Power Map

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and reducing methane emissions across the oil and natural gas supply chain is an important part of meeting global climate goals. This week, Fiji George and Arvind Ravikumar joined my colleague Ben Cahill to help us understand why this is so important and what needs to be done to speed up emissions reductions.Fiji George is Senior Director for Climate & Sustainability at Cheniere Energy, Inc., and Dr. Arvind Ravikumar is Research Associate Professor in the Petroleum Engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin and a fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. Further Reading from the CSIS Project on Engaging Global Gas Players on Methane Emissions: Methane Emissions and the Gas Ecosystem: Buyers, Sellers, and Banks Disclosure: Dr. Ravikumar’s research group at UT Austin is supported in part through funding provided by Cheniere. CSIS also receives general funding from Cheniere.

In the United States, states are often leaders in advancing climate and energy objectives. The state regulatory utility commissioners who oversee electricity and gas services can be especially influential in guiding the development of new, clean energy infrastructure. This week on Energy 360, Morgan Higman (Clean Resilient States Initiative, CSIS) spoke with commissioners from Arizona, Colorado, and Washington to understand their roles and learn their perspectives and agendas for climate and energy policies. Guests: Chairman Eric Blank, Colorado Public Utilities Commission Chairwoman Lea Márquez Peterson, Arizona Corporation Commission Commissioner Ann Rehndal, Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission Further Reading from the CSIS Clean Resilient States Initiative: StateStrategies for Expanding Economic Opportunity in Clean Energy   

This week, the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program looks at some of the energy implications from growing tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Joseph Majkut, Nikos Tsafos, and Ben Cahill look at recent developments to understand what a possible invasion of Russia into the Ukraine would mean for EU energy security and international energy markets. They also discuss the policy and market levers that the United States and the EU have available to counter any interruptions to the energy supply or to punish potential actions by Russia. For more, please see recent CSIS analysis:Ben Cahill: Oil Market Cannot Afford to Lose Russian Supplieshttps://www.csis.org/analysis/oil-market-cannot-afford-lose-russian-suppliesNikos Tsafos: Can European Energy Cope with a Conflict in Ukraine?https://www.csis.org/analysis/can-european-energy-cope-conflict-ukraineNikos Tsafos: To Deter Russia, Threaten its Role in the Green Economyhttps://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/opinion/to-deter-russia-threaten-its-role-in-the-green-economy/CSIS: Press Briefing: The Russian Threat to Ukrainehttps://www.csis.org/events/press-briefing-russian-threat-ukraineCSIS: Crisis Crossroads: Ukrainehttps://www.csis.org/programs/crisis-crossroads-ukraine

This week on Energy 360, Dr. Joshua Rhodes, an energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, joins Morgan Higman (CSIS Energy) to look back at the February 2021 electric power crisis in Texas. Last year, a major winter storm caused devastating power outages across Texas. Joshua and Morgan look at some of the underlying reasons that Texas was not able to manage the electric grid during that storm, what preventative and resilience measures or changes to the grid have been put into place since the storm, and whether these would be enough to prevent something similar from happening again.

This week, John Larsen (Rhodium Group) joins Joseph Majkut (CSIS) to look at how the United States could create a policy action plan to meet the Biden administration’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent by 2030. John and his colleagues provided an in-depth look at the federal and state level steps needed to meet this target in their report, Pathways to Paris: A Policy Assessment of the 2030 US Climate Target.  https://rhg.com/research/us-climate-policy-2030

This week, Sarah Ladislaw (RMI) and Liam Denning (Bloomberg) join Nikos Tsafos (CSIS) to look back at what happened in energy and climate over the last year. 2021 saw the world’s climate leaders focused on the November U.N. Climate meetings in Glasgow and the Biden Administration come in with a sweeping new agenda. Where was real progress made or lost?  How could it impact energy and climate policy developments as we move into 2022? (Recorded on December 14, 2021). 

This week, Artem Abramov (Rystad Energy) and Casey Merriman (Energy Intelligence) join Ben Cahill (CSIS) for a discussion about what’s next for U.S. shale production.  They look at recent production trends and investor pressure in U.S. oil and gas sector and what that might indicate for the coming year. They also consider possible impacts from recent policy actions coming from the Biden administration, especially those concerning drilling on public lands. 

This week, David Terry, Executive Director of the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) joins Morgan Higman (Clean Resilient States Project, CSIS) to look at how states are working together and with the federal government to craft workable and innovative solutions to implement energy policies. They cover the recent fall NASEO meeting and issues important to the agenda, including transportation, grid resiliency, energy efficiency, equity, and workforce development. They also discuss how states engaged with the international agendas at the recent COP meeting in Glasgow. For more, please read The Role of U.S. States in Addressing Climate Action.

This week, Gaylor Montmasson-Clair with Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) and Srestha Banerjee with iForest join Sandeep Pai (CSIS) to explore the opportunities and challenges for coal dependent regions in India and South Africa to create just and sustainable pathways to diversify their economies.For more, read Understanding Just Transitions in Coal Dependent Communities: Case Studies from Mpumalanga, South Africa, and Jharkhand, India 

This week, Chandra Bhushan with iFOREST and Jesse Burton with the University of Cape Town join Sandeep Pai (CSIS) to look at how key themes of just transitions are important in the context of CoP26 meetings. They then discuss the key priorities on the ground for a just transition away from coal in the major economies of South Africa and India. For more, read Understanding Just Transitions in Coal Dependent Communities: Case Studies from Mpumalanga, South Africa, and Jharkhand, India