The Congressional Budget Office is out with another fine infographic, this time on energy security. The entire infographic is too big to post here, but here’s how Andrew Stocking and Maureen Costantino portray America’s energy sources and uses: One of the most notable features is the absence of any link from natural gas to transportation [...]
Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category
Energy Security, the Infographic
Posted in Data, Energy, tagged Energy, Infographic, Natural Gas, Oil on May 11, 2012 | 12 Comments »
The Natural Gas Glut is Reshaping Electricity Markets
Posted in Energy, Environment, tagged Coal, Energy, Environment, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind on January 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Over at Bloomberg, Julie Johnsson and Mark Chediak document how low natural gas prices are reshaping electricity markets. Wind, nuclear, and coal all look expensive compared to natural gas generation: With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), has shelved [...]
Oil and Natural Gas Prices Move Even Further Apart
Posted in Energy, Environment, Microeconomics, tagged Energy, Natural Gas, Oil on January 9, 2012 | 3 Comments »
In 2010, I wrote a series of posts documenting how oil and natural prices had decoupled from each other (see here and here). For many years, oil prices (as measured in $ per barrel) were typically 6 to 12 times natural gas prices (as measured in $ per MMBtu). That ratio blew out to around [...]
How Do Consumers Spend Engine Efficiency Advances? On Bigger, Faster Cars
Posted in Energy, Microeconomics, tagged Auto, Energy, Gasoline, Incentives, Offsetting Behavior on January 5, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Auto companies have made great strides in improving engine efficiency in recent decades. But those improvements haven’t done much to improve the fuel economy of America’s passenger car fleet. Instead, consumers have “spent” most of those efficiency improvements on bigger, faster cars. MIT economist Christopher Knittel has carefully quantified these tradeoffs in a recent paper in the American Economic [...]
What Should We Do With Higher Gas Tax Revenues?
Posted in Budget, Energy, Environment, tagged Budget, Gasoline, Infrastructure, Oil, Taxes on November 1, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Most of the economics bloggers I know favor higher gasoline taxes. Not immediately, of course, given our economic weakness. But eventually because of environmental and national security concerns. As noted yesterday, Tim Kane of the Kauffman Foundation does a quarterly survey of economics bloggers. This time around, Tim included a question from me about the [...]
The U.S. Economy is Weak, Uncertain, and Fragile
Posted in Economy, Energy, tagged Economy, Macroeconomics on October 31, 2011 | 5 Comments »
At least according to the latest Kauffman survey of economics bloggers by Tim Kane. Here’s the word cloud of responses when the bloggers (including me) were asked for up to five adjectives to describe the U.S. economy in Q4 2011: Comparing this to the last survey in July, the good news is that “vulnerable” has gotten smaller. The [...]
Is Our Luck Running Out on Oil Supplies?
Posted in Economy, Energy, Macroeconomics, tagged Energy, Macroeconomics, Oil on October 23, 2011 | 4 Comments »
In an excellent new paper, Jim Hamilton asks whether the “phenomenal increase in global crude oil production over the last century and a half” reflects technological progress or good fortune in finding new reserves. The two aren’t completely distinct, of course. Better technology helps find more resources. But the heart of the question remains: have we been [...]
Taxes and Energy Policy
Posted in Budget, Energy, Environment, Politics, tagged Energy, Environment, Politics, Taxes on September 29, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Last week I had the opportunity to testify before two Ways and Means subcommittees–Select Revenue Measures and Oversight–about the way our tax system is used as a tool of energy policy. Here are my opening remarks. You can find my full testimony here. As you know, our tax system is desperately in need of reform. It’s needlessly complex, economically [...]
Congestion Pricing Saves Time and Money
Posted in Budget, Energy, Environment, Microeconomics, tagged CBO, Infrastructure, Pricing, Taxes, Transportation on May 18, 2011 | 4 Comments »
The Highway Trust Fund will soon be broke. Gasoline tax revenues haven’t kept up with spending, and it’s likely that demands for new highway infrastructure will grow in the future. Joseph Kile, head of the microeconomics studies division at the Congressional Budget Office, discussed various policy options to deal with this funding gap in his testimony [...]
Why are WTI and Brent Oil Prices Out of Whack?
Posted in Energy, tagged Oil on February 21, 2011 | 5 Comments »
As regular readers may recall, I am intrigued when prices deviate from normal relationships (see, e.g., previous posts on oil vs. natural gas prices and the pricing of Citigroup securities). Over the past couple of months, a new anomaly has emerged: crude oil quoted at Brent has become much more expensive than WTI, the usual [...]
Most Requested
Twitter
Get Updates by Email
Get Updates by RSS
Share or Bookmark
-
Recent Posts
- The World’s Most Traveled Bird?
- Is the United States the Best Place for Women?
- Is the Reliability of Public Opinion Surveys Declining?
- Fixing Medicare’s Double-Counting Problem
- Energy Security, the Infographic
- The Fight over Medicare Double Counting
- Why Free is a Bad Price, American Airlines Edition
- Jobs Report – The Soft Side of Mediocre
- Investing in Memories, Ocelot Edition
- Advanced Game Theory, Golden Balls Edition
- Entitlement Spending in One Picture
- Talking Tax Reform on the PBS Newshour
- The Federal Budget in One Picture
- Should We Blame TurboTax for Tax Code Complexity?
- How Big Are Tax Preferences?
30-Second Economics
Tags
Categories
Archives
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
Translate this blog into
