Earlier today, the Department of Energy released a long-awaited (and long-delayed) study on the macroeconomic impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The study, prepared by the consultants NERA, is the most in depth look at the economics of LNG exports published to date. That means it’s long, and will take a while to digest. Here are a few quick observations and context. I’ll write another post later on differences between the NERA results and what I reported in my own LNG exports study earlier this year. Read more »

The annual United Nations (UN) climate talks are rarely a pretty sight. The typical script is fairly reliable. Negotiators typically arrive at each summit with mostly realistic goals. But diplomats and those who seek to influence them spend the first week or so ratcheting up demands and accusations, in part for leverage, but at least as much in order to make themselves look good and their adversaries appear villainous. Members of the media (if they’re paying attention) report that the talks appear set for disaster. Meanwhile, away from the spotlight, negotiators quietly hash through the substantive tasks at hand. Eventually, in the middle of the second week, higher level officials arrive. Occasionally, important differences prove impractical to resolve, and the summit collapses. Far more often, the parties cobble something modest together, apparently snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Read more »

The annual United Nations climate talks got underway in Doha, Qatar on Monday.

In a piece for the CFR website, I walk through the issues on the table, and offer some thoughts on U.S. strategy. The title of the piece – “A Transitional Climate Summit in Doha” – is a pretty good summary.  After three years of high tension and high stakes summits, Doha will almost certainly be more mellow, though no climate conference would be complete without a few fireworks toward the end. Read the whole piece for more. Read more »

I wrote on Wednesday that the big headlines predicting a massive U.S. oil boom rested in substantial part on an underlying assumption that OPEC countries would restrain production in order to keep crude prices from crashing. It turns out that I was beaten to the punch. Read more »

The International Energy Agency (IEA) made headlines around the world earlier this week when it published a major report predicting that the United States would pass Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017. It is a striking conclusion that reinforces much of what industry analysts have been writing for the past several months. Read more »

A massive cyberattack this summer on Saudi Aramco, Riyadh’s energy giant, left some 30,000-plus of the company’s computers lifeless, making a rather futuristic threat to the oil and gas industry front page news. U.S. Secretary of Defenese Leon Panetta called the attack “probably the most destructive…that the business sector has seen to date.” The Saudis weren’t the only targets. RasGas, a Qatari natural gas company, was also hit. Months later, investigators are still trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and more importantly, why it did, and what can stop it from happening again. Read more »

In a post earlier this week, I argued that people who want serious action on climate change will need to build bipartisan coalitions, which will require accepting oil and gas development. Most of the responses were encouraging, but one type of reaction was not. It came from proponents of oil and gas development, and went something like this: “Great post. But the United States can’t do anything about climate change because [it’s too expensive][renewable energy sucks][China won’t act][etc]”. Read more »

The past week has been huge for people who want to see the United States go big on climate change. First Hurricane Sandy vaulted climate change back into the public debate. Now the reelection of Barack Obama means that there will be someone in the White House who cares strongly about the issue. The combination creates an opportunity to press for climate action. Read more »

As the public debate over Hurricane Sandy turns in part from the immediate impacts of the storm to its possible links to climate change, a new theme is emerging: Sandy is not just part of a new normal – scientists actually predicted it well in advance. Read more »

The East Coast is slowly returning to normal life after Hurricane Sandy – and pundits, scientists, and journalists are quickly diving into a debate over what the storm says about climate change. I have nothing useful to add on that matter. But I do wanted to shed light on an important related question that has come up: is it even possible to change the course of climate change over the next fifty or so years? Read more »