Energy and the Information Infrastructure Part 3: The Digital ‘Engines of Innovation’ & Jevons’ Delicious Paradox

REAL CLEAR ENERGY ………  The invention of the transistor-based logic engine, the integrated circuit, turned 60 this year. Today, humanity fabricates 1,000 times more transistors annually than the entire world grows grains of wheat and rice combined. Collectively, all those transistors consume more electricity than the state of California. The rise of transistors as “engines of innovation”…

The Skills Gap and the Future of Oil

e21 .……..       When it comes to the future of work, we’re constantly told that automation and algorithms are destined to eliminate huge swaths of the workforce. But the reality is both more complicated and more optimistic.

Energy and the Information Infrastructure: Part 2 – The Invisible & Voracious ‘Information Superhighway

REAL CLEAR ENERGY ……     Part 1 of this series (here) focused on the “Cloud” of datacenters—energy-gobbling warehouse-scale computers—that sit largely out of sight at the center of the Internet. In part 2 we explore the invisible “information superhighway” that connects the Cloud to everyone and, soon, everything. The ethereal magic of radio photons now…

American LNG will meet Europe’s urgent need for gas

FINANCIAL TIMES……….. That the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will increase Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas is a geographic and arithmetical fact. But buried in the heated rhetoric — now rising to US sanction threats — over how much that matters, is just how inexpensive it would be for Europe to purchase…