Everyone seems to agree that renewing the current federal renewable energy tax credits is a good idea. So why isn’t it happening? My colleague Mike Coleman in this morning’s Journal: Virtually every member of Congress claims to support extending tax credits to the fledgling wind and solar industries. But despite a half-dozen chances and a …
Matt Wald has a story in this morning’s New York Times that illustrates what increasingly seems like the core issue associated with the energy transformation now underway. Wald writes about a rapid rise in demand for Amtrak train tickets, which is turning out to be more cost-effective ways to get around. Market forces may have …
The Economist, in this week’s edition, has a remarkably optimistic take on the global energy picture: Wind power is taking on natural gas, which has risen in price in sympathy with oil. Wind is closing in on the price of coal, as well. Solar energy is a few years behind, but the most modern systems …
We’ve been trying at the newspaper to measure and explain the changes afoot as the price of energy soars. My colleague Lloyd Jojola had a great piece this morning looking at bus ridership, which has exploded: One commuter route has seen passenger loads more than double in the past couple months. ABQ Ride boardings surpassed …
Check out energy celebrity Al Zelicoff’s latest energy-saving tip. But for the real action, you must watch Al and Troy’s latest energy tips and piano bar video.
I’ve been picking up and putting down Daniel Yergin’s The Prize for the last few months. It’s both a delight and infuriating, for the same reason. Yergin clearly loves what he’s writing about, so he writes about it a lot. I keep wishing he’d get on with things, but his side trips are not without …
Jad Mouawad reports in the New York Times this morning that Saudi Arabia is planning to bump up its oil production half a million barrels a day in an attempt to do something that doesn’t entirely make intuitive sense, but then I am not an economist: While they are reaping record profits, the Saudis are …
I spent some time yesterday on a story that encapsulates a lot of energy issues here in New Mexico. Southeastern New Mexico is oil patch country, sitting atop the Permian Basin. Oil production there has long been in decline, but we’re seeing a bit of a boomlet there. $135 a barrel oil will do that. …
The most significant story in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal was hidden away, the sort of story that doesn’t get a lot of attention because it is about something that didn’t happen: It’s been nearly a year since Tecton Energy began its natural gas drilling in the West Mesa. So far, no luck. “(Tecton) believes there …