Alexandria, VA (October 1, 2019) – Solar Energy Trade Shows, LLC (SETS), the team behind SPI, ESI, and North America Smart Energy Week, announced a new expanded partnership with Solar Energy International (SEI) to implement installer training content across select events within the Solar Power Events portfolio.
As the solar industry is expanding, so too are the job opportunities. With solar installer jobs not only representing the largest share of employment, but additionally being the fastest growing occupation in the U.S., adding a key installer focus throughout all events is necessary.
“Our goal is to promote a strong, growing renewable energy industry and provide installer educational content in markets we serve,” said Gary Thuro, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer, Solar Energy Trade Shows. “Working with SEI was an obvious choice.”
Solar Power Events, the premier events series for the North American solar & storage markets, is presented by Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) & Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). Alongside SPI, ESI, and North America Smart Energy Week, which is the largest gathering of solar, smart energy, energy storage and hydrogen fuel cell professionals in North, Solar Power Events provides an extensive portfolio of regional events featuring a robust education program vetted by industry experts, and ample networking opportunities at every show.
“We are very excited to grow our partnership with SETS as the exclusive solar training partner and education provider not only for the Solar Power International Conference, but also through regional conferences held all throughout the year. This expanded partnership will help drive our industry forward and take it to the next level,” said Chris Turek, Director of Marketing and Communications, Solar Energy International. “With a shared vision of a world powered by renewable energy, SETS and SEI have teamed up to ensure the clean energy workforce is thriving with highly trained and technologically prepared solar practitioners worldwide.”
Solar Energy International provides industry-leading technical training and expertise in renewable energy and has over 70,000 students and alumni worldwide and over 500 years of combined solar industry experience within SEI’s team of instructors and solar advocates.
“We will be able to bring world class education and training not only to conferences and events provided by SETS, but also create a continuous professional development loop by offering solar professionals ongoing training and career support in between conferences and events,” Mr. Turek continued. “Participants will be able to connect with SEI not only during SETS conferences, but also through SEI’s Online Campus and our hands-on lab training facility in Paonia, Colorado. We look forward to a bright, sunny future with this partnership with SETS!”
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About Solar Power Events
Presented by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), Solar Power Events strive to keep the industry moving forward by offering cutting-edge events centered around the trends, technology, and research that power the industry. For additional information regarding Solar Power Events, visit us at www.events.solar.
About SEIA
Solar Energy Industries Association® is the national trade association of the U.S. solar energy industry, which now employs more than 260,000 Americans. Through advocacy and education, SEIA® is building a strong solar industry to power America. SEIA works with its 1,000 member companies to build jobs and diversity, champion the use of cost-competitive solar in America, remove market barriers and educate the public on the benefits of solar energy. For more information, visit www.seia.org.
About SEPA
The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to working with electric power stakeholders through the most pressing issues affecting the growth and utilization of smart energy. We are a trusted platform for education, research, standards, and collaboration to help utilities, customers, and other players deploy and integrate solar, storage, demand response and other distributed energy resources. Through educational activities, working groups, peer-to-peer opportunities and advisory services, SEPA engages interested parties in facilitating necessary information exchange and knowledge transfer to offer the highest amount of value for our membership and partner organizations. For more information, visit www.sepapower.org.
About Solar Energy International
Solar Energy International (SEI) was founded in 1991 as a nonprofit educational organization. Our mission is to provide industry-leading technical training and expertise in renewable energy to empower people, communities, and businesses worldwide. Why? Because we envision a world powered by renewable energy. For more information, visit https://www.solarenergy.org.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released its International Energy Outlook 2019, forecasting that global energy consumption is expected to increase almost 50 percent by 2050. Consumption is expected to skyrocket in India and China because of the energy requirements of energy-intensive manufacturing. Due to population and economic growth, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are expected to increase at an average rate of 0.6 percent per annum. Lifting people out of poverty and improving lives requires vast amounts of energy, and the EIA suggests that is exactly what will happen.
Renewable energy (including wind, solar, and hydropower) is projected to be the world’s fastest-growing form of energy over the next several decades (growing at a rate of over 3.1 percent per year). Despite that, fossil fuels are expected to meet most of the world’s energy demand. Liquid fuels are expected to remain the primary energy source for transportation, but electric-powered transport, particularly for personal electric vehicles, is expected to grow in popularity. Electricity generation is expected to increase by 79 percent by 2050 driven partly by demand from the transportation sector for vehicles and rail and partly by its use in the residential and commercial sectors due to growing income, growing population, and increased access to electricity in non-OECD regions.
Global consumption of liquid fuels is projected to increase over 20 percent between 2018 and 2050, with total consumption reaching over 240 quadrillion Btu in 2050. Global oil production is expected to increase by 30 percent from 2018 levels to 127 million barrels per day in 2050, with non-OPEC producers accounting for about 55 percent of the output.
Consumption of petroleum and other liquids is expected to grow at 0.6 percent per year, coal at 0.4 percent, and natural gas at 1.1 percent per year between 2018 and 2050. Despite higher growth rates for each of the fossil fuels, the coal share and the liquids share of primary energy consumption declines by 2050.
Despite its lower share in 2050, global coal consumption is projected to increase in the latter decade due to its use in industrial processes, including the production of cement and steel. Coal use is projected to decline until the 2030s as it is replaced with natural gas and renewables in electricity generation mainly as a result of policy initiatives. In the 2040s, coal use increases as a result of increased industrial usage and increasing use in electric power generation in non-OECD Asia, excluding China. India is expected to become the largest importer of coal in 2050.
Natural Gas
Global natural gas consumption is projected to increase over 40 percent between 2018 and 2050, with total consumption reaching nearly 200 quadrillion Btu by 2050. In addition to the natural gas used in electricity generation, natural gas consumption increases in the industrial sector. Chemical and primary metals manufacturing, as well as oil and natural gas extraction, account for most of the growing industrial demand. U.S. natural gas production is projected to increase by almost 50 percent to 43 trillion cubic feet by 2050, primarily from expanded production in Texas and Appalachia.
Global Demand
Demand in OECD countries remains relatively stable during the projection period, but non-OECD demand increases by about 45 percent, primarily in Asia.
Generation from non-hydropower renewables is projected to increase at an average of 5.7 percent per year from 2018 to 2050. By 2050, China, India, OECD Europe, and the United States are responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s non-hydropower renewable generation. Electricity generation from wind and solar resources is projected to increase the most between 2018 and 2050, reaching 6.7 trillion and 8.3 trillion kilowatt hours, respectively, as these technologies become more cost competitive and because they are supported by government policies in many countries, including subsidies and mandates in the United States. By 2050, wind and solar account for over 70 percent of total renewables generation. In OECD countries, where more policy initiatives affect electric generation, electricity demand growth is expected to be met primarily with renewable energy, which is also expected to displace some existing generation.
Conclusion
In EIA’s international forecast, fossil fuels are expected to supply almost 70 percent of the world’s primary energy demand in 2050, led by petroleum and natural gas. Coal is still expected to supply a 20 percent share due mainly to growth in Asia’s electricity generation and industrial sectors. Renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) are the fastest growing source of fuel; they are expected to supply almost 28 percent of global primary consumption in 2050—a greater share than any other fuel.
I have been teaching for Solar Energy International (SEI) for six years. Every experience I have had as an instructor, especially through hands-on installation classes, has been rewarding. There´s always an opportunity for growth, in many different aspects of career and personal goals.
Part of what I love about teaching for SEI is that it is a “safe zone” for everyone, students and teachers alike, to say “I do not know the answer to that, but I am here to find out.” Students can expect to feel comfortable asking questions, as we are all here coming with a humble approach to learn together. They can also expect to be in expert hands, with all our instructors having extensive experience and expertise. As instructors, we strive on enabling our students by sharing everything we know, to the best of our abilities. We are curious to discover new avenues about our industry, and that comes from students who visit us with curiosity, too.
I come from an engineering background in a culture that is still very much male-dominated, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank specifically the women who come share a week of learning at SEI. They have especially empowered me to feel the Girl Power that comes from learning and laughing in sisterhood. My mind has been opened by all the women I´ve had the pleasure to meet, instruct, and learn from. We are paving the road and making way to equality, starting with ourselves. Thank you, and I cannot wait to meet the hundreds more women I know will cross my path as we keep growing together.
A few years ago, I wrote a post here that caught some attention in the community.
I argued Google appears to be ranking websites heavily based on searcher intent — this is more true now than ever.
In fact, it might be algorithmically impossible to get your website on top of the SERPs.
If you find your website in this position, don't give up on SEO!
The point of "Search Engine Optimization" is to get organic exposure through search engines — it doesn't necessarily have to be your website.
We can leverage the ranking authority of other websites pass organic referral traffic to our sites.
I'm going to give 6 times when you should NOT rank your website.
Prefer to watch / listen? I outlined all these points as a part of a recent keynote: https://youtu.be/mMvIty5W93Y
1. When the keywords are just TOO competitive
We've all been there: trying to rank a website with no authority for highly competitive keywords.
These keywords are competitive because they're valuable so we can't give up on them.
Here's a few workarounds I've used in the past.
Tactic 1: Offer to sponsor the content
Ardent sells a product that "decarboxylates" cannabis for medicinal users.
There's a ton of challenges selling this product, mostly because patients don't know what "decarboxylation" means.
So, naturally, ranking for the keyword "what is decarboxylation" is a critical step in their customer’s path to conversion. Problem is, that keyword is dominated by authoritative, niche relevant sites.
While Ardent should still build and optimize content around the subject, it might take years to rank.
When you’re trying to build a business, that’s not good enough.
We decided to reach out to those authoritative sites offering to "sponsor" one of their posts.
In this case, it worked exceptionally well — we negotiated a monthly rate ($250) to tag content with a CTA and link back to Ardent's site.
Granted, this doesn't work in every niche. If you operate in one of those spaces, there’s another option.
Tactic 2: Guest post on their site
Guest writing for Moz in 2015 put my agency on the map.
Publishing on powerful sites quickly expands your reach and lends credibility to your brand (good links, too).
More importantly, it gives you instant ranking power for competitive keywords.
As co-owner of an SEO agency, it would be amazing to rank in Google for "SEO services," right?
Even with an authoritative site, it's difficult to rank your site for the search "SEO service" nationally. You can leverage the authority of industry sites to rank for these competitive searches.
The post I wrote for Moz back in 2015 ranks for some very competitive keywords (admittedly, this was unintentional).
This post continues to drive free leads, in perpetuity.
When we know a client has to get visibility for a given keyword but the SERPs won’t budge, our agency builds guest posting into our client's content strategies.
It's an effective tactic that can deliver big results when executed properly.
2. When you can hijack "brand alternative" keywords
When you're competing for SERP visibility with a large brand, SEO is an uphill battle.
Let's look at a couple tactics if you find yourself in this situation.
Tactic #1: How to compete against HubSpot
HubSpot is a giant on the internet — they dominate the SERPs.
Being that large can have drawbacks, including people searching Googlef "HubSpot alternatives." If you're a competitor, you can't afford to miss out on these keywords.
"Listicle" style articles dominate for these keywords, as they provide the best "type" of result for a searcher with that intent.
It's ranking on top for a lot of valuable keywords to competitors.
As a competitor, you'll want to see if you can get included in this post (and others). By contacting the author with a pitch, we can create an organic opportunity for ourselves.
This pitch generally has a low success. The author needs to feel motivated to add you to the article. Your pitch needs to contain a value proposition that can move them to action.
A few tips:
Find the author's social profiles and add them. Then retweet, share, and like their content to give them a boost
Offer to share the article with your social profiles or email list if they include you in it
Offer to write the section for inclusion to save them time
While success rate isn't great, the payoff is worth the effort.
Tactic #2: Taking advantage of store closures
Teavana is an international tea retailer with millions of advocates (over 200k searches per month in Google).
Just a few months ago, Starbucks decided to close all Teavana stores. With news of Teavana shutting down, fans of the brand would inevitably search for "Teavana replacements" to find a new company to buy similar tea from.
Teami is a small tea brand that sells a number of SKUs very similar to what Teavana. Getting in front of those searches would provide tremendous value to their business.
At that moment, we could do two things:
Try to rank a page on Teami’s for “Teavana replacement”
Get it listed on an authority website in a roundup with other alternatives
If you ask many SEO experts what to do, they'd probably go for the first option. But we went with the second option - getting it listed in a roundup post.
If we ranked Teami as a Teavana replacement — which we could do — people will check the site and know that we sell tea, but they won't take it seriously because they don't trust us yet that we are a good Teavana replacement.
How to pull it off for your business
Find a writer who writes about these topics on authoritative sites. You may need to search for broader keywords and see articles from authority magazine-like websites.
We were able to get our client (Teami Blends) listed as the number-two spot in the article, providing a ton of referral traffic to the website.
3. When you want to rank for "best" keywords
When someone is using “best” keywords (i.e. best gyms in NYC), the SERPs are telling us the searcher doesn’t want to visit a gym’s website.
The SERPs are dominated by “roundup” articles from media sources — these are a far better result to satisfy the searcher’s intent.
That doesn't mean we can't benefit from “best keywords.” Let’s look at a few tactics.
Tactic #1: Capture searchers looking for “best” keywords
Let’s say you come to Miami for a long weekend.
You’ll likely search for "best coffee shops in Miami" to get a feel for where to dine while here.
If you own a coffee shop in Miami, that’s a difficult keyword to rank for - the SERPs are stacked against you.
A few years back we worked with a Miami-based coffee shop chain, Dr Smood, who faced this exact challenge.
Trying to jam their website in the SERPs would be a waste of resources. Instead, we focused on getting featured in press outlets for “best of Miami” articles.
How can you do it?
Find existing articles (ranking for your target “best of” keywords) and pitch for inclusion. You can offer incentives like free meals, discounts, etc. in exchange for inclusion.
You’ll also want to pitch journalists for future inclusion in articles. Scan your target publication for relevant journalists and send an opening pitch:
Hey [NAME],
My name is [YOUR NAME]. Our agency manages the marketing for [CLIENT].
We’ve got a new menu that we think would be a great fit for your column. We’d love to host you in our Wynwood location to sample the tasting menu.
If interested, please let me know a date / time that works for you!
We pitched dozens of journalists on local publications for Dr Smood.
I’ll get to the point - I just read your article on “Best SEO Trainings” on the [BLOG NAME] blog. I recently launched a deep SEO training and I’d love consideration to be included.
I recently launched a platform called The Blueprint Training - I think its a perfect fit for your article.
Now, I realize how much work it is to go back in and edit an article, so I’m willing to do all of the following:
- Write the section for you, in the same format as on the site
- Promote the article via my Twitter account (I get GREAT engagement)
- Give you complimentary access to the platform to see the quality for yourself
Let me know what you think and if there’s anything else I can do for you.
Enjoy your weekend!
If you can understand value propositioning, you’ll have a lot of success with this tactic.
4. When you need to spread your local footprint
Piggybacking off the previous example, when performing keyword research we found Google displayed completely different SERPs for keywords that all classified what Dr Smood offered.
Miami organic cafe
Miami coffee shop
Miami juice bar
The algorithm is telling us each of these keywords is different — it would be extremely difficult to rank the client’s website for all three.
However, we can use other owned properties to go after the additional keywords in conjunction with our website.
Properties like Yelp allow you to edit titles and optimize your listing just like you would your website.
We can essentially perform “on page” SEO for these properties and get them to rank for valuable keyword searches.
The structure we took with Dr Smood was as follows:
When doing this for your business, be sure to identify all the keyword opportunities available and pay attention to how the SERPs react for each.
Understand which citation pages (Yelp, MenuPages, etc) you have available to rank instead your website for local searches and optimize them as you would your website.
5. When you need to boost e-commerce sales
The SERPs for e-commerce stores are brutally competitive. Not only do you have to compete with massive brands / retailers, but also sites like Amazon and Etsy.
Look, I get it — selling on Amazon isn’t that simple. There’s a ton of regulations and fees that come with the platform.
But these regulations are what’s keeping a lot of larger brands from selling there, aka, there's an opportunity there.
Amazon accounts for 40% of online retail in the US (and growing rapidly). Not only can you get your Amazon to rank in Google searches, but 90% of sales on the platform come from internal Amazon searches.
In other words, Amazon is its own marketing engine.
While you might take a haircut on your initial sales, you can use Amazon as a customer acquisition channel and optimize the lifetime value to recoup your lost upfront sales.
Here’s how we did it for a small e-commerce client.
Tactic: Radha Beauty Oil
Radha Beauty sells a range of natural oils for skin, hair and general health. Our keyword research found that Amazon listings dominated most of their target keywords.
With clients like this we make sure to track SERP result type, to properly understand what Google wants to rank for target keywords.
Specifically, Amazon listings had the following SERP share:
First result = 27.3%
Second result = 40.9%
Third result = 35.9%
Fortunately, this client was already selling on Amazon. Unfortunately, they had a limited budget. We didn’t have the hours in our retainer to optimize both their e-commerce store and their Amazon store.
This data gave us the firepower to have a conversation with the client that our time would drive more revenue optimizing their Amazon store over their e-commerce platform.
We focused our efforts optimizing their Amazon listings just like we would an e-commerce store:
Amazon product titles
Amazon descriptions
Generating reviews from past customers
Building links to Amazon store pages
The results were overwhelmingly positive.
If you’re a newer e-commerce brand, an Amazon store gives you the opportunity to outrank giants like Ulta in Google.
6. When the SERPs call for video
Predator Nutrition is an e-commerce site that sells health and fitness supplements. They have their own private label products, but they’re mainly a retailer (meaning they sell other brands as well).
While performing keyword research for them, we found a ton of search volume around people looking for reviews of products they sold.
The SERPs clearly show that searchers prefer to watch videos for “review” searches.
There are a couple ways you can capture these searches:
Create videos for your YouTube channel reviewing products
Find and pay an influencer to review products for you
I prefer method #2, as reviews on third-party channels rank better — especially if you’re targeting YouTubers with a large following.
Not only are you adding more branded content in the SERPs, but you’re getting your products reviewed for targeted audiences.
Final thoughts...
This industry tends to romanticize SEO as a traffic source.
Don’t get me wrong, I love how passionate our community is, but... we have to stop.
We’re trying to build businesses. We can’t fall in love with a single source of traffic (and turn our backs to others).
The internet is constantly changing. We need to adapt along with it.
What do you think?
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Despite renewable energy investment more than tripling globally during the current decade compared to the last 10-year period, most of the power delivered to the world’s electric grids during the recent decade was from coal. In fact, coal is still the world’s largest source of electricity, providing 38% of world electrical generation in 2018, about the same as 1997. The world spent about $2.6 trillion on renewable energy projects during the decade, over three times the amount spent from 2000 to 2009. Solar photovoltaic investments totaled around $1.3 trillion, and onshore and offshore wind investment totaled around $1 trillion. Globally, solar energy capacity increased by 638 gigawatts between 2009 and 2019, while coal-fired capacity increased by 529 gigawatts, wind capacity increased 487 gigawatts, and natural gas capacity increased 436 gigawatts. Last year, $41 billion was invested in coal worldwide.
Solar capacity additions have taken off because its costs have decreased as technological advances have made solar panels smaller, cheaper to manufacture, and more efficient. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average construction cost for solar in the United States decreased by 37 percent between 2013 and 2017.
China’s spending on renewable electricity was the highest in the world at $758 billion from 2000 to the first half of 2019. The United States was second with $356 billion, followed by Japan at $202 billion. The European nations spent around $698 billion on wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources, with Germany and the United Kingdom spending the most. It is expected that 330 gigawatts of new wind power capacity will come online over the next five years, driven primarily by onshore wind power projects in the United States and China.
Investments in renewable power capacity last year, however, dropped 38 percent in China and by 6 percent in the United States, while rising in Europe by 45 percent.
Nuclear
Despite the International Energy Agency warning that the loss of emissions-free nuclear power would derail efforts to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, the net capacity for nuclear power declined by 7 percent over the decade as reactor shutdowns and decommissioning outpaced construction of new reactors. Nuclear power net capacity fell more than any other electricity source—oil declined by only 2 percent. Those concerned about sustaining carbon-free electrical generation should be concerned about the decrease in nuclear generation.
China
According to the “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2019” report, compiled by the Frankfurt School, Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the U.N. Environment Programme, China led the world in both renewable capacity investments and in coal-fired generation construction. Despite its lead, renewable power investment in China has fallen sharply because of cuts to subsidies by the government. China installed by far the largest amount of new renewable capacity excluding large hydro over the 10-year period, at around 451 gigawatts (36 percent of the world total). China has been the largest participant in the construction of both solar and coal, adding over 200 gigawatts of each during the 2010 decade.
The Brussels-based Global Wind Energy Council predicts a rush of new wind power projects in China, which may be more pronounced for 2019 and 2020 due to a new regulation released by the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission on the 21st of May. In order to qualify for a relatively higher feed in tariff for both onshore and offshore wind, the projects must be grid-connected in the near future. For onshore wind, the feed in tariff will expire starting in 2021. The belief is that by expediting the effective date of the subsidies, it may in turn expedite the deployment of useful renewable energy.
United States
Forecasts are predicting a large drop in coal generation in United States. The Energy Information Administration, in its latest Annual Energy Outlook, is predicting that electric power demand for coal will fall to 17 percent of total generation by 2050. Moody’s Investors Service predicts coal will represent 11 percent of total U.S. power generation by 2030—down from 27 percent in 2018. (See graph below.) The over 50 percent drop in coal demand from utilities by 2030 implies that coal demand would decline by about 7 percent per year on average over the next 10 years. Coal’s U.S. decline results from low cost natural gas generation, mandates and subsidies for renewable electricity, and tougher environmental regulations put in place during the Obama administration.
The impact of the Moody’s coal forecast on the rail industry is severe, slashing revenue for U.S. railroads by about $5 billion by 2030—5.5 percent of the railroad industry’s 2018 revenue. Railroads that rely on domestic coal from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming will be affected the most by a smaller demand for thermal coal used by electric utilities. Union Pacific and BNSF Railway Co. are two railroads that have the greatest exposure to coal that originates from that region.
Coal constitutes 13 percent of total freight volume and remains the largest single freight commodity moved by rail. According to the Association of American Railroads, trains haul nearly 70 percent of U.S. coal to its destination, with the majority of coal being used to generate electricity.
As coal demand from U.S. utilities declines, railroads will become increasingly reliant on export coal—a more volatile source of revenue. About 8 percent of U.S. coal is exported to Europe, China, and India. Some of the lost coal rail shipments may be supplanted by growth of intermodal freight–the transportation of shipping containers and truck trailers by rail. Over the last decade, intermodal freight growth has largely offset lost coal carloads.
Conclusion
Internationally, coal is still the dominant electricity generation fuel despite large investments in renewable energy. While more renewable capacity has been added over the last decade than coal capacity, coal is able to run at higher capacity factors. Solar and wind are both intermittent technologies that need traditional generation sources to meet demand when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Coal can be dispatched at any time to meet demand and many countries are taking advantage of it, particularly in Asia.
If you've been searching for a quick hack to write content for featured snippets, this isn't the article for you. But if you're looking for lasting results and a smart tactic to increase your chances of winning a snippet, you're definitely in the right place.
Borrowed from journalism, the inverted pyramid method of writing can help you craft intentional, compelling, rich content that will help you rank for multiple queries and win more than one snippet at a time. Learn how in this fan-favorite Whiteboard Friday starring the one and only Dr. Pete!
Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Hey, Moz fans, Dr. Pete here. I'm the Marketing Scientist at Moz and visiting you from not-so-sunny Chicago in the Seattle office. We've talked a lot in the last couple years in my blog posts and such about featured snippets.
So these are answers that kind of cross with organic. So it's an answer box, but you get the attribution and the link. Britney has done some great Whiteboard Fridays, the last couple, about how you do research for featured snippets and how you look for good questions to answer. But I want to talk about something that we don't cover very much, which is how to write content for answers.
The inverted pyramid style of content writing
It's tough, because I'm a content marketer and I don't like to think that there's a trick to content. I'm afraid to give people the kind of tricks that would have them run off and write lousy, thin content. But there is a technique that works that I think has been very effective for featured snippets for writing for questions and answers. It comes from the world of journalism, which gives me a little more faith in its credibility. So I want to talk to you about that today. That's called the inverted pyramid.
1. Start with the lead
It looks something like this. When you write a story as a journalist, you start with the lead. You lead with the lead. So if we have a story like "Penguins Rob a Bank," which would be a strange story, we want to put that right out front. That's interesting. Penguins rob a bank, that's all you need to know. The thing about it is, and this is true back to print, especially when we had to buy each newspaper. We weren't subscribers. But definitely on the web, you have to get people's attention quickly. You have to draw them in. You have to have that headline.
2. Go into the details
So leading with the lead is all about pulling them in to see if they're interested and grabbing their attention. The inverted pyramid, then you get into the smaller pieces. Then you get to the details. You might talk about how many penguins were there and what bank did they rob and how much money did they take.
3. Move to the context
Then you're going to move to the context. That might be the history of penguin crime in America and penguin ties to the mafia and what does this say about penguin culture and what are we going to do about this. So then it gets into kind of the speculation and the value add that you as an expert might have.
How does this apply to answering questions for SEO?
So how does this apply to answering questions in an SEO context?
Lead with the answer, get into the details and data, then address the sub-questions.
Well, what you can do is lead with the answer. If somebody's asked you a question, you have that snippet, go straight to the summary of the answer. Tell them what they want to know and then get into the details and get into the data. Add those things that give you credibility and that show your expertise. Then you can talk about context.
But I think what's interesting with answers — and I'll talk about this in a minute — is getting into these sub-questions, talking about if you have a very big, broad question, that's going to dive up into a lot of follow-ups. People who are interested are going to want to know about those follow-ups. So go ahead and answer those.
If I win a featured snippet, will people click on my answer? Should I give everything away?
So I think there's a fear we have. What if we answer the question and Google puts it in that box? Here's the question and that's the query. It shows the answer. Are people going to click? What's going to happen? Should we be giving everything away? Yes, I think, and there are a couple reasons.
Questions that can be very easily answered should be avoided
First, I want you to be careful. Britney has gotten into some of this. This is a separate topic on its own. You don't always want to answer questions that can be very easily answered. We've already seen that with the Knowledge Graph. Google says something like time and date or a fact about a person, anything that can come from that Knowledge Graph. "How tall was Abraham Lincoln?" That's answered and done, and they're already replacing those answers.
Answer how-to questions and questions with rich context instead
So you want to answer the kinds of things, the how-to questions and the why questions that have a rich enough context to get people interested. In those cases, I don't think you have to be afraid to give that away, and I'm going to tell you why. This is more of a UX perspective. If somebody asks this question and they see that little teaser of your answer and it's credible, they're going to click through.
"Giving away" the answer builds your credibility and earns more qualified visitors
So here you've got the penguin. He's flushed with cash. He's looking for money to spend. We're not going to worry about the ethics of how he got his money. You don't know. It's okay. Then he's going to click through to your link. You know you have your branding and hopefully it looks professional, Pyramid Inc., and he sees that question again and he sees that answer again.
Giving the searcher a "scent trail" builds trust
If you're afraid that that's repetitive, I think the good thing about that is this gives him what we call a scent trail. He can see that, "You know what? Yes, this is the page I meant to click on. This is relevant. I'm in the right place." Then you get to the details, and then you get to the data and you give this trail of credibility that gives them more to go after and shows your expertise.
People who want an easy answer aren't the kind of visitors that convert
I think the good thing about that is we're so afraid to give something away because then somebody might not click. But the kind of people who just wanted that answer and clicked, they're not the kind of people that are going to convert. They're not qualified leads. So these people that see this and see it as credible and want to go read more, they're the qualified leads. They're the kind of people that are going to give you that money.
So I don't think we should be afraid of this. Don't give away the easy answers. I think if you're in the easy answer business, you're in trouble right now anyway, to be honest. That's a tough topic. But give them something that guides them to the path of your answer and gives them more information.
How does this tactic work in the real world?
Thin content isn't credible.
So I'm going to talk about how that looks in a more real context. My fear is this. Don't take this and run off and say write a bunch of pages that are just a question and a paragraph and a ton of thin content and answering hundreds and hundreds of questions. I think that can really look thin to Google. So you don't want pages that are like question, answer, buy my stuff. It doesn't look credible. You're not going to convert. I think those pages are going to look thin to Google, and you're going to end up spinning out many, many hundreds of them. I've seen people do that.
Use the inverted pyramid to build richer content and lead to your CTA
What I'd like to see you do is craft this kind of question page. This is something that takes a fair amount of time and effort. You have that question. You lead with that answer. You're at the top of the pyramid. Get into the details. Get into the things that people who are really interested in this would want to know and let them build up to that. Then get into data. If you have original data, if you have something you can contribute that no one else can, that's great.
Then go ahead and answer those sub-questions, because the people who are really interested in that question will have follow-ups. If you're the person who can answer that follow-up, that makes for a very, very credible piece of content, and not just something that can rank for this snippet, but something that really is useful for anybody who finds it in any way.
So I think this is great content to have. Then if you want some kind of call to action, like a "Learn More," that's contextual, I think this is a page that will attract qualified leads and convert.
Moz's example: What is a Title Tag?
So I want to give you an example. This is something we've used a lot on Moz in the Learning Center. So, obviously, we have the Moz blog, but we also have these permanent pages that answer kind of the big questions that people always have. So we have one on the title tag, obviously a big topic in SEO.
Here's what this page looks like. So we go right to the question: What is a title tag? We give the answer: A title tag is an HTML element that does this and this and is useful for SEO, etc. Right there in the paragraph. That's in the featured snippet. That's okay. If that's all someone wants to know and they see that Moz answered that, great, no problem.
But naturally, the people who ask that question, they really want to know: What does this do? What's it good for? How does it help my SEO? How do I write one? So we dug in and we ended up combining three or four pieces of content into one large piece of content, and we get into some pretty rich things. So we have a preview tool that's been popular. We give a code sample. We show how it might look in HTML. It gives it kind of a visual richness. Then we start to get into these sub-questions. Why are title tags important? How do I write a good title tag?
One page can gain the ability to rank for hundreds of questions and phrases
What's interesting, because I think sometimes people want to split up all the questions because they're afraid that they have to have one question per page, what's interesting is that I think looked the other day, this was ranking in our 40 million keyword set for over 200 phrases, over 200 questions. So it's ranking for things like "what is a title tag," but it's also ranking for things like "how do I write a good title tag." So you don't have to be afraid of that. If this is a rich, solid piece of content that people are going to, you're going to rank for these sub-questions, in many cases, and you're going to get featured snippets for those as well.
Then, when people have gotten through all of this, we can give them something like, "Hey, Moz has some of these tools. You can help write richer title tags. We can check your title tags. Why don't you try a free 30-day trial?" Obviously, we're experimenting with that, and you don't want to push too hard, but this becomes a very rich piece of content. We can answer multiple questions, and you actually have multiple opportunities to get featured snippets.
So I think this inverted pyramid technique is legitimate. I think it can help you write good content that's a win-win. It's good for SEO. It's good for your visitors, and it will hopefully help you land some featured snippets.
So I'd love to hear about what kind of questions you're writing content for, how you can break that up, how you can answer that, and I'd love to discuss that with you. So we'll see you in the comments. Thank you.
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This week the U.N. Summit on climate change was held in New York and there is clear pressure for countries to shutter coal-fired power plants and to provide additional country commitments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, despite there being 15 months before countries are supposed to revise their commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement. Australia and Japan were denied speaking time because of their role in funding coal. Protesters even flew a blimp of Japanese President Shinzo Abe in a bucket of coal outside U.N. headquarters. China and India did not make new commitments to further their reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but instead participated in other venues. India took part in joint announcements on low-carbon manufacturing, and China led a work stream for protecting and expanding natural carbon sinks. Currently, China’s plan regarding the 2015 Paris Agreement is to allow its emissions to increase and peak in 2030, after which it will begin to reduce them. Despite all the hyperbole and mutual expressions of admiration, nothing was accomplished.
China
China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment unveiled a new position paper recently that shows little progress towards its Paris Agreement, and even possibly shows a step backward. The paper indicates a return to China’s historic position that developed countries are primarily responsible for addressing climate change and provided no mention that a revised commitment might be imminent. The paper states, “China is willing to strengthen its communication with all other parties in the implementation of nationally determined contributions and the formulation of mid-to- long term climate strategy.” Similar to Japan, China is funding coal-fired power around the world. According to their paper, they are willing to talk, but as we all know, talk is cheap, regardless of the currency.
Further, China’s approvals for new coalmine construction have surged in 2019. China is expecting consumption of coal to increase in the coming years despite its actions to fight smog and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. China’s energy regulator approved the construction of 141 million metric tons of new annual coal production capacity from January to June, compared to 25 million metric tons approved in 2018—over a fivefold increase. The projects included new mines in the regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shanxi, and Shaanxi that are part of a national strategy to consolidate output at dedicated coal production bases, as well as expansions of existing collieries. With these actions, combined with the Chinese presently constructing additions to their coal fleet that equal the total coal fleet of the United States, anyone who suggests that China is moving away from coal is simply mistaken.
While some smog-prone regions like Hebei and Beijing have cut coal use and shut hundreds of small mines and power plants, China is still allowing for significant increases in coal production and coal-fired power generation. China’s coal output increased 2.6 percent in the first-half of 2019 to 1.76 billion metric tons. The China State Grid Corporation projects that total coal-fired capacity would peak at 1,230 to 1,350 gigawatts—an increase of about 200 to 300 gigawatts. China mandates “ultra-low emissions” technology in all new coal power plants and is improving mine zoning regulations. By the end of last year, 80 percent of China’s total coal-fired power capacity had installed “ultra-low emissions” equipment—about 810 gigawatts.
India
According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, India increased its coal consumption in 2018 by 8.7 percent to 452 million metric tons of oil equivalent—up from 416 million metric tons in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, India’s average annual growth rate of coal consumption was 5.7 percent. Coal has been providing about 55 percent of India’s total energy requirements, and the future does not look very different for coal in India’s energy mix.
Coal India Limited (CIL), which is the world’s largest coal mining company, provides about 85 percent of India’s coal production. The central government owns around three-quarters of the company, which provides revenue to the treasury through dividend payments and taxes on coal production. The company provides tax revenue and employment to the coal-producing states, which are among the poorest in India. Indian Railways transports the bulk of domestic coal and the company over-charges for coal transport to subsidize passenger transport. For power plants located far from mines, coal transport is often the largest component of their coal costs.
An additional 50 gigawatts of coal-fired generation are under construction in India, despite the country’s focus on increasing renewable energy and natural gas consumption. India’s energy policy focuses on bringing affordable electricity to all homes. Its per-capita electricity consumption is only one-third of the world average, with millions of homes lacking an electricity connection, despite Prime Minister Modi’s accomplishment of bringing electricity to many of India’s villages.
Russia
Over the last 10 years, Russia increased its annual coal production by over 30 percent to 440 million tons, making the country the world’s third-largest producer. In the same period, investments in its coal industry increased 150 percent. According to a draft development program, annual coal production might reach as much as 670 million tons in the next 15 years.
Almost half of Russia’s current 58 coal mines in operation opened in the last 20 years. Several more are under construction, including in the Arctic. In the Taymyr Peninsula, the large territory stretching into the far northern Kara Sea, there are plans for the production of over 25 million tons annually over the next five years. The federal government has even allowed a piece of land to be removed from the great Arctic Natural Park in order to facilitate the construction of the Chaika coal terminal.
The Vostok Coal company is in the process of developing the first of a large number of mines on the northeastern tip of the peninsula. The mine areas of the Severnaya Zvezda (Northern Star) company are located nearby and the two companies plan to build two major port terminals to export coal. Coal is expected to play a major role in the development of the Northern Sea Route. President Putin requested that shipping on the Arctic route reach 80 million tons per year by 2024 in his six-year plan. Russia plans to sell its coal to the Asian market as its coal sales to Europe have been declining.
Russia still plans on ratifying the Paris Agreement and says it will be curbing emissions, but coal is not mentioned in its plans. Also, the 2009 Russian Climate Doctrine does not specifically mention coal. According to Putin’s representative on climate issues, Ruslan Edelgeriev, a new climate strategy through 2050 is being developed and will be completed in December. Russia’s Energy Doctrine that was adopted in May 2019 indicates that Russia’s position as an energy superpower is being challenged by international efforts to combat climate change.
Conclusion
Despite the United Nations efforts to curb coal use, a number of countries have plans for further development of their coal resources. China, India, and Russia all plan on expanding coal production.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. understandably excoriated the CNN climate change town hall, featuring Democratic presidential contenders. As Jenkins noted, the candidates and moderator focused on unscientific scare tactics that would cause the American public to tune out. However, Jenkins then lamented that the Democatic/CNN alarmism was defusing support for a “sensible” policy, namely a carbon tax. In this post I’ll explain why Jenkins’ arguments for a carbon tax don’t work, as any conservative or libertarian should realize.
Jenkins’ Case for a Carbon Tax
Let me first quote Jenkins in his own words:
[The CNN town hall] comes just days after the shocking suicide of Harvard climate economist Martin Weitzman, rightly praised in obituaries for an insight lacking in the CNN town hall: A climate disaster is far from guaranteed. It’s the low but not insignificant chance of a “fat tail” worst-case disaster that we should worry about. (Mr. Weitzman put the odds at 3% to 10%.)
…
As the New York Times also noted, “For the first time, Ms. Warren explicitly embraced a carbon tax before quickly pivoting away . . .”
What’s Ms. Warren afraid of? A carbon tax would hardly be prohibitive. Weitzman advocated $40 a ton—the equivalent of 36 cents per gallon of gasoline. Such a tax could be implemented without raising the overall tax burden; it could be used to trim taxes on work, saving and investment, improving the economy overall. It could be embraced and copied by other nations out of self-interest rather than self-abnegation (unlike the absurd Green New Deal).
Jenkins believes he is offering a perfectly reasonable proposal of a modest carbon tax, that won’t hurt the economy (if done right) and could significantly reduce the chance of a global catastrophe. What’s not to like?
Weitzman’s “Fat Tails” Argument Can Justify Anything
First let’s address Jenkins’ citation of the recently (and tragically) deceased Martin Weitzman. As Jenkins admits, the argument over climate change policy is no longer about a looming disaster that a carbon tax (and other measures) are necessary to avert, where the “consensus science” makes it a slam dunk and only “deniers” could have problems with it.
No, now the cutting edge of the debate is between people who are looking at what will probably happen, versus worst-case analysts who keep bringing up what might happen. Martin Weitzman’s highly technical work showed conditions of uncertainty under which standard cost/benefit analysis breaks down, mathematically, and so we can’t just implement policies that make sense “on average.” Indeed, it is now commonplace in the literature to refer to a carbon tax and other mitigation policies as “insurance,” because they might not make economic sense in most cases, but there’s a small probability that they will stave off disaster.
Now the thing about an insurance policy is that you never know if it makes sense, at least just looking at one particular case. For example, if you spend decades paying for fire insurance on your house, and your house never burns down, that doesn’t mean you were a sucker.
So right off the bat, if we are now justifying a carbon tax on the basis of a “fat tail” in the probability distribution of potential catastrophes, then there is no way to ever get rid of it. As last year’s Nobel laureate for his work in climate economics, William Nordhaus, explained in his 2009 critique of Weitzman:
The CRRA [constant relative risk aversion] functions that Weitzman analyzes (with α>1) assume that zero consumption has utility of minus negative infinity (and unbounded positive marginal utility) as consumption goes to zero. This has the unattractive and unrealistic feature that societies would pay unlimited amounts to prevent an infinitesimal probability of zero consumption. For example, assume that there is a very, very tiny probability that a killer asteroid might hit Earth, and further assume that we can deflect that asteroid for an expenditure of $10 trillion. The CRRA utility function implies that we would spend the $10 trillion no matter how small was the probability. Even if the probability were 10-10, 10-20, or even 10-1,000,000, we would spend a large fraction of world income to avoid these infinitesimally small outcomes (short of going extinct to prevent extinction).
An alternative would be to assume that near-zero consumption is extremely but not infinitely undesirable. This is analogous in the health literature to assuming that the value of avoiding an individual’s statistical death is finite. To be realistic, societies tolerate a tiny probability of zero consumption if preventing zero consumption is ruinously expensive. [William Nordhaus, bold added.]
Now to be fair, Weitzman responded to Nordhaus, offering reasons that he thought climate change was more important as a “fat tails” issue than some other hypothetical possibilities (killer AI, super viruses, etc.).
Even so, in terms of the rhetoric of his argument, Nordhaus’ point remains: If you’re going to say that a certain catastrophe is unacceptable so that standard cost/benefit analysis leads to the wrong answer mathematically—because you’re multiplying a low probability by a “negative infinity” value of the outcome—then you could do that with just about anything. Just as guys like me can’t prove that humanity won’t suffer from a collapsing ice sheet, likewise we can’t prove that humanity won’t be destroyed by an asteroid or aliens or killer bees for that matter. It’s no use to apply a “rational” assessment of the pros and cons of spending trillions on these issues, because after all, the whole point of Weitzman’s analysis is that such bean counting doesn’t apply in these cases.
As I’ve argued repeatedly here at IER, even on paper the theoretical case for a “win-win” with a revenue-neutral carbon tax is quite a knife-edge result. It’s not merely that political officials have to watch all those hundreds of billions in carbon tax revenue float by, without increasing spending. On top of that, they have to make sure that the dollar-for-dollar offsetting tax cuts consist largely of reductions in corporate income tax cuts. If instead they were to devote the carbon tax receipts to lump-sum rebates—which is the plan that “conservative Republicans” like Bob Inglis support—then standard modeling in the literature shows that the economy will be hurt by a carbon tax, because of the “tax interaction effect.”
In any event, Jenkins is ignoring history. As I explain in this IER study, when the modern federal income tax was first introduced, it was sold as a fair and efficient way to reduce the burden of tariffs. In 1913, the top federal marginal income tax rate was 7%, but by 1918—just five years later—it was 77%, because of World War I. And of course, Americans got smacked with tariffs too, under the Hoover Administration in the early 1930s.
Does Jenkins really believe that we can trust the political process this time around?
Conclusion
As a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. rightfully mocks the anti-scientific virtue signaling on display at the CNN town hall on climate change. But his own advocacy of a carbon tax itself is naïve, reflecting a lack of historical awareness and an appreciation of what his arguments would justify down the road.
On Monday, September 16, Google announced that they would be restricting review stars in SERPs to specific schemas and would stop displaying reviews that they deemed to be "self-serving." It wasn't clear at the time when this change would be happening, or if it had already happened.
Across our daily MozCast tracking set, we measured a drop the morning of September 16 (in sync with the announcement) followed by a continued drop the next day ...
The purple bar shows the new "normal" in our data set (so far). This represents a two-day relative drop of nearly 14% (13.8%). It definitely appears that Google dropped review snippets from page-1 SERPs across the roughly 48-hour period around their announcement (note that measurements are only taken once per day, so we can't pinpoint changes beyond 24-hour periods).
Review drops by category
When we broke this two-day drop out into 20 industry categories (roughly corresponding to Google Ads), the results were dramatic. Note that every industry experienced some loss of review snippets. This is not a situation with "winners" and "losers" like an algorithm update. Google's changes only reduced review snippets. Here's the breakdown ...
Percent drops in blue are <10%, purple are 10%-25%, and red represents 25%+ drops. Finance and Real Estate were hit the hardest, both losing almost half of their SERPs with review snippets (-46%). Note that our 10K daily data set broken down 20 ways only has 500 SERPs per category, so the sample size is low, but even at the scale of 500 SERPs, some of these changes are clearly substantial.
Average reviews per SERP
If we look only at the page-1 SERPs that have review snippets, were there any changes in the average number of snippets per SERP? The short answer is "no" ...
On September 18, when the dust settled on the drop, SERPs with review snippets had an average of 2.26 snippets, roughly the same as prior to the drop. Many queries seem to have been unaffected.
Review counts per SERP
How did this break down by count? Let's look at just the three days covering the review snippet drop. Page-1 SERPs in MozCast with review snippets had between one and nine results with snippets. Here's the breakdown ...
Consistent with the stable average, there was very little shift across groups. Nearly half of all SERPs with review snippets had just one result with review snippets, with a steady drop as count increases.
Next steps and Q&A
What does this mean for you if your site has been affected? I asked my colleague and local SEO expert, Miriam Ellis, for a bit of additional advice ...
(Q) Will I be penalized if I leave my review schema active on my website?
(A) No. Continuing to use review schema should have no negative impact. There will be no penalty.
(Q) Are first-party reviews “dead”?
(A) Of course not. Displaying reviews on your website can still be quite beneficial in terms of:
Instilling trust in visitors at multiple phases of the consumer journey
Creating unique content for store location landing pages
Helping you monitor your reputation, learn from and resolve customers’ cited complaints
(Q) Could first-party review stars return to the SERPs in future?
(A) Anything is possible with Google. Review stars were often here-today-gone-tomorrow even while Google supported them. But, Google seems to have made a fairly firm decision this time that they feel first-party reviews are “self serving”.
(Q) Is Google right to consider first-party reviews “self-serving”?
(A) Review spam and review gating are serious problems. Google is absolutely correct that efforts must be made to curb abusive consumer sentiment tactics. At the same time, Google’s increasing control of business reputation is a cause for concern, particularly when their own review corpus is inundated with spam, even for YMYL local business categories. In judging which practices are self-serving, Google may want to look closer to home to see whether their growing middle-man role between consumers and businesses is entirely altruistic. Any CTR loss attendant on Google’s new policy could rightly be seen as less traffic for brand-controlled websites and more for Google.
Thanks, Miriam! A couple of additional comments. As someone who tracks the SERPs, I can tell you that the presence of review stars has definitely fluctuated over time, but in the past this has been more of a "volume" knob, for lack of a better word. In other words, Google is always trying to find an overall balance of usefulness for the feature. You can expect this number to vary in the future, as well, but, as Miriam said, you have to look at the philosophy underlying this change. It's unlikely Google will reverse course on that philosophy itself.
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WASHINGTON DC (September 24, 2019) – Today, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) announced it has filed a second open records request with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to compel the release of certain documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) related to the agency’s involvement in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) regulatory process.
IER maintains that the USDA has no statutory authority or involvement in the RFS, and authority over the program resides with the Environmental Protection Agency with an advisory role for the Department of Energy. Nonetheless, public records and news reports demonstrate USDA officials have in fact sought to influence administration RFS policy. Such efforts on the part of USDA are a matter of grave public concern.
IER President Thomas Pyle made the following statement:
“It’s unfortunate that it has come to this, but the public has a right to know if special interests are getting favor within the administration in a way that negatively impacts the budgets of everyday Americans. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Censky is the former longtime CEO of the American Soybean Association. Given that soybeans are the second largest source of biofuels used for compliance with RFS, knowing whether or not Mr. Censky is undertaking actions to materially benefit his former employer is of grave importance. Let’s hope he is not.”
“It is no secret that we disagree with the Trump Administration’s RFS policy, but this request for transparency is not about our disagreements with the implementation of a flawed program that increases transportation costs for American families. It is about whether the administration is following the law. It is also about whether administration officials are giving favorable treatment to the industry they once represented.”
IER submitted its initial FOIA request in May 2019 out of concern that the USDA was interfering with the RFS regulatory process. Having received no records, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this year. Today’s FOIA request has been expanded to determine what role the USDA has undertaken in the past several months to alter the renewable fuels mandate that would lead to increased costs for American families. IER looks forward to the USDA satisfying its public transparency obligations.
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To read IER’s original FOIA Request to the USDA click here.
Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy just released the “Guide to Chinese Climate Policy 2019,” and it provides yet more support for President Trump’s reasoning regarding U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.
While dressed in alarmist rhetoric (“July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded”), author David Sandalow tries to tuxedo a muddy pig. “Trends in China’s response to climate change have been mixed,” Sandalow lamely admits, before getting into the specifics.
China is continuing its coal reliance in spades. The author’s three bullets tell the story:
In 2018, China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas, rose roughly 2.5 percent. This was the largest annual increase in five years.
In 2018, roughly 30 GW of new coal-fired power capacity was added in China (roughly 60 midsized coal plants). Capacity additions for coal-fired power plants continued at the same pace in the first half of 2019.
China’s public financial institutions continued to lead the world in financing new coal-fired power plants abroad (44 GW).
In 2018, China again led the world in renewable power deployment, adding 43 percent of the world’s new renewable power capacity.
In 2018, China again led the world in electric vehicle deployment. Roughly 45 percent of the electric cars and 99 percent of the electric buses in the world today are in China.
In 2018, seven of the world’s nine nuclear power plants that connected to the grid for the first time were in China.
In December 2018, the Chinese delegation played an important role in helping shape a global consensus on steps to implement the Paris Agreement at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-24) in Katowice, Poland.
On several occasions, including in July and August 2019, China’s leaders publicly reiterated their commitment to fighting climate change.
The first three points evidence how a centrally planned economy can violate least-cost energy principles, in part to respond to international political pressure. With its coal-dominated power sector, moreover, China’s electric vehicles are truly “emission elsewhere” vehicles.
That leaves the last two points on politics. First, with soft, voluntary commitments under the Paris accord, China (like India) can cheerlead, while requesting “cash for climate action” out of a $100 billion annual kitty.
Author Sandalow adds window dressing:
Political tensions between China and the United States escalated dramatically during the past year. Challenges related to the China-US trade war focused China’s leaders on economic stability and energy security. Some observers noted that climate change appeared to be a lower priority as a result. Others noted that the Chinese government has used its commitment to limiting emissions and acceptance of climate science to draw contrasts with the Trump administration, positioning itself favorably in the eyes of many around the world.
Yes, Trump energy policy is doing its part to weaken the international movement to cap CO2 emissions. And yes, tariffs have pushed the two nations apart. But imagine a U.S.-side carbon tax imposing “border adjustments” on China goods in the opposite policy scenario. Political tensions between the two countries would remain if not escalate.
Conclusion
China climate policy is “complicated and multifaceted,” concludes David Sandalow.
Yet this is clear: there is no solution to climate change without China. China’s transition to a low-carbon economy will have far-reaching consequences not just for China but the entire world.
With business-as-usual in China, as elsewhere in Asia, King Coal is undermining the Paris accord one day at a time, with years and decades of emissions being locked-in. Small wonder why the global 85 percent market share of fossil fuels shows little sign of eroding.
The grand global carbon mitigation strategy is in big trouble. Free-market wealth-is-health adaptation remains the only viable strategy to meet and defeat weather and climate extremes from any source. It is time to call off the statist climate crusade.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil. The reserve is maintained by the Department of Energy and is located along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana and Texas in underground salt caverns. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was started in 1975 after oil supplies were interrupted during the 1973–1974 oil embargo to mitigate future supply disruptions, providing a cushion against unexpected price spikes. It has a capacity of 727 million barrels, but as of September 6, 2019, the oil reserves totaled 644.8 million barrels. The maximum withdrawal capability is 4.4 million barrels per day, taking about 150 days to use the entire inventory.
Withdrawals of crude oil from the reserve are made by the President under the authorities of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, signed by President Ford on December 22, 1975. On July 21, 1977, approximately 412,000 barrels of Saudi Arabian light crude were delivered to the reserve. The oil is distributed by competitive sale in the United States. Other nations have their own reserves, including China, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and other OECD countries. Sometimes nations will release oil according to their own needs, and at other times they have done it in concert with other nations.
Emergency Withdrawals
Emergency releases of the reserve have occurred three times. In 1991, at the beginning of Operation Desert Storm, the United States, assuring the adequacy of global oil supplies with its allies, announced the emergency sale on the day the war broke out in the Persian Gulf.
The second release occurred in September 2005, after Hurricane Katrina crushed the oil production, distribution, and refining industries in the Gulf regions of Louisiana and Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina’s destruction was so great that refiners requested emergency release, actually receiving approval within 24 hours of the hurricane’s landfall, and before the determination was made by President George W. Bush.
In June 2011, the United States and its partners in the International Energy Agency announced the release of 60 million barrels in response to crude oil supply disruptions in Libya and other countries. The U.S. obligation was half—30 million barrels—and 30.6 million barrels were delivered by August 2011.
President Trump’s Announcement
The recent drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities that disrupted the daily production of 5.7 million barrels of oil, or about 5 percent of the world’s daily oil supply, resulted in President Trump authorizing the release of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep the markets well supplied. He also informed all appropriate agencies to expedite approvals of the oil pipelines currently in the permitting process in Texas and various other States.
The last time there was a release of the reserve in 2011 by President Obama, the announcement led to an immediate drop in the price of crude for a short period of time. Oil prices returned to the pre-release levels within 1 week. Clearly, the Obama Administration recognized that more oil leads to lower prices, but a small increase in oil supply only results in a small turndown in price for a short period of time. A larger supply that can last longer has a greater impact on price, which is the reason for the relatively low oil prices the world has been experiencing in recent months. The United States is producing oil at record levels and is now the world’s largest producer and exporter of petroleum. The U.S. contribution to world oil supplies has held prices down, despite cut backs in oil production by OPEC and Russia.
President Trump, recognizing this, is calling for more infrastructure to get U.S. oil to world markets. Expediting energy infrastructure is a better long term solution than taking withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as bottlenecks currently impede the flow of available energy resources throughout the United States and North America. Examples are the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast and the Transmountain pipeline in Canada, as well as both oil pipeline infrastructure and natural gas pipelines throughout the United States. For true energy security and logistics efficiency, infrastructure must be constructed. Recognizing this, opponents of the use of oil and gas have targeted pipelines throughout the United States and are litigating and demonstrating against them.
Despite the President’s efforts to increase oil supplies, the Democrats in the House have passed three bills to limit oil leasing in the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Limiting oil leasing in these areas would have a greater impact on oil prices if the bills were also passed by the Senate and signed into law. They are not expected to pass the Senate and certainly would not be signed into law by President Trump.
Conclusion
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an emergency oil storage facility to be used to mitigate oil supply disruptions. It has been used three times in its history and may be used to deal with price spikes occurring from the recent attack on Saudi oil facilities. However, to keep oil prices down, the best remedy for the United States is to have a vibrant oil industry that ranks number one in production and can supply world markets. Building out adequate energy infrastructure is also instrumental in achieving and maintaining this goal.
