MIT Prof of Applied Economics, Director of Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Deputy Director for Policy MIT Energy Initiative, Caiden’s Dad.
Mar 7, 2022 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
High oil prices suck. I know. With that said I see a lot of misinformation regarding how oil markets work, our production, Russia's production, etc. Perhaps this will help people sort through the noise.
1. The first thing to know about oil is that it is set on a GLOBAL market. What does that mean? That means there is, effectively, one price. So, any supply disruption, anywhere, affects that price and therefore prices in the US.
Mar 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Let's call out BS when we see it. The administration said today regarding the US halting their purchase of Russian oil: "Given high oil and gas prices, cutting off Russian oil and gas could drive prices up to Putin's benefit."
Uhhh, No.
The only way halting the purchase of Russian oil would raise oil prices is if that Russian oil does NOT get bought by someone else. My hunch is that, effectively, all of it would be bought by someone else and it would have no effect on oil prices or R. But we should still do it.
Feb 16, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
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".
First, windmills can actually operate down to -30 degrees (see Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc). Texas chose not to install the necessary equipment probably because it made sense not to invest in something that would be used once every 10-20 years.
