Category Archives: Environment

“What’s in Store for 2010”

By Bruce Krasting, a former foreign exchange and derivatives trader and hedge fund manager. Mohammad said, “One cannot foretell the future”. I think he was on to something. What looks predictable rarely happens. There are always surprises. I have been tripped up so many times. The following are not predictions of things that will happen. […]

Soros to Put $1 Billion in Clean Energy

The famed hedge fund investor George Soros has decided to make a serious push into clean energy, not only investing in projects but also forming an organization to weigh in on policy issues. From Bloomberg: Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the “political problem” of climate change, said he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy […]

Saudis Want Aid if World Kicks the Oil Habit

You cannot make this stuff up. The Saudis are lobbying for foreign aid in anticipation of declining oil revenues. Hat tip reader Michael: Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign….demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels. […]

China Leading World in Green Energy

This idea of China being ahead of the game in anything environment protection related probably strikes readers as ironic, given reports of extensive industrial pollution, such as air pollution on a scale that is changing weather patterns, large scale lead poisoning, and cadmium in the soil. As Forbes commented recently, “China: Where Poisoning People Is […]

Existing Cap and Trade Regime for Power Plant Emissions "Coming Undone"

John Dizard in today’s Financial Times highlights a news-worthy development that has somehow gone largely under the radar, namely, that the one reasonably well functioning US cap and trade regime has come under a legal cloud, not only to detriment of the market, but also to pollution emissions. The legal beef is that the EPA […]

China Out to Dominate in Electric Cars (and Why Not GM)

A New York Times article tonight reports that China intends to become a world leader in electric and hybrid cars: Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and […]

Is Cap and Trade Dead on Arrival?

At some point in 2009, the government may get past managing the crisis du jour and turn to those nasty, seemingly intractable problems we nevertheless have to address. such as greenhouse gas emissions. One idea that had been bandied about is the idea of cap and trade, which would allow big bad carbon emitters to […]

Will Gulf States Beat the US in the Green Energy Push?

The oil-rich countries of the Middle East have some advantages in pursuing the “green” energy market. First, they have pools of investment capital they can turn to this purpose. Possibly more important than access to money is that the funding sources may be willing to take a longer term horizon and lower returns than US […]

Big Investors Call for Action on Climate Change

The idea that reducing carbon emissions is bad for investors is in at least in part an urban legend. In an earlier post, we noted: In 1997, British Petroleum decided to lower its carbon emissions below the 1990 level by 2010. It achieved the goal in 3 years rather than 13 at a cost of […]

Policy Object Lesson: Australia’s Water Woes

We haven’t written much about the environment since the credit markets got to be so much fun, but in the early days of the blog we did give it more attention than we do now, so this post isn’t as off topic as it might seem. With all the tooth-gnashing about oil, food, and greenhouse […]

Alan Blinder: "Cash for Clunkers"

Alan Blinder in today’s New York Times, argues for an ostensible stimulus package (hey, since more stimulus packages are probably in the offing, better register your preferences early) that will help the environment. But what I like about it is that it would cost so little that it barely rates in the “let’s goose the […]

Are You Sure the Saudis Can’t Pump More Oil?

There has been ample speculation on whether the Saudis are truly close to tapped out as far as current oil production is concerned. The overwhelming majority believes that declining production is due to falling yields from their biggest oilfield, Gwahar, which has not been fully compensated for by increased output from other fields. A minority […]

Another Food Supply Worry: Peak Phosphorus?

Some optimists on the agriculture front, such as Nobel prize winning economist Gary Becker, have argued that increasing the productivity of farming would solve the problem of skyrocketing grain and food commodity prices. Only roughly 30% of crop-raising is done according to advanced techniques; if much of the rest of the land under cultivation was […]

Russia’s President Deems Environmental Problems a Security Threat

PhysOrg reports that Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that pollution could make certain parts of the country uninhabitable, possibly as soon as a decade from now. As much as China’s horrific pollution gets occasional attention in the West, Russia’s environmental woes win less scrutiny. Yet a seven-year study published in 2006 found that three of […]

California Water Rules Curtailing New Development

Now one might ask why there is anyone trying to move development forward in California, given the impressive downward price trajectory of real estate over the last year. We’ll take as a given that such a big state can have pocket of opportunity even in a bad market. But this article highlights an issue that […]