Tol Talks Tax

Stumbled upon while searching for a reference: Richard Tol Changes Tune, Talks Carbon Tax. From what I’ve read, Tol is too much of a nonconformist to club with the professional skeptics, and has probably always preferred a Hotelling-style carbon price trajectory, so I’m not convinced that this is really a change, but it’s intriguing.

Endogenous Energy Technology

I just created an annotated list of links on learning/experience curves, deliberate R&D, and other forms of endogenous energy technology, including a few models and empirical estimates. See del.icio.us/tomfid for details. Comments with more references will be greatly appreciated!

Backing Off on Ethanol

ST. PAUL (Reuters) –

U.S. Republicans called on Monday for an end to a controversial requirement that gasoline contain a set amount of ethanol, a policy backed by the Bush administration that critics say has helped drive up world food prices.

In their 2008 platform detailing policy positions, Republicans said markets — not government — should determine how much ethanol is blended into gasoline, and pushed for development of a cellulosic version, which could be made from grasses rather than corn.

It will be interesting to see what this implies for California’s LCFS design.

Update

Corn belt Republicans are not pleased.

Contrast the new platform with the situation in 2005.

McCain seems to have done a double-flip-flop, reversing his 2006 reversal of his 2000 campaign position: Continue reading “Backing Off on Ethanol”

Google News, Trends, Insight

I’ve found trends on Google news interesting for some time. For example, did net news predict a housing bubble?

Google news housing bubble trendline

As online sources of such social data get richer, and control and normalization issues are solved or at least made transparent, they could become a useful input to behavioral models. Already, I find them to be a useful reality check, for seeing how long it takes for events to show up on popular radar, and whether things that seem big are really big in the public mind.

Continue reading “Google News, Trends, Insight”

Drilling in America

I don’t usually have TV, but I’m in a hotel tonight. I just saw a McCain ad that would be funny if it weren’t serious. It starts with some blather about high gas prices, and a picture of an old pump (designed to trigger nostalgia for 25 cents a gallon?). It goes on to imply that domestic drilling is the oil security answer. Then it makes the really amazing assertion (“you know who’s to blame”) that the only thing standing in the way of domestic drilling is … Obama. Wow … I had no idea that one senator could single-handedly wield such power.

Continue reading “Drilling in America”