April 16th, 2013

Market Monitoring in the US Energy Market by Frank Wolak /FSR Monthly Interview

During a visit to Toulouse, France to present at “The Economics of Energy Markets” conference at the Toulouse School of Economics, PESD Director Frank Wolak was interviewed by Professor Jean-Michel Glachant of the Florence School Regulation about his work monitoring wholesale electricity markets.
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March 27th, 2013

U.S. shale gas prompts PRB coal producers to look to Asia

In advance of the 2013 Pacific Energy Summit, which will take place April 2-4 in Vancouver, Canada, PESD Associate Director Mark Thurber spoke with the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) about how the U.S. shale gas revolution has pushed coal producers in the U.S. Powder River Basin to look to Asia for a more robust market. Read more »

February 8th, 2013

Misguided “Oil Scarcity Ideology” Has Distorted US National Security Policy

The “peak oil” fallacy is not new; in fact it has long inflicted real harm in the geopolitical sphere despite persistent evidence of its falsity. Roger Stern, Research Assistant Professor of Energy at the University of Tulsa’s Collins College of Business, describes in a new PESD working paper how “oil scarcity ideology” influenced US national security policy in profoundly detrimental ways from 1909 to 1980. Read more »

January 28th, 2013

Do State-Owned Companies Have Inside Access to the World’s Oil and Gas Resources?

In a public lecture at the University of Tulsa, PESD associate director Mark Thurber critically considers the idea that national oil companies (NOCs) are elbowing aside private players, both on their home turf and abroad. Live feed at 5 pm PST on January 28, 2013.

• » Collins College of Business Energy Lecture Series (Video)

January 15th, 2013

Resource nationalism constrained by risk of developing new oil and gas deposits

A Reuters article cites work by PESD researchers Peter Nolan and Mark Thurber that explains why hydrocarbon-rich nations still need foreign companies to develop frontier resources like oil and gas from shales or in the deep offshore. While governments may successfully employ national oil companies in mature petroleum provinces, private companies are usually better at managing the high risks of frontier activities.

• » Reuters

December 18th, 2012

Export American natural gas? Not so fast, says Stanford economist

FSI's Frank Wolak warns of betting against the international spread of shale gas technologies by attempting to export domestic natural gas. Read more »

December 13th, 2012

Canada’s new investment rules for oil sands target foreign NOCs

PESD associate director Mark Thurber appeared on Canada’s Business News Network to discuss new government guidelines that promise greater scrutiny for future corporate takeovers in the oil sands by foreign national oil companies (NOCs). Thurber argued that Canada nevertheless remains comparatively attractive to NOCs working abroad relative to other oil provinces around the world. Read more »

PESD researchers assess natural gas in the U.S. and China

PESD researchers commented in the new issue of the Stanford Energy Journal on what the “shale gas revolution” means for both the U.S. and China. Mark Thurber argues that environmentalists in the U.S. should advocate for both fugitive methane regulations and increased use of gas. Jonathan Strahl and Joseph Chang foresee that economic and regulatory barriers may delay a repeat in China of the North American shale “miracle.” Read more »

October 19th, 2012

Wolak comments on California’s gasoline prices and the low carbon fuel standard

Frank Wolak was interviewed by reporter Anne Makovec of CBS5 of San Francisco about California’s high gasoline prices and how the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) is likely to impact the price of transportation fuels in California. Read more »

Wolak working on design and implementation of California’s cap-and-trade market

Frank Wolak was appointed to the Emissions Market Assessment Committee (EMAC) of the California Air Resources Board. Read more »

June 27th, 2012

The Climate Problem is a Coal Problem: PESD in Foreign Affairs

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Richard Morse argues that the climate problem is a coal problem, and that coal is not going away anytime soon. Any pragmatic strategy for confronting climate change therefore has to directly confront coal use in the developing world. Articulating new strategies for delivering emission reductions in the coal sector that don’t depend on a carbon price, Morse argues that coal may represent one of the largest and most cost effective opportunities for near-term emissions mitigation on a global scale.

• » Foreign Affairs Article: Cleaning Up Coal, From Climate Culprit to Solution