Affordable Energy Myth Interview with Ed Dolan

We were fortunate enough to speak with the well known economist Ed Dolan on various energy and economic issues. In the interview Ed talks about the following: • Why cheap energy is not vital to economic growth • Why high oil prices aren’t necessarily a bad thing • Why the U.S. Oil and gas boom is hurting Russia’s global influence • Why Obama’s desire to cut oil industry tax breaks could be a great idea • Why energy policy needs to be completely reformed • Why Russia’s Arctic Exploration could cause the worst environmental disaster to date • Why renewable energy investors should be very worried about the Natural gas boom • Why the EU was flawed from the start • Why subsidies for renewables are just plain wrong. • Why we should give QE3 a chance • Why abundant natural resources can bring a curse of riches

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Google Goes Wind and Bets Further On Solar

According to Bloomberg Magazine, Google taking up wind-power purchases to reduce emissions, even as it devotes most of its renewable energy investments to solar. This green hedging of energy-related projects is the “trade-off aimed at reining in costs as the company seeks higher returns.” Google went to 30 percent green energy with virtually all of it from wind, up from 19 percent a year earlier. Yet of the $917 million that the company has invested in renewable-energy projects, about two-thirds—or $622 million —is channeled toward solar. Wind power is at least 50 percent cheaper than solar energy, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That explains why Google, which consumes 2.26 million megawatt-hours of electricity a year, mainly for data centers that run its billions of Web searches, increasingly prefers wind. Whole Foods Market, Bank of New York Mellon (BK), Starbucks, and Intel are among those companies that made the biggest wind-power purchases in 2010, data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance show.

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