General Energy

Higher Education’s Energy Lessons

We tend to think of colleges, and especially their students, as our future. We’re not only talking about the students themselves, who will become the next generation of leaders, but the actual campuses, and what we can learn from them about our electricity future.

What Did the 1973 Oil Embargo Teach Us?

Forty years ago this month, Syria and Egypt launched a Yom Kippur surprise attack on Israel to regain land and prestige lost in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli forces were nearing Damascus and Cairo when a ceasefire took hold. But as the Soviet Union resupplied its Arab clients and President…

40 Years Back, 40 Years Forward

Today, in 2013, we are approximately halfway between the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the fossil-free future RMI envisions by 2050 in Reinventing Fire. There are both similarities and differences in what happened in the 70s and what is happening today.

A Self-Imposed Exile

If there was a silver lining, it was that the 1973 oil embargo prompted the U.S. to make real strides toward energy efficiency.