Business Can’t Win the Privatization Game Without a Handicap

Date: 4 Jun 2012 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Handicapping occurs in sports to equalize the winning chances of contestants of varying abilities. Sometimes, as in horse racing, superior horses, based on past performance, are required to carry more weight.  Sometimes, as in golf, poorer players are allowed more strokes. Unbeknownst to most of us, the competition between the public and private sectors is also … Read More

Report: Electric Vehicle Policy For the Midwest – A Scoping Document

Date: 18 Dec 2009 | posted in: Energy | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

This December 2009 report was prepared for the RE-AMP network (120+ organizations in eight Midwestern states). The scoping report outlines and makes recommendations on a variety of policy issues related to expanding electric vehicles. The report illustrates the relationships between electric vehicles and other GHG reduction strategies such as fuel economy standards (CAFE), low carbon fuel standards (LCFS) and efforts to reduce vehicle miles traveled.  Because of their energy storage capability, electrified vehicles will also play an increasingly important role in the expansion of renewable energy and the future elaboration of smart grid technologies.

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How T. Boone Pickens’ Energy Plan Just Got Killed

The financial bailout bill passed by Congress may have once and for all put an end to T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan. Let me explain.

Until the financial meltdown obliterated all other news coverage, T. Boone and his energy plan were everywhere. His book, The First Billion Is the Hardest, is number two on the bestseller list. During the Republican and Democrat Conventions his press conferences were attended by a fawning media, virtually all of who filed stories with the theme "oil man turns wind energy advocate."

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Electric Cars Are the Key to Energy Independence

Date: 6 Aug 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

ILSR vice president, David Morris, responds to Al Gore’s recent speech proposing a 10 year effort to move the United States to a 100% renewable energy electric system to address three major crises: the weak economy, catastrophic climate change and the dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil. Morris says that Gore got got two out of three right.… Read More

Report: Driving Our Way to Energy Independence

Date: 5 Jun 2008 | posted in: Energy | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Updating our pathbreaking 2003 report, this June 2008 report by David Morris describes how commercially available technologies today could transform our petroleum powered transportation system into one powered by electricity and biofuels. Provisions in the recently passed Energy Act could accelerate that transformation. With the adoption of complementary policies, the revolution in our transportation sector can generate an equally profound revolution in our electricity sector. Hundreds of thousands of locally owned wind turbines and solar electric arrays supplying flexible fueled, plug-in hybrid vehicles can allow tens of millions of Americans to become energy producers not just energy consumers.

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Driving Our Way to Energy Independence

Date: 13 Mar 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Press Release | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Updating a pathbreaking 2003 report, ILSR’s March 2008 report, Driving Our Way to Energy Independence, describes how commercially available technologies today could transform our petroleum powered transportation system into one powered by electricity and biofuels. Provisions in the recently passed Energy Act could accelerate that transformation.… Read More

New Anti-Ethanol Studies Reach Wrong Conclusion on Greenhouse Gases

Date: 15 Feb 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Press Release | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

A new policy brief from Institute for Local Self Reliance criticizes the authors of two recent studies published in Science for advancing a conclusion not supported by their own studies. ILSR’s paper notes that the vast majority of today’s ethanol production comes from corn cultivated on land that has been in corn production for generations.… Read More

Carbon Caps With Universal Dividends: Equitable, Ethical & Politically Effective Climate Policy

Date: 28 Jan 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Press Release | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

A new policy brief from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance concludes that universal dividends are a critically important tool to create the political will and public acceptance for a carbon cap. Universal dividends have the potential to hold harmless a large segment of consumers while we move to a low-carbon economy. Moreover, the universal dividend honors the principle that the sky belongs to all of us equally.… Read More

Electric Avenue – PHEVs in Travel+Leisure Magazine

Date: 23 Oct 2007 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

A new kind of hybrid uses less gas and more electricity. All-electric cars are already here. What will this mean for the road trip of the future? ILSR’s David Morris plugs in and gives us a little history lesson of the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV).

Read the full story at Travel+LeisureMagazine

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