I’ll say this for John McCain: He’s been aggressive in laying his energy policies on the table. Today, he calls for 45 new nuclear reactors in the U.S, and pledges $2 billion in federal funds to make clean coal a reality.
In general, I agree that new nuclear power plants are probably going to be necessary. […]

Fascinated by this story, linked on Drudge, in which Sioux City, S.D., voted 58-42 to permit a rezoning that would allow the first oil refinery to be built in the continental United States in 32 years.
At stake was billions of dollars in capital investment and thousands of high-paying jobs. From the beginning, Hyperion executives said […]

Ruh-roh:
Dow Chemical Co. will raise its prices by up to 20 percent almost immediately to offset the soaring cost of energy, and the CEO of the chemical giant lashed out at Washington on Wednesday for failing to develop a sound energy policy.
Dow supplies a broad swath of industries, from agriculture to health care, and any […]

As per yesterday’s note about the increasing importance of buying local, here comes a piece from Charlie Blaine on MSN Money, noting that if Goldman Sachs’ predictions are correct and oil reached $200 per barrel within a few years - that’s $7.52 per gallon at your local pump.
As Atrios notes, it may take prices that high to […]

I got all the way through this story this morning on the threatened trucking strike without a real idea of what, exactly, the truckers want - besides lower prices for diesel fuel.
At one point there’s a suggestion that Gov. Rendell ought to elminate Pennsylvania’s diesel fuel tax of 38.1 cents per gallon; and indeed, in […]

Hmm. And so here we have PPL crying poverty, claiming that if Pennsylvania is so foolish as to reinstitute some form of rate cap - which would prevent the utility from jacking up prices by 34.5 percent at the end of 2009 - it could even go bankrupt.
Heavens!
But, let’s parse this hysteria a little bit.
PPL, […]

Wow. Shell Oil CEO sends a note to all Shell employees - and obviously intended for wider distribution, as well - in effect conceding that peak oil is well on the way, and suggesting the coming decades are going to be very interesting indeed:
Regardless of which route we choose, the world’s current predicament limits our […]

Meanwhile, back at the Mideastern ranch:
At a minimum, the gateway opens for Russia’s deeper involvement in Iran’s ambitious program for civil nuclear energy. But nuclear energy is not the be-all and end-all of Russo-Iranian cooperation. Iran is a crucially important interlocutor for Russia in the field of energy. The Bushehr settlement is a necessary prerequisite […]

Signposts on the way down:
For perhaps as many as 27 million American adults, keeping warm this winter will mean borrowing money and 20 million will use credit cards to be able to afford their heating bills, according to a CreditCards.com poll.
Nearly 12 percent of Americans say they will need to borrow money to pay winter […]

High oil prices got you down? Think there ought to be more of a push for renewable fuels? Big oil and the utilities want you to stop being so damned silly:
The legislation still contains a landmark increase in fuel-economy standards for vehicles and a huge boost for alternative fuels. But a $13 billion tax increase […]

But let’s take this a step further, because I see both Matt Yglesias and Atrios are sort of scratching their heads over the “Kunstleresque” vision of suburbia in meltdown over the price of oil. Writes Yglesias:
Hybrid cars are already available on the market, are much more fuel efficient than conventional autos, and with the “hybrid […]

On what is shaping up to be a singularly lousy day for a variety of reasons, the New Era plops onto my desk this afternoon and the lead story staring up at me:
Future shock: With big rate hike looming,  PPL unveils plan designed to help consumers ease the pain.
“Big rate hike” as in state-mandated caps […]

The news of the fires was mesmerizing most of the week, I wrote about it for this week’s print edition, but there were other things, at first glance not related but, the longer you looked, the more you realized they were of a piece.

Last week’s bit on ethanol was eye-opening. I sort of went into it with the idea this was entirely a not-in-my-backyard issue - and it is that - but the more stuff you read questioning the legitimacy of ethanol as a viable alternative, the more you begin to suspect that maybe this isn’t the great […]