Texas Needs to Make Better Energy Choices
Just over a year ago, Texas suffered a crippling power crisis as three storms hammered the state. At the same time, many small towns teamed up with crypto miners to generate cash—that’s not going the way they had hoped.
Crypto mining needs a lot of electricity, and Texas’ grid is old and unstable. Today, these same towns are dealing with the unintended consequences of their agreement with the miners, spending millions of dollars to upgrade their power grids.
Energy security will be the top priority around the world thanks to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Europe relies heavily on imported Russian natural gas. The message from the war is clear: The West cannot rely on Russia for critical supplies like energy.
Hydrocarbons play a main role in the Russia-Ukraine war. Sales fund Russia’s war machine. And the gas pipelines into Europe became effective tools to blunt international sanctions against Russia’s incursions. That lesson will directly inform global energy policy for the next decade.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) would like to please stay home.
It listed a simple 10-point plan to cut oil consumption by 2.7 million barrels per day. They involve driving slower, driving less, using public transit, and just staying home. In a world fraught with COVID-19 fatigue, this could be a hard sell. By the same token, high fuel prices do a fine job convincing us to combine those errands into a single trip.