In a post on his blog and then again on the Huffington Post, Joe Romm challenged me to a wager on oil prices, claiming prescience concerning the price rise in the past decade compared to my 1996 forecast of low prices for two decades. He seems to be implying that that I have refused to wager him, having closed the webpage to any further comments.
I find myself taken aback, as my experience with the blogosphere is somewhat limited. My experience is primarily as an academic, writing articles for refereed journals and books, as well as working papers, with an intention to make them carefully sourced and referenced. A blog can consist of nothing more than a rant, and the comments appended to them often worse (and usually anonymous). I will not however yield to the temptation to follow suit (even if our illustrious moderator would permit it, which he won’t).…
Continue ReadingIn August 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its fourth Early Site Permit for two new units at Southern Nuclear’s Vogtle site and its first for the Westinghouse AP1000 pressurized water reactor design. The two new units planned for Vogtle also became the reference plant for the AP1000 under NuStart in June 2009. This means Vogtle Units 3 and 4 will be the first licensed installations of the new AP1000 reactor design.
On February 16, President Obama announced that the DOE has offered Plant Vogtle terms for a loan guarantee that could provide up to 80% of the project estimated cost of $14.5 billion with the Southern Nuclear only paying a credit subsidy fee.
That’s a lot of commitment from taxpayers–$11.6 billion worth. Perhaps rapidly rising construction costs of new nuclear plants is partly why the owners want such large protection up front.…
Continue Reading“Key senators are weighing a request from Big Oil to levy a carbon fee on the industry rather than wrap it into a sweeping cap-and-trade system that covers most of the U.S. economy.
If accepted, the approach — supported by ConocoPhillips, BP America and Exxon Mobil Corp. — could rearrange the politics of the Senate climate debate and potentially open up votes that may not be there otherwise.”
– Darren Samuelsohn, “Senate Trio Hopes to Hit Pay Dirt with Carbon Fee on Transportation Fuels,” Environment & Energy Daily, March 3, 2010, (subs. required)
History matters. And the record suggests that small, wedge taxes are a dangerous thing.
Consider one of the most interesting examples of political capitalism in the history of the U.S. oil and gas industry. The story concerns the first state motor fuel tax, passed in Oregon in 1919 at, you guessed it, $0.01 per gallon.…
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