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Biden Signed the Climate Law. Now the Bureaucrats’ Hard Slog Begins.
President Joe Biden’s signing of the Inflation Reduction Act on Tuesday caps nearly two years of efforts to pass sweeping climate legislation. But the real work is just getting started. For federal regulators, the moment Biden signed the bill was effectively the starting gun for a race to write new policies to implement its clean energy tax credits, climate programs and environmental mandates. It’s a monumental task that will involve regulators at nearly every federal agency. [ read more … ]
Wind Energy
DOE outlines challenges for wind. Will the IRA help?
One problem is how long it can take to connect new projects to the grid, which can rack up development costs. At the end of 2021, the reports say, a record amount of wind power, 247 GW, was waiting in transmission interconnection queues, including 73 GW that came onto the queue last year and 77 GW from offshore wind. Speeding up interconnection queues may prove to be an enduring challenge for wind, despite the IRA’s passage, said Ryan Wiser, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and corresponding author of DOE’s report on onshore wind. [ read more … ]
US offshore wind prices fell 13%, to $84/MWh, in 2021 as the project pipeline grew: DOE
The estimated levelized cost of energy for U.S. fixed-bottom offshore wind projects fell 13% to $84/MWh on average last year from 2020, with prices expected to drop to around $60/MWh by the end of the decade, according to the Department of Energy. The U.S. offshore wind project pipeline grew 13.5% in the 12 months ending on May 31 to about 40,040 MW, with about half the planned capacity off the coasts of Massachusetts and New York, DOE said in its annual offshore wind market report, released Tuesday. [ read more … ]
Markets
China is beating the U.S. in clean energy. Can America catch up? The race in five charts.
China occupies a paradoxical place when it comes to the global fight against climate change. On the one hand, the country is perhaps best known as by far the world’s largest consumer of coal and the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. On the other, China has emerged in the last decade as a global clean energy champion — with the help of government support on a grand scale. In total, between the private and public sectors, China invested $380 billion in clean energy in 2021, more than any other country. [ read more … ]
Litigation
Supreme Court climate ruling ignites deregulatory challenges
Less than two months after the Supreme Court issued its blockbuster ruling that reined in EPA’s authority to regulate power plant emissions, West Virginia v. EPA is already being used to shape legal battles over federal oversight on a range of issues from nuclear waste storage to LGBTQ+ rights. But the Supreme Court didn’t specify how or when a regulation may qualify as “major,” largely leaving such determinations to federal agencies and the lower courts. The number of court filings citing the major questions doctrine since West Virginia was decided “illustrates the old adage that ‘when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail,’” said Robert Percival, director of the University of Maryland’s environmental law program. [ read more … ]
EPA
Meet EPA boss Michael Regan’s inner circle
Regan and his team have been working at a frantic pace to pull back Trump-era policies and implement the Biden administration’s agenda on everything from climate change rules to chemical standards. They will also help manage an influx of billions of dollars into the agency from last year’s infrastructure law and are gearing up to handle funds stemming from the climate spending package, which President Joe Biden will sign into law today. [ read more … ]
EVs
Mercedes and Ferrari’s Edge in the Electric Age: High-End Motors
When drivers of future Mercedes AMG models stomp the accelerator of their electric performance cars, they’ll get extra oomph out of the batteries from something that sounds straight out of Back to the Future. No, not flux capacitors, but axial flux motors. Mercedes-Benz AG and Ferrari NV are turning to this type of electric motor to generate headrest-hitting torque. Axial flux motors are much smaller than predominantly used radial motors, yet pack a more powerful punch. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.