- While the text of the announcement implies otherwise, the new name prioritizes the “transition” over concerns about energy supply, security, and reliability. In that regard, the timing seems questionable.
- Why not the North Sea Energy Authority (NSEA) or UK Offshore Energy Authority (UKOEA)?
- Will OPEC+ be impressed? Perhaps China will add a few coal-fired power plants in honor of the name change.
- Dan Yergin understands that energy transitions are complicated. Quoting Yergin’s outstanding article in the Atlantic:
The term energy transition somehow sounds like it is a well-lubricated slide from one reality to another. In fact, it will be far more complex: Throughout history, energy transitions have been difficult, and this one is even more challenging than any previous shift.
The 19th century is known as the “century of coal,” but, as the technology scholar Vaclav Smil has noted, not until the beginning of the 20th century did coal actually overtake wood as the world’s No. 1 energy source. Moreover, past energy transitions have also been “energy additions”—one source atop another. Oil, discovered in 1859, did not surpass coal as the world’s primary energy source until the 1960s, yet today the world uses almost three times as much coal as it did in the ’60s.
