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A Costly, Deadly Obsession With Coal
President Donald Trump’s efforts to revive coal mining have been criticized as picking winners. Actually, it’s more like picking losers: coal has become a sunset industry as cleaner energy sources rapidly get cheaper. If Mr. Trump succeeds at reversing the tide, it will come at a steep price, in both dollars and lives, most tragically for the coal miners he seeks to help. [ read more … ]
Pope Warns Energy Bosses of Global Destruction Without Fuel Shift
Pope Francis warned that climate change risked destroying humanity on Saturday and called on energy leaders to help the world to convert to clean fuels to avert catastrophe. “Civilisation requires energy but energy use must not destroy civilisation,” the pope told top oil company executives at the end of a two-day conference in the Vatican. [ read more … ]
Trump is pushing coal as utilities choose renewables
The Trump administration is threatening to force utilities and consumers to buy coal power. But a pair of developments this week show how the power sector is moving toward renewable energy. In Colorado, the state’s largest utility unveiled its final plan Wednesday to close two coal units and replace them with large amounts of wind, solar and energy storage. The utility, Xcel Energy Inc., says it expects the move to slash carbon emissions 60 percent by 2026 and save consumers more than $200 million. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
China pours money into vision of global grid
China wants to create a global electricity grid. Its ultra high-voltage cables (UHV) might help the nation do it. Chinese companies aren’t the only ones in possession of UHVs — some in Europe have them, too — but they’re the first to seek deployment on a massive scale. Former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has called China’s transmission lines “the best … in terms of the highest voltage and lowest loss.” [ read more … ]
Cyberthreats justify federal intervention, DOE tells panel
Energy Department Assistant Secretary Bruce Walker yesterday on Capitol Hill singled out cybersecurity threats to pipelines that supply gas-fired power plants in defending the department’s polarizing proposal to channel payments to at-risk coal and nuclear plants to prevent their retirements. Pressed by several Democrats on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee who branded the plan a political payoff to the coal industry, Walker warned of potentially cascading power outages if gas generators’ pipelines were taken down through cyber breaches. [ read more … ]
Trump’s energy blitz and the legal showdown to come
The Trump administration’s latest bid to boost troubled coal and nuclear plants is certain to spark a legal war if it’s ever finalized. After details of a rescue proposal leaked ahead of a National Security Council meeting Friday, energy experts set to work unpacking the legal issues and gaming out potential litigation scenarios. [ read more … ]
In Maine, LePage’s exit could open doors
When Gov. Paul LePage (R) leaves office next year, he can take comfort in knowing that he helped keep expensive wind farms from going up off the Maine coast. When the next governor assumes power, he or she can expect a long line of offshore wind advocates at the door with this message: It’s pricey, but it’s worth it. [ read more … ]
Op-Ed:Virginia has a massive energy source sitting just offshore
Virginians are sitting on a massive economic opportunity — they just may need a little help getting to it. In April, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, an Energy Department science lab associated with 13 Nobel prizes, published a report trying to quantify the value offshore wind would have provided to the East Coast from 2007 to 2016 had it been built. The study, “Estimating the Value of Offshore Wind Along the United States’ Eastern Coast,” combines the value of energy generated, capacity value and renewable-energy certificates to calculate the “market value” of offshore wind on many points along the East Coast. [ read more … ]
Next Offshore Wind in U.S. Can Compete With Gas, Developer Says
Massive offshore wind turbines keep getting bigger, and that’s helping make the power cheaper — to the point where developers say new projects in U.S. waters can compete with natural gas. The price “is going to be a real eye-opener,” said Bryan Martin, chairman of Deepwater Wind LLC, which won an auction in May to build a 400-megawatt wind farm southeast of Rhode Island. [ read more … ]
Mayor seeks lower renewable energy costs; Kerry faults Trump
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the decision by President Donald Trump to pull out of the Paris climate accord a “tragedy” Thursday but said states and private sector leaders are trying to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gases anyway. The Democratic former senator from Massachusetts helped negotiate the 2016 accord. He said Trump misled the public by suggesting the agreement allowed other nations to place a burden on the United States when the country only agreed to do what it could without hurting its economy. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.