🚨How did the 2022 oil embargo and price cap affect Russian oil prices?🚨 A thread describing the findings of a new working paper by Lutz Kilian,
@rapsonenergy
and Burkhard Schipper. 👇
I'm excited to announce that today is my first day working
@DallasFed
. I'm still
@UCDavisEcon
as well. What a time to be working on
#Energy
and
#Inflation
. Just one question -- where can I get my official macroeconomist card?
Canada is set to pass rules requiring all new vehicles sold in the country to be zero-emissions by 2035. It's unwise and unlikely to "work" for several reasons. A 🧵on just a few of those 👇 via
@climate
How much are electric cars driven? In new work with
@fionaburlig
, Jim Bushnell & Catherine Wolfram, we estimate that eVMT in California is roughly 5,300 miles/yr. This is half the amount driven in gasoline cars. I’ll unpack the result and implications in this thread. 1/8
So I'm in the "waiting room"
@BNNBloomberg
to talk about EVs and gasoline prices, and who's on before me?
@elonmusk
! Does this mean I've officially made it?
Everyone (including non-econ enviros) should read this paper by
@CatieHausman
and Lucas Davis in
@JaereAere
. Fixed infrastructure is a large part of energy costs, and shifting to electric doesn't wipe out legacy costs. Important insights here re:
#EnergyTransition
Universities lose credibility and damage scientific progress when they impose ideological litmus tests on faculty job candidates. In my experience, this is largely forced by administrators, not faculty. Either way, it needs to stop.
At Berkeley, one faculty search rejected 75 percent of applicants based solely on their diversity statements. A September job post at Georgetown sought an economics professor "who aligns with the University's social justice objectives."
Capitalism is obviously the best economic system and the main reason why, by almost every important measure, humanity is better off today than at anytime in human history.
When I was untenured, I fired too many shots at top-5s. My best mid-career strategic pivot was to respect field journals more. They reach the target audience, allow for quick publication, and (unless you're wed to tenure at a top 10 school) are career-beneficial.
Honor to present at
@nberpubs
conference today: "New Directions in Transportation Economics". Lots of great speakers! The
#ElectricVehicles
session begins at 2:20pm ET/11:20am PT, featuring
@KnittelMIT
,
@jimstockmetrics
, Shan Li & Erich Muehlegger.
A brief 🧵 on high gasoline prices. A primary issue here is underinvestment in refinery capacity. Years of low profitability and a highly uncertain regulatory environment for owners of refineries in the future (ESG + climate policy) have reduced investment. 1/6
4/ Oil is the most important Canadian export. While it's possible to have an all-EV fleet and still sell oil to the rest of the world (see Norway), I'm quite sure Canadians haven't grappled with the inflation and living standard implications of moving away from oil.
@JosephMajkut
Owners of fossil energy will sell at any price higher than the marginal cost of extrication. As clean energy proliferates, the cost of its competition declines. This is why we need a price on carbon, and not just green subsidies.
A 10% increase in road capacity leads to 10% more driving. Multiple papers have found this, but for some reason it always surprises me. That's why i like these papers so much!
Did a quick appearance on
@fox40
today to discuss volatility in oil and gasoline prices, and whether the
@POTUS
efforts to reduce prices will work.
@UCDavisEcon
@SamHarrisOrg
“When we clean up after ourselves, we have nothing to blame. When we begin to live our lives in that way, cleaning up after ourselves, what is left is further vision and further openness, which leads to cleaning up the rest of the world.”
— Chögyam Trungpa
Quick summary of my new
@nberpubs
WP with
@JimArchsmith
and Erich Muehlegger on future
#ElectricVehicle
demand in the US.
TL/DR: massive geographic differences, gov’t subsidies have a small effect relative to non-$ factors, forecasting is highly uncertain. 1/9
I was at the conference and heard
@JasonBordoff
’s remarks. He was NOT calling for nationalization. He was acknowledging the challenge of maintaining sufficiently high investment in fossil related infrastructure during a transition, and suggesting some role for gov’t
People think nationalizing oil firms is something only socialist nations do, but top Dems are now urging Biden to do it for the climate
“Jason [Bordoff] is smart, well-informed, and well-connected to the Biden Administration, so these comments are scary”
1/ EVs degrade significantly in cold environments. Hybrids make much more sense in Canada. This mandate is effectively a bet that innovation will improve BEV performance (and bring down costs) before the mandate arrives. Or it will force Canadians into inferior cars.
There are good people on the right, like
@MittRomney
, who want to fix the climate problem. If anyone can reach across the aisle to build a broader coalition, it's
@POTUS
.
Electrification is not going to save us from the energy crisis that we’ve entered. Several factors point to prolonged tightness in crude oil markets that can only be solved by increasing supply. A 🧵. 1/n
Claremont Mckenna is hiring a senior environmental economist. They have great people, a strong history in EEE, and it's hard to beat the location.
@CMCnews
#EconTwitter
@MelissaK_Moore
Brendan Price (FRB) has also thought a lot about this. He's brilliant and fastidious, and he has a section on his website that I think you'll find helpful.
@TDeryugina
No joke, I once was asked to join a “Special Subcommittee to the Committee on Committees”. Unfortunately, sabbatical got in the way. Otherwise that would’ve been a crowning achievement on my CV. Still sad.
#Canada
, are you sure you want to reject free speech -- a most basic liberal value? To what end? Energy/climate policy is an issue where good faith disagreement exists on both sides. Silencing one is insane.
The Canadian oil & gas sector has much to be proud of, yet this Bill would make it ILLEGAL and subject to up to 2 years in jail / $1MM fine to promote our industry's successes, or even state the obvious fact that LNG is a cleaner energy source than coal! I'll need my own GoFundMe
Some of us have been shouting this from the hilltops for years. Subsidizing green energy & EVs does not create incentives to reduce fossil fuel demand.
#EconTwitter
#EnergyTransition
Solar & wind are growing fast, almost in line with 1.5°C, but fossil fuels are not going down.
We expect fossil fuels to go up again in 2023, leading to growth in fossil CO2 emissions of ~1%.
The latest estimates will be published 5 December 2023!
Reminder to enviro policymakers: banning something is extremely costly when some uses of it are extremely valuable (i.e. no good substitutes). Mandating something is extremely costly when less expensive substitutes exist. In most cases, bans and mandates are bad policy.
“The problem is that the CEPP is a well intentioned, but nevertheless gameable jumble that likely lets companies bilk taxpayers without creating clean energy.” Straight talk by
@auffhammer
@energyathaas
Nice and important paper published today in
@JaereAere
by my colleagues, Kevin Novan and Jim Bushnell. They show how renewable electricity in CA reduces the value of power from traditional baseload generators.
When I first started on Wall Street, one of my managers said something to me that has stuck for +20 yrs:
When you start out, you are just being paid to learn, then after about 5 years you are paid for what you know. Somewhere in your 30's you start getting paid for who you know
If people need $26k of convincing to buy an EV, maybe we need to give the energy transition a bit of a re-think. Or maybe Colorado has just virtue-signaled their EV subsidy into the stratosphere. Either way, until we make it expensive to pollute, we're not being serious.
Final announcement: tomorrow at 8am PT / 11am ET
@CostaSamaras
and I will debate
#ElectricVehicle
policy. Should be a lively and good-spirited discussion. Register 👇
3/ Electricity infrastructure will need to improve to support a large EV fleet. For example, residential service levels will need to be upgraded for a substantial number of homes to accommodate anything more than the slowest level of charging. These upgrades are expensive.
"It’s safe to say that persistently high gasoline prices will have a bigger effect on EV demand than fleeting increases would,"
@ucdavis
economist David Rapson tells
@Axios
.
@UCDavisEcon
CO2 emissions are linked to economic growth, which is why I often hear environmental activists advocating for "degrowth". This is completely misguided.
@Noahpinion
has a nice piece on this. I'll add a few points here. 1/
2/ Some regions still depend on coal for electricity (e.g.
#NovaScotia
). Coal + cold weather make EVs dirtier than gasoline cars (see linked paper). At the very least, any mandate should pre-condition on the absence of coal on the grid.
"The point of clean energy projects is to use them as a first resort, not a last resort." Jim Bushnell
@UCDavisEcon
raises important questions about the logic behind
#California
's proposed Strategic Electricity Reserve via
@energyathaas
I'm about to take the plunge into online teaching. My amazing
@UCDavisEcon
colleagues have shared many lessons learned. I also found a great/helpful resource from
@itonomics
for anyone who's interested. Thanks to all the trailblazers!
Universities are rapidly undermining their credibility. Making public statements on certain tragic events but not others reveals values that are inevitably out of step with many. Why alienate people so predictably? Stop taking sides. Stick to science and education.
Here is Harvard's statement on the invasion of Ukraine, from Feb 2022. It stakes out an incredibly clear moral position.
Harvard raised the Ukrainian flag on campus in solidarity.
/1
@MonicaBaumann
@Theo_TJ_Jordan
The unwillingness of CRT thought leaders to engage critics directly is one of the major red flags, IMHO.
@DrIbram
diminished himself and the credibility of his ideas by lacking the courage to debate
@coldxman
(or any number of other CRT critics who welcome open conversation).
Some critics of my piece on
@MarketWatch
point to the average electricity mix of the US and say “hey, there’s 20% nuclear and 20% renewables – why focus on fossil generation?” Here's a brief string on “marginal vs average” in the context of
#ElectricVehicle
emissions. 1/n
When students ask me what they should study, philosophy is always in the top 3. Economics is always there too. The third depends on their interests and talents. Everyone needs philosophy to lead a full life.
This is totally mistaken
Philosophy is highly relevant today, as always
Philosophical questions like “What really matters?” “How should I live?” “What is right and wrong?” “What can I know?” will remain important when many of today’s specialized questions have been forgotten
@StephForSerious
I’m not saying that scenario is what will happen, but if people don’t like EVs, it’ll take mountains of tax dollars to make people buy them. A CO2 tax at least reduces pollution, which is a much more direct solution to the “reducing pollution” problem.
A step in the right direction. U. Michigan board approves new free speech statement. "It's not just enough to allow groups, unpopular groups, to speak on campus, but is an incumbent on all of us as leaders across the campuses... to not just have the affirmative right to allow
@steve_tadelis
@lugaricano
I hope and suspect that there is a large majority in academia that agrees with you. I certainly do, Steve. It takes spectacular intellectual contortion to call Hamas & Hezbollah “progressive”.
My friend has made another graph!
This one shows the proportions of academics surveyed in 1970 and 2018 that reported being liberal.
Over 48 years, the academy had gone from an even split to 9/10 academics being a liberal.
If you're concerned about climate change, urban planning in Africa is one of the most high-impact areas. Help build 50 Parises instead of 50 Atlantas...
How to house the world’s fastest-growing population
The elephant in the room is how to maintain the
#Canada
's standard of living while decarbonizing. Exporting oil allows Canadians to import much of what they consume. This will need to continue unless Canada finds other ways to grow its economy.
@KnittelMIT
@NikoEcon
@IvanWerning
@wwwojtekk
@Noahpinion
Yes, and there seems to be overconfidence in the efficacy of 2nd best policies. Since they get incentives wrong, many aren't just more expensive, but less effective. How much less effective is tough to say. But climate advocates & policymakers should be concerned about this.
About to record a keynote relating current events to the prospects for 100% electrification. Let's just say there's a reason we don't sell economics door to door.
@JesseJenkins
If it doesn't include a way to make it expensive to pollute, it's not gonna work. How many times do we need to learn these lessons? Guarantee, if this is all we do, people will look back in 10 years and wonder why GHGs are still rising.
📢 A (slight belated, but very big) welcome to Mary Evans (
@mfranevans
) and Teevrat Garg (
@teevrat
), who are our new editors at JAERE. Mary and Teevrat are joining Shanjun Li and Nick Kumninoff as editors. Submit your papers to our wonderful editors!
@leahstokes
I agree with "no climate, no deal", but why not get behind a policy that everyone knows will cut emissions fairly.
#carbonprice
. It's time.
Surprising! EVs dominating in Norway, but gasoline/diesel demand hasn't dropped. This is what I've been concerned about in the US/California for some time. But I'm still surprised to see it so persistent in Norway. Norwegian experts -- what's happening here?
🚨 Panel discussion on Direct Air Capture! 🚨
Climate policy and DAC experts
@emilywimberger
, Chris Gould and Tom McDonald join me to discuss the prospects for large-scale DAC. Please join us!
Wed 11/15 @ 4pm PT via livestream
Hosted by
@UCD_Environment
@UCDavisEcon
&
We are, and should, lead with green investments. But as we decarbonize, we should expect the price of FF to come down. Without strong regulations &/or carbon pricing (preferable & if you ask me), how is the transition actually going to happen?
Common misunderstanding 👇.
@ChazTeplin
, sorry, but when you plugged in your EV it didn't cause more wind or solar to be dispatched. It did, however, cause more gas or coal to be dispatched. The GHG footprint of your EV is much closer to that of a gasoline car than you think
Its been ~1 month since I got my EV. I was curious what I was charging it with. So here is the last month of the Colorado Front Range's electricity mix. Wind is the
#1
source of spring power.
My EV's emissions are 3X lower than a comparable gas car. And getting cleaner each year
@TorontoPearson
, it has now been three straight connections missed through your airport. All of them due to airport inefficiency. Until you fix these problems, I’m not going to risk it anymore. Lots of other airports out there to get to my places.
Melbourne is one of my favo(u)rite cities in the world, and this would be a great place to start a career in energy/IO.
@LeslieEcon
and
@dprbyrne
would be amazing colleagues!
Environmental economists, come work with
@dprbyrne
and me in the Econ Dept at the University of Melbourne! We have multiple positions available at the tenure-track assistant or assoc prof levels. We have vibrant and collegial groups in applied micro, experimental, and mechanism
@GernotWagner
@Noahpinion
Lots of good points here by
@Noahpinion
. But the reason why economists are so focused on carbon pricing (not just a carbon tax, btw) is that it's the only policy that gets incentives right on the CO2 margin. Technologists & activists consistently get this wrong.
Superb string by
@DavidZipper
about car bloat. It's a major problem for the environment and safety, and big vehicles should probably be taxed much more than they currently are to account for these externalities.
I’ve spent much of this year learning about car bloat, the process through which smaller vehicles are being replaced by increasingly massive SUVs and trucks.
What I’ve learned: Huge cars are terrible for society, often in ways that are hidden.
A summary 🧵
@robbieorvis
@NREL
@argonne
@EIAgov
I'm writing a paper on EV adoption through 2035 now. There are credible ways to predict demand in the cross section (machine learning, discrete choice models, etc), but no way to credibly predict the future growth trajectory. Too many unknown parameters and policy interactions.
Exciting carbon policy in
#canada
! Remember that this eliminates the need for so-called "complementary" policies, since the main benefit of the carbon tax is it allows the market to find the lowest-cost abatement opportunities. Will the feds and enviros remember this?
Why is eVMT so low? 3 potential reasons. 1) Current EV owners are not representative of drivers overall; 2) EVs are not perfect substitutes for gasoline cars; or 3) high electricity prices in CA disincentivize driving EVs. Future research should test these hypotheses. 6/8
If you care about reducing emissions, don’t mistake divestment for progress. It’s just shuffling ownership from highly scrutinized firms to less scrutinized. Do you think the buyers will be more responsible than sellers? Doubtful.
#energytwitter
#climate
Attending the
@DallasFed
Energy Conference today in OKC. Superb panels discussing our energy needs and the energy transition.
#FedEnergy23
Energy and the Economy: Reshuffling the Energy Deck via
@KansasCityFed
@wwwojtekk
@KaplanEthan
@Noahpinion
Exactly. And the "low demand elasticity" critique also reveals misunderstanding. We want the right amount of substitution away from pollution. If there aren't good substitutes, the benefits of polluting outweigh the costs. Pricing still gets it right.
The moral decline many of us perceive in the world is probably an illusion. Cool paper! Abundant empirical evidence + a mechanism that could explain the phenomenon. 👏
My paper with
@DanTGilbert
is out today in Nature: people believe that people are less kind than they used to be, they're probably wrong about that, and we have an idea where this illusion comes from.
@MonicaBaumann
@Theo_TJ_Jordan
You're extremely smart, Monica. Doesn't any of it give you pause? Internal inconsistency, alienation of potential allies, oppressively negative world view that denies redemption, rejecting central tenets of great thought leaders (eg color blindness/MLK)?
The fundamental flaw in “spending money on climate” is that it almost always gets the incentives wrong. When you see headlines about taxes, not subsidies, you’ll know we’re heading in the right direction.
@nytimes
In our partisan world, I guess I shouldn't be surprised of the misinformation that is spreading like mad about the situation in TX. Yes, wind turbines that are frozen. No, this isn't the only cause of the outages and high prices. And no, this isn't a "renewables problem".
Should universities pander to student demands for high grades, even for low performance?
@pontus_rendahl
describes a new, low-effort student equilibrium. Professors can either resist at their own peril, or acquiesce at the cost of an educated society. The incentives are all wrong
Lots of economists joining the masses dunking on economics recently. Sure, we can and should improve. But name a social science that offers more accurate insights or helpful prescriptions for society?
Been thinking a lot recently about how many Economists have never had to worry about money, or work a low-wage job, and how this limits our ability to be good social scientists
@GernotWagner
@Noahpinion
Final point: if CO2 pricing is necessary (even if not sufficient), it's a damn good thing economists keep beating that drum. Because nobody else is.
#EconTwitter
The idea that there's some sort of electrification "race" between countries is dumb media spin. How much to electrify depends on costs & benefits. E.g. not a great idea in the midwest where there's lots of coal electricity. via
@ABC