Newsletters

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Sign up for Carey’s Newsletter or donate to his research group at The University of Texas at Austin:

  

 

Spring 2021:

Book talk April 5, 2021, op-ed articles on the February ERCOT  blackouts, and upcoming UT Energy Week (April 13-14, 2021).

Link to full newsletter for Spring 2021

 

October 2020:

Link to full newsletter for October 2020

Four items for this newsletter:

1.  My book is out!  (see http://careyking.com/books/)

The Economic Superorganism: Beyond the Competing Narratives on Energy, Growth, and Policy

 

2. The Energy Futures Dashboard of the Energy Institute is now launched!

The launch of the Energy Institute’s Energy Futures Dashboard (an online interactive tool to explore costs, CO2 emissions, and power plant requirements for future energy scenarios)
MAKE YOUR OWN ENERGY SCENARIO!   COMPARE TO WHAT THE EXPERTS AND PUNDITS TALK ABOUT!

3. Two exciting upcoming webinars about fundamental energy and economic relationships.

1).  October 27, 2020: A discussion with Demond Drummer of New Consensus: Green New Deal & The Role of Public Investment in an Energy Transition
This is a live webinar as part of the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Symposium, It occurs on Tuesday October 27, 2020 at 515-615 pm (Central Time).
2)  November 11, 2020 (10 am Eastern Time): A USAEE Webinar “Can Macroeconomic Models really Model a Low-Carbon Energy Transition?”

Are the right theories and assumptions being used to integrate the economics of energy and climate change? Can the current crop of economic models (e.g., IAMs) effectively inform energy and carbon policy?   Join this webinar for insights into the practical and theoretical difficulties and possibilities for modeling the important linkages between energy consumption and economic growth and distribution.

For full information and registration see the following link:
Webinar details: https://www.usaee.org/eblast/webinar_king.html

 

 

Summer 2020:

Link to full newsletter for Summer 2020

I provide four main items for this newsletter.  Each of these items is extremely relevant and important for explaining the physical basis (e.g., energy) of the economy and how it influences the impacts of COVID-19, explains the continuing impacts of the 2008 financial crisis as well as the shifts in energy use since the 1970s, and affects our perceptions of the constraints on both the speed of shifting to a low-carbon energy system and the maintenance of a fossil fuel-based economy.  There is no free lunch to stay with fossil fuels or transition to renewables. It’s not that easy, but with systematic thinking, we can create the necessary understanding that must pervade thinking within our governments, businesses, and citizenry.  The items of this newsletter seek to create this understanding, most notably via my forthcoming book (item 2).

1.   I will host the first talk of the Energy Institute’s 4-part Summer Energy Talks series (on July 21, 2020), and I’ve invited Richard Heinberg to discuss the controversy surrounding the Jeff Gibbs and Michael Moore film Planet of the Humans.

2.   My book will be released late 2020:
“The Economic Superorganism: Beyond the Competing Narratives on Energy, Policy, and Growth”


Do you ever wonder why and how fossil fuel and renewable energy advocates talk past each other?  Do you wonder why the vast majority of economists (mistakenly) think growth can be decoupled from increases in energy consumption?  If so, this book is for you!

3.   Recent talks

  1.  April 2020 invited keynote presentation to the Engineers for a Sustainable World‘s “DigiCon2020” conference: “A Journey to Understand Relationships Between Energy and the Economy“.
  2.  June 2020 presentation on my HARMONEY economic model as part of the Thermodynamics 2.0 conference of the International Association for the Integration of Science and Engineering (IAISAE).

4.   A new research project, funded by the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, will provide significant funding to continue my macroeconomic modeling (see HARMONEY model) at the the U.S. and global scales.  This project will enable me to greatly enhance our understanding of the true dynamic feedbacks between the energy system and the overall economy during a renewable or low-carbon energy transition.

 

January 2020:

Latest Research Explains How Wages (and wage inequality) are Linked to Energy Consumption, plus Dr. King on recent podcasts 

Link to full Newsletter for January 2020

  1. I include a summary of my journal paper as my blog post describing results of my new economic model, the “HARMONEY” model, that is now available online:
    An Integrated Biophysical and Economic Modeling Framework for Long-Term Sustainability Analysis: the HARMONEY ModelEcological Economics, 169, March 2020, 106464.
  2. PODCAST interview by Dr. David Spence of University of Texas at Austin for his Energy Tradeoffs website: Economic Growth, Inequality & DecarbonizationHere I speak with David Spence, a colleague and Baker Botts Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law, and Professor of Business Government & Society at the McCombs School of Business.
  3. PODCAST interview:  James A. Cox (financial advisor): Economic Models for the Anthropocene Era: a chat with Carey King  Here I speak with Jim Cox (https://jamesacox.com) for his Financial Insights podcast.  Jim is a financial advisor with First Financial Group in Philadelphia. We talk about the state of macroeconomic modeling and some of the insights from my macroeconomic model mentioned above.

February 2019:

White paper on new economic model and Valentine’s Day conversation: “For the Love of Energy: How and why we talk past each other regarding our energy future”

Newsletter link

Newsletter Summary:

1.  A Valentine’s Day discussion (video): “For the love of energy: How and why we talk past each other regarding our energy future (hour-long video of an informal discussion)

Enjoy this discussion between myself, Dr. David Spence, and Dr. Fred Beach.  It was part of the UT at Austin’s Energy Symposium speaker series. We decided to have an informal discussion, about why people speak past each other on issues related to the future of energy.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK7-QLYHgwc&feature=youtu.be

3.  I’ve posted a Working Paper (also linked on my publications page) that describes the new integrated biophysical-economic model that I have constructed. This paper describes work to improve major flaws in how mainstream economic modeling treats energy in the context of long-term economic scenarios.

This is part of the Working Paper series of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics.  I discussed this paper in a presentation last November 2018 at the Southern Economic Association conference: https://youtu.be/3Vf3-2_lnlU:

King, Carey W., An Integrated Biophysical and Economic Modeling Framework for Long-Term Sustainability Analysis (February 14, 2019). USAEE Working Paper No. 19-388. Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3334615.

 

End of Year 2018:

Latest Presentation on Energy-Economic modeling that theoretically links U.S. wages and resource consumption

Newsletter link

Newsletter Summary:

Most macroeconomic analyses do not fundamentally consider the role of energy and resources in the long-term dynamics of society and the economy. However, it is self-evident that natural resources are needed for three fundamental functions:

1) people consume resources, such as food, to survive and be healthy,
2) machines need natural resource inputs, such as energy, to operate, and
3) machines, buildings, and other physical capital are themselves made out of natural resources.

In this newsletter I link to a presentation describing my economic model that considers the three core functions listed above, and I link them to macroeconomic variables of concern, such as employment, wages, profits, and debt.  In doing so, we can explain why the United States share of GDP going to wages (the wage share) declined starting in the 1970s at the same time when per capita energy consumption stopped increasing.

 

Summer 2018:

Talks on Energy-Economic Transition Modeling

Want to know how to recreate the Industrial Revolution and understand energy transitions?  Then read on …

Want to know what are the Energy and Economic Narratives?  Then REALLY read on …

It has been an energy-economic heavy last few of months. I’ve begun filming my talks to make the presentations more accessible and make your research contributions go further. There are three new videos linked via my website presentations page, and I’ve listed them in this newsletter.

Two talks on energy-economic modeling:

 

Spring 2018

Carey W. King – Spring 2018 Energy Research Newsletter

Four presentations from speaking engagements this Spring 2018 (in chronological order):

  1. January 4, 2018: Systems Thinking Linking Energy and the Economy: Size, Growth, and Structure
    1. ICAPE (economics) conference, Philadelphia, PA
    2. Click here for abstract
  2. February 27, 2018: Energy and Food Costs and the Structure of the Economy
    1. London School of Economics
  3. March 4th-9th, 2018: Macroeconomic Modeling of Energy Transitions (Accounting for Money and Energy)
    1. 4th Science and Energy Seminar at Ecole de Physique des Houches, Les Houches, France
    2. Click here for abstract
  4. March 20th, 2018: Systems Thinking on the Modern Economy: Size and Structure
  5. 255th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, New Orleans, LA, USA
  6. Click here for my abstract and here for a list of all speakers and abstracts

 

December 2017

Carey W. King – December 2017 Energy Research Newsletter

  1. Online video of December 2017 presentation on energy and economy:
    1. Energy and the Economy over the Long-Term: Size and Structure
  2. New journal paper on the “Net energy of China”
    1. Feng, Jingxuan, Feng, Lianyong, Wang, Jianliang, and King, Carey W. Modeling the Point of Use EROI and Its Implications for Economic Growth in ChinaEnergy, 2018, 144, 232-242: online link.

 

August 2017

Carey W. King – Summer 2017 Energy Research Newsletter

  1. Crowdfunding success: Visiting Scholar from India
  2. My latest article in Earth Magazine, why we need better macroeconomic models
  3. Summer academic debate over 100% Renewable Energy Future: Mark Jacobson versus 21 academics

April 2017

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter (crowdfunding opportunity)

  1. Crowdfunding to match a generous donor’s pledge 1-for-1
  2. New journal paper on transmission and distribution cost trends (free journal paper download)

January 2017

Carey W. King- January 2017 – Energy Research Newsletter

  1.  a podcast on energy in the economy,
  2. UT Austin Energy Institute’s Full Cost of Cost of Electricity Study. was launched (and see new journal paper and online calculators comparing the cost of power generation)!
  3. an op-ed on the Dakota Access pipeline as a “power struggle”

November 2016

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter (November 2016)

  1. My latest journal publication (on the economy and the food, energy, water nexus) is now in print and free to view online (link here):  King, Carey W.  Information Theory to Assess Relations Between Energy and Structure of the U.S. Economy Over Time. Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality2016, 1 (2), 10. doi: 10.1007/s41247-016-0011-y.
  2.  Webpage for the project I’ve been working on for the last 3 years, focused on Brazil: CLIMA – Land Water Energy (or http://clima.org.br/en/).  This link describes the purpose and goals of the project (to understand how water and climate change might affect Brazil’s economy and agriculture sectors).
  3.  My blog comments on a recent article entitled “Energy Giant Shell Says Oil Demand Could Peak in Just Five Years“.

October 2016

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter (October 2016) – Economics Assumptions

September 2016

Carey W. King – September Research Newsletter

June 2016

Carey W. King – Energy Systems Research Newsletter (June 2016)

April 2016

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter (April 2016)

March 2016

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter (March 2016)

December 2015

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter

December 2015

Carey W. King – Energy Research Newsletter, December 2015

October 2015

Carey W. King Research Newsletter – October 2015

June 2015

Carey W. King Research Newsletter – June 2016

February 2015 – UT Energy Week Announcement

UT Energy Week: February 16-20, 2015

December 2014

Dr. Carey W. King: Winter 2014 – Energy Systems Newsletter

July 2014

Dr. Carey W. King: July 2014 Research Newsletter 

March 2014

Dr. Carey W. King: March 2014 Research Newsletter, New Energy-Water Nexus Reports