It’s been four years since China cut sales of rare earth elements (REEs) to Japan during a naval standoff between the two powers.  Panic spread to markets and governments as people tried to figure out whether China had acquired a new and powerful source of economic and geopolitical leverage. Read more »

Jean Tirole was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences today “for his analysis of market power and regulation”. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that he’s written a lot about energy, climate change, and environmental issues. Here’s a quick selection of his relevant papers. Read more »

Oil prices are plunging. Which U.S. states will benefit most – and which are most at risk? A study that we published about a year ago looked at exactly this question. The research, by Mine Yucel of the Dallas Fed and Stephen Brown of UNLV, ranked Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Tennessee as the biggest potential winners, and Wyoming, Oklahoma, and North Dakota as those with the most to lose. Read more »

It’s been two years since I turned in the manuscript for The Power Surge, my book about the changes sweeping American energy and their consequences for the world that was published last May. The book is out in paperback today, which strikes me as a great opportunity to take stock of what’s changed, both in the world and in my thinking about it. Here are five things I’d tackle differently if I could write the book again. Read more »

Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli made news on Tuesday with his speech on climate change at the United Nations. My colleague and co-author Elizabeth Economy has an enlightening post on her blog, Asia Unbound, drilling down on the headlines. I’ve reposted it here. Read more »

The People’s Climate March, which drew a reported three hundred thousand people to the New York streets on Sunday, deserves much of the applause and attention it’s attracted. No one who attended the march can deny the enthusiasm of the crowd, or the fact that the gathering has helped keep climate change on the front page for a week.  And yet, throughout the day, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d stumbled into an anti-fracking march that also happened to be about climate change.  And I couldn’t escape the conclusion that this focus could end up undermining the very climate change goals that the march was ostensibly about achieving. Read more »

For the second time this year, Paul Krugman has written a column explaining that serious studies consistently conclude that slashing global carbon dioxide emissions doesn’t need to be expensive. Also for the second time, he gives much of the credit to falling costs for renewable energy, particularly solar power. He’s absolutely correct on the broader point – but dead wrong in explaining why the studies come to that conclusion. Read more »

What would allowing U.S. crude oil exports do to the global price of oil? Tom Friedman, in a column Sunday, reflects popular conventional wisdom when he says they’d do a lot: Read more »

Fossil fuel subsidies are an economic, environmental, and security scourge. Used mostly in developing countries and often defended as pro-poor, they are typically ineffective at combatting poverty, waste scarce government resources, and encourage overconsumption of energy. Read more »