This Week in Energy
New Publications in the OurEnergyLibrary
Global Energy Monitor, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, CREA
March 25, 2020
Wind Solar Alliance,
Grid Strategies, LLC
March 18, 2020
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
February 25, 2020
Find these new publications and others in the OurEnergyLibrary.
April Discussion
New Discussion
By Joel Levin
Executive Director, Plug In America
"Transportation accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions in the United States than any other sector and, within that, light-duty vehicles account for 59% of all transportation emissions . In order to reduce the effects of climate change, we must encourage more Americans to switch to plug-in vehicles.... The United States has been a leader in developing EV technology, but we are increasingly falling behind the rest of the world in EV adoption....

"… the federal government must adopt strong, supportive EV policy and extend the federal EV tax credit , which has now expired for consumers purchasing Tesla and GM vehicles. The lack of a tax credit for purchases from automakers that have led the way in electrification has hampered their sales and reduced the number of clean vehicles on America’s roads. We believe that the cap on tax credits should be raised from 200,000 vehicles per automaker to 600,000—at a minimum." Read more.
Please respond to the discussion questions by adding your comment to one of the linked comment threads below:
  • Question 1: What are the largest barriers to electric vehicle adoption in the United States?
  • Question 2: Which policies are most effective to encourage more Americans to switch to zero-emission vehicles?
  • Question 3: Should the federal government be doing more to incentivize electric vehicles?
Energy Headlines
The New York Times
Associated Press
CNBC
Ongoing Discussion
"...Though sparked by a drop in demand due to COVID-19, many say a price war has been a long time in the making as Russia is eager to address the growth of U.S. tight oil production. At current market prices, the majority of U.S. shale-oil producers simply aren’t profitable . While the U.S. shale industry is hedged enough for 2020 , most firms are just now starting to hedge for 2021. This means, in the event of a protracted trade war, U.S. producers face a loss of market share, significant cuts to production, layoffs, and significant pain for individual companies leading to the potential for consolidation in the industry...." Read more.
" Most Americans are energy consumers, not producers, and most of the American economy benefits from cheaper, not more expensive, transportation fuel. At the same time, the fact that oil prices are so cartelized that a dispute between a country with an economy smaller than Canada and another slightly larger than Turkey can utterly disrupt the global economy strongly suggests that we ought to use this crisis in the oil market to move past oil as our primary transportation fuel , to guarantee that today’s fuel costs for transportation become the future, stable norm—which means the fuel needs to be electricity, not petroleum." - Carl Pope , Former Executive Director, The Sierra Club
Question 3 : What are the main challenges that U.S. tight oil producers will face?
"In my opinion, the main challenge that U.S. tight energy producers face is that in view of climate trends, we really don’t want to squeeze out every stubborn drop from every oil formation . Unless we resign ourselves to far exceeding even the most modest carbon emission targets, we will need to leave some oil in the ground."
- Ed Dolan , Senior Fellow, Niskanen Center
Update from Congress

Statements & Requests
  • Fri, April 3 - Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) issued a statement in support of the U.S. Department of Energy's request for proposals to allow American companies to temporarily store up to 30 million barrels of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  • Thurs, April 2 - Sen. Murkowski requested U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ensure that federal loans are made available to domestic oil and gas companies being affected by both reduced global demand and oversupply from the Saudi Arabia-Russia price war.

Hearings
  • The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a paper hearing on "Department of Energy Budget Posture" on April 9, 2020, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. All statements, questions, and responses will be available to the public through the committee website.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration , Preliminary Monthly Generator Report.
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