News

How Trump's trade wars could inadvertently benefit the environment

June 26, 2018
When it comes to the economy, President Trump's "America First" mantra has meant renegotiating existing trade treaties and imposing tariffs

Big Ideas: the Full Cost of Electricity

March 29, 2018
Big Ideas, a new online magazine produced by UT’s McCombs School of Business, revisited a recent Energy Institute study, the Full Cost of Electricity...

The need for systematic thinking

Feb. 27, 2018
The U.S. economy changes and adapts to circumstances, physical constraints, and rules that we have created through an assortment of individual and collective decisions...

A Lack of Systematic Thinking Keeps America from Staying Great

Jan. 26, 2018
Our economic system operates within intellectual, social, and physical constraints. Each of these constraints can feedback to affect the others...

West Texas Talk: Dr Todd Davidson & Dr Joshua Rhodes Of UT Austin’s Energy Institute

Sept. 8, 2017
On this segment of NPR's West Texas Talk, Lorne Matalon speaks with Dr Todd Davidson and Dr Joshua Rhodes, energy scientists based at the University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute...

Delusions of grandeur in building a low-carbon future

Aug. 30, 2017
Economic models used to inform decision-makers about such policies as the Paris Agreement on climate change are fundamentally flawed, writes Dr. Carey King...

The link between societal polarization and energy consumption

July 5, 2017
Whether we recognize it or not, physical resource constraints such as the rate of power consumption and the cost of food and energy eventually translate into economic constraints that govern our lives...

The old, dirty, creaky US electric grid would cost $5 trillion to replace. Where should infrastructure spending go?

March 17, 2017
The electric grid is an amazing integrated system of machines spanning an entire continent. The National Academy of Engineering has called it one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century...

The rising cost of resources and global indicators of change

Oct. 30, 2015
It is practically impossible for us to significantly alter many of the long-term causes of energy and food cost trends, writes Dr. Carey King, assistant director of the Energy Institute, in a new article...