Author: Tom

More Oil Price Forecasts

The history of long term energy forecasting is a rather mixed bag. Supply and demand forecasts have generally been half decent, in terms of percent error, but that’s primarily because GDP growth is steady, energy intensity is price-inelastic, and there’s a lot of momentum in energy consuming and producing capital. Energy price forecasts, on the other hand, have generally been terrible. Consider the Delphi panel forecasts conducted by the CEC:

California Energy Commission Delphi Forecasts

In 1988, John Sterman showed that energy forecasts, even those using sophisticated models, were well represented by a simple adaptive rule: Continue reading “More Oil Price Forecasts”

SRES – We've got a bigger problem now

Recently Pielke, Wigley and Green discussed the implications of autonomous energy efficiency improvements (AEEI) in IPCC scenarios, provoking many replies. Some found the hubbub around the issue surprising, because the assumptions concerned were well known, at least to modelers. I was among the surprised, but sometimes the obvious needs to be restated loud and clear. I believe that there are several bigger elephants in the room that deserve such treatment. AEEI is important, as are other hotly debated SRES choices like PPP vs. MEX, but at the end of the day, these are just parameter choices. In complex systems parameter uncertainty generally plays second fiddle to structural uncertainty. Integrated assessment models (IAMs) as a group frequently employ similar methods, e.g., dynamic general equilibrium, and leave crucial structural assumptions untested. I find it strange that the hottest debates surround biogeophysical models, which are actually much better grounded in physical principles, when socio-economic modeling is so uncertain.

Continue reading “SRES – We've got a bigger problem now”

Better Get a Bucket

Nature News and Climate Feedback report that cooling of sea surface temperatures ca. 1945 is an artifact of changes in measurement technology. ClimateAudit claims priority. Lucia comments.

Will this – like the satellite temperature trend – be another case of model-data discrepancies resolved in favor of the models?

Update: Prometheus wonders if this changes IPCC conclusions.

Business & Climate – What to Wish For?

One observation from my recent experience with climate policy in California is that businesses – even energy intensive ones – are uncertain how to engage in the public debate. Climate policy is a messy space with many competing options, and it’s hard to know what to wish for. With that in mind, here’s a quick survey of what various business groups are saying.

Continue reading “Business & Climate – What to Wish For?”

No Gas

Every year or two the “gas out” email arrives in my inbox. This year, it’s May 15th when “all internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices.” Wait – am I supposed to avoid gas stations, or protesting at gas stations? I’m amazed at the durability of this internet chain letter, which now claims a ten-year history: “In April 1997, there was a “gas out” conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.” A Monty Python tune from The Meaning of Life jumps to mind:

So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there’s bugger all down here on earth.

Continue reading “No Gas”

The Switch to Small Cars – Not So Fast

The NYT reports that a switch to efficient cars is underway, as evidenced by, among other things, an increase in market share for small cars from an eighth of the market at the height of SUV-mania to a fifth today, together with a sharp drop in large truck and SUV sales.

If sustained, such a shift would signal a very significant sensitivity of vehicle efficiency purchasing habits to fuel prices – perhaps much larger than the low short run price elasticity of gasoline demand. However, I think there is reason to interpret these recent events cautiously, lest they prove a little less astonishing in the long run. Continue reading “The Switch to Small Cars – Not So Fast”

God is my coauthor

DeSmogBlog documents scientists’ outrage at inclusion on Dennis Avery’s list of 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares. Amusingly, the scientists concerned, a few of whom are deceased, are listed as “Co-Authors”. I’m going to put this new “open coauthoring” concept to work – I’m already working on abstracts. First, I think I’ll lower my Erdős number – Paul, dude, you can be my second. Next, I think I’ll team up with Einstein and Bohr to finish up quantum gravity.

It's the crude price, stupid

The NYT reports that Hillary Clinton and John McCain have lined up to suspend federal excise taxes on fuel:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports.

…

Mrs. Clinton would replace that money with the new tax on oil company profits, an idea that has been kicking around Congress for several years but has not been enacted into law. Mr. McCain would divert tax revenue from other sources to make the highway trust fund whole.

On April 22, EIA data put WTI crude at $119/bbl, which is $2.83/gal before accounting for refinery losses. Spot gasoline was at $2.90 to $3.14 (depending on geography and type), which is about what you’d expect with total taxes near $0.50 and retail gasoline at $3.55/gal. With refinery yields typically at something like 85%, you’d actually expect spot gasoline to be at about $3.30, so other, more-expensive products (diesel, jet fuel, heating oil) or cheaper feedstocks must be making up the difference. The price breaks down roughly as follows:

Gasoline price breakdown
Continue reading “It's the crude price, stupid”

Life Expectancy and Equity

Today ScienceDaily brought the troubling news that, “There was a steady increase in mortality inequality across the US counties between 1983 and 1999, resulting from stagnation or increase in mortality among the worst-off segment of the population.” The full article is PLoS Medicine Vol. 5, No. 4, e66 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050066. ScienceDaily quotes the authors,

Ezzati said, “The finding that 4% of the male population and 19% of the female population experienced either decline or stagnation in mortality is a major public health concern.” Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and co-author of the study, added that “life expectancy decline is something that has traditionally been considered a sign that the health and social systems have failed, as has been the case in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe. The fact that is happening to a large number of Americans should be a sign that the U.S. health system needs serious rethinking.”

I question whether it’s just the health system that requires rethinking. Health is part of a complex system of income and wealth, education, and lifestyle choices:

Health in context

Continue reading “Life Expectancy and Equity”