The Daily Climate: Are fast-falling oil prices scuttling alternative energy?

Oil prices are going through the floor -- confounding some clean energy advocates and peak oil acolytes who were more than a little triumphalist during the record-setting high prices of the past summer. The price of oil was never a particularly solid economic justification for low- or no-carbon energy, however: as today's Daily Climate illustrates, there are just too many variables involved, from the emotionality of the election cycle, to OPEC actions, to overall global economic activity.

More solid arguments can be made by looking at known economic harms of dirty energy, such as the health care costs and lost "productivity" (days at work or in school) when people are incapacitated by asthma caused by airborne soot, or climate risks to business.

It's understandable that clean energy advocates wanted to ride the $150-per-barrel wave to reach their goals, but short-term prospects for clean energy already seem to be suffering for it.

• Oil Falls a Second Day on Weakening Fuel Demand, Rising Dollar(Bloomberg News)
• Alternative Energy Suddenly Faces Headwinds (The New York Times)
• Winds Shift for Renewable Energy As Oil Price Sinks, Money Gets Tight (The Wall Street Journal)
• High Cost of Oil,Gas Fuels Boom In Wood Stoves -- What Is the Cost to Climate? (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Japan Launches Voluntary Carbon Market (Reuters)
• Some Nuclear Energy Backers Say Uranium Alternative Could be a Magic Bullet (U.S. News & World Report)
• Nuclear-In-A-Box Startup Hyperion Raising More Cash (Earth2Tech)
• Maybe Economic Growth Is the Problem, Not the Cure (New Scientist)
• Why Are Oil & Gasoline Prices Plummeting? (The Oil Drum)
• Is There a Conservation Lesson in the Oil Price Collapse? (Worldchanging)
• Climate Action Plan for Next President's First 100 Days (Climate Progress)

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