Category: Opinion

October 14 2019

Bullard: How a Battery Can Lead a Quiet Revolution

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences concluded its announcement of this year’s chemistry prize rather poetically: “Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized our lives since they first entered the market in 1991,” the academy said.

September 26 2019

Liebreich: Climate Lawsuits – An Existential Risk to Fossil Fuel Firms?

The big question is whether climate lawsuits represent an irritant to fossil fuel companies, a meaningful drag on their business, or an existential threat.

September 13 2019

Bullard: T. Boone Pickens Saw How Fast Energy Markets Could Change

T. Boone Pickens, the legendary American oil entrepreneur who died this week at 91, was known for his aggressive corporate plays in the 1980s and the oil and gas investing strategies that earned (and sometimes lost) him billions since the 1990s. He also had a vision for America’s energy future. His 2008 Pickens Plan thoughtfully delineated which resources needed to flow, and where, to make the U.S. energy-independent.

September 2 2019

Bullard: Big Energy Companies Describe Coal’s Last Stand

Total primary energy derived from coal (power and non–power) is set to expand at a compound rate slower than that of global population growth, according to BHP's latest outlook.

August 20 2019

Bullard: Touch-Screens in Cars Don’t Make Us Safer – Yet

Large, interactive touch-screens are becoming increasingly prevalent in passenger cars; in the case of Tesla, they’re the only control interface. They’re lovely to look at, but as the Navy’s experience suggests, they might be more confusing than physical controls.

August 1 2019

Zindler: Time Running Short for Trump’s Anti-Climate Agenda

For those losing sleep during this stifling summer over the very real prospect of human extinction, here’s a sliver of good news: Despite numerous attempts, President Donald Trump has laid only a tiny glove on the U.S. low-carbon power and transportation industries thus far.

July 29 2019

Bullard: How Far Will Insurers Go to Get Away From Coal?

Two of the world’s largest insurance companies plan to distance themselves from coal-fired power. Just how much is in the details.

July 3 2019

Liebreich: We Need To Talk About Nuclear Power

Michael Liebreich Senior Contributor BloombergNEF We need to talk about nuclear. And I mean really talk, in a truth-and-reconciliation, moving-forward kind of way, not a let’s-all-shout-slogans-at-each-other, my-tribe-versus-your-tribe kind of way. Serious people are finally talking about decarbonizing national economies by mid-century, but such talk must be accompanied by credible plans – and no plan can […]

July 2 2019

Bullard: Climate Change Puts Insurers to the Test

As the Bank of England tests the industry’s exposure to the effects of global warming and cybersecurity, it helps to treat these threats with the same measure of real urgency.

May 22 2019

McCrone: Marry Institutional Cash to Developing World Green Power

Developing countries have been identifying wind and solar as a ticket to economic opportunity – ever since the levelized costs of generation from these green sources fell close to, or below, those of the cheapest fossil fuel alternatives.