Energy Policy Initiative

Archives: Energy Policy Initiative Policy Papers

The Price-Induced Energy Trap

  • By John A. "Skip" Laitner, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy
October 21, 2011

Even though the U.S. economy grows at an anemic rate of perhaps 1.5 percent and 1.9 percent (or less) in this year and next, the world economy is likely to expand by well over 3 percent in that same two-year period. The world demand for oil is expected to increase, concurrently, by about 1.5 percent annually. The most recent projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA 2011a) suggest that – absent major disruptions – the growing demand for energy worldwide will continue to push oil prices up in a slow but steady movement.  Absent dramatic changes in U.S.

Programs:

STRONG America 2020

  • By
  • Lisa Margonelli,
  • New America Foundation
June 5, 2010

By 2020, the EIA projects that Americans will consume 15 million barrels of oil per day through transportation. Of that, we will produce only 6 million barrels domestically, with more than a third of those projected to come from drilling in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. Economically, oil acts as a sponge in the US economy, as rising gas prices soak up disposable income. On May 11, 2010, for example, Americans spent $1.1 billion on gasoline--$239 million more than on the same day a year before, when gas was 62 cents cheaper per gallon.

Programs:

Smart Grid: The Devil Is In the Details

  • By Gerald Richman, Special Advisor, Energy Policy Advisory Council
February 23, 2010

1) We Don't All Agree on What a “Smart Grid” is – or What it will Accomplish.

Rather than a physical entity, the “Smart Grid” is really a concept. The term refers to a host of digital technologies, in various stages of development, intended to enable real-time coordination along the Nation’s electric grid.

Programs:

South and Midwest Clean Power Authority

  • By
  • Lisa Margonelli,
  • New America Foundation
February 12, 2010

Brief:

To bring cheap low carbon power onto the grid quickly and stimulate the economies of industrial and agricultural states in the South and Midwest, the federal government should create a Clean Power Authority. The CPA would purchase electricity from industry, agriculture, and municipal waste facilities at a price cheaper than that transmitted by new coal-fired generators.

Programs:
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