate the net budgetary effects of coal mining within the states in two new...

Thanks to Ron Steenblik for making me aware of a top 10 enemies list, recently developed by Tom Waterman at The Ethanol Monitor. Alas, neither Ron nor I made it. We'll just have to try harder I suppose. Robert Bryce, who has also been critical of the industry for some years, and has written a good...

Fresh off of a financial crisis that risked throwing the US into a depression, my hope was that lessons would be learned. Nothing dramatic, perhaps, but at least the basics on incentive structures in financial deals. Like when you let people bet only with somebody else's money, they are far less...

Ben Sills of BusinessWeek reports today that the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates global fossil fuel subsidies in 2008 at $557 billion. The figure is based on an interview the magazine did with Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency. More than half a trillion...

Fortune Magazine's Roger Parloff, with assistence from insurance specialist Christopher Kende, provides a good rundown on liability for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf. One important thing I took away from this review, though not explicitly mentioned in the article: even though accidents...

A good article by Philip Brasher on antibiotics in ethanol production ran in the Des Moines Register. He notes that Ethanol producers have long used antibiotics to control bacteria that can contaminate the fermentation process. Like the pervasive use of antibiotics in animal agriculture, this broad...

In describing a decision by Toshiba to invest $100 million in the US Enrichment Corporation, the Financial Times writes: The Japanese group said it would take a stake in New York-listed USEC, which has annual revenues of $2bn and supplies more than half of the US market with enriched uranium fuel...

John Rowe, Chairman and CEO of Exelon Corporation, gave a very interesting talk at Resources for the Future on May 12th. He touched on a variety of important topics, including nuclear economics, appropriate energy policy, and energy subsidies. Below are quotes I found important in his presentation...

This is the first of what will hopefully be a series of posts looking at specific aspects of The American Power Act (APA) proposed by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. This one deals with the nuclear “loan guarantee retention fee” (section 1102), as an item I’d flagged an needing additional...

A central argument for subsidy reform is that it "levels the playfield" for the many different ways that one can provide a specific good or service. With large subsidies, the main beneficiaries tend to be the ones with the best lobbying and political connections, not necessarily those with the best...

An article in The Wall Street Journal describes one of what will likely be many interesting gaps in how the US oversees offshore oil and gas drilling operations. While computer speeds may double roughly every 18 months, the legal rules for core aspects of the country's minerals extraction regimes...

Just last week, the Economist magazine noted in an editorial that: However you measure the full cost of a gallon of gas, pollution and all, Americans are nowhere close to paying it. Indeed, their whole energy industry—from subsidies for corn ethanol to limited liability for nuclear power—is a slick...

With billions of dollars on the line and public wrath at extremely high levels, is it any surprise that every group involved with the BP drilling site are blaming everybody but themselves? The benefits to the firms of deflecting responsibility and delaying payouts can be immense. The 1989 Exxon...

Google announced today that it has purchased two wind farms in North Dakota. Their description of the purchase begins this way: Smart capital includes not only these early-stage company investments, but also dedicated funding for utility-scale projects. To tackle this need, we’ve been looking at...

First, a disclaimer of sorts: as I've stated many times, I think the large scale credit support to private energy enterprises is a bad idea and not likely to end well. That said, I also think that the dynamics of how credit support is provided is an important issue for evaluation for many areas of...

Another important publication by the Global Subsidies Initiative exploring potential options for improved transparency on fossil fuel subsidies. The report was written by Tara Laan, who also did a great deal of analysis on Canadian biofuel subsidies last year. Zero defect manufacturing doesn't work...

Yes, I'm all in favor of world peace. And harmony. And justice too. I'm just not convinced we can have a big group hug and conclude the issue has been solved. I'm also in favor of making cleaner energy available to the world even if we have to sometimes subsidize energy access to the very poor. But...

Kudos to Sierra Club and Synapse Energy Economics for taking a look at coal subsidies. In a report released yesterday, the authors highlight the disparity between Administration goals to cut greenhouse gases and continued federal policies that subsidize coal. The paper is a great first step into an...

Corn and ethanol markets may make little sense in terms of rationality, but they do provide never-ending entertainment in seeing the new ways people can exploit regulatory interventions for fun and profit. Dried distillers' grains (DDGs) are a byproduct of US ethanol production increasingly used as...