It’s desperation time at Akron, Ohio’s, FirstEnergy utility as the company faces the closure of two nuclear units in Ohio and two in Pennsylvania. As a last ditch effort to save the plants, the company has petitioned Energy Secretary Rick Perry to invoke an emergency provision of the Federal Power Act (Section 202c) to keep … More FirstEnergy desperation over nukes
Do owners of California rooftop solar shift costs to customers without photovoltaic panels? It’s a long running argument, with the latest contribution coming from economist Lucas Davis at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. In a paper this week, Davis echoes Haas School director Severin Borenstein, who has earlier raised … More Solar cost shifting fight flares up
In two recent partial dissents, Cheryl LaFleur, currently the longest-serving member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, issued partial dissents to FERC rulings on gas pipeline approvals. She was joined by Richard Glick, the most junior FERC commissioner, in one of those dissents. In both cases, a key to the dissent was the commission’s rejection … More Is ‘social cost of carbon’ a useful metric?
The Republican Congress has soundly rejected the Trump administration’s spending plans on energy and environmental issues lodged at the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Interior Department. The $1.3 billion Omnibus spending bill passed this week to avoid another government shutdown goes in the opposite direction charted by the White House and … More Congress thumbs its nose at Trump energy and environment budget
Don Blankenship, 68, was CEO of the Massey Energy Company, sixth largest coal company in the U.S., headquartered in West Virginia, from 2000 until he retired in 2010, with millions of dollars. Now he’s in a nip-and-tuck battle to win the state’s Republican nomination to run against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November. The GOP … More Will WVa GOP nominate an ex con coal exec to the Senate?
In my five decades in journalism, one of the best things I have learned is the value of skepticism. There’s an old journalism saw – “Your mother says she loves you? Check it out” – that serves ink-stained wretches well (although few of us are ink-stained anymore). Don’t take anything at face value. Question everything … More On skepticism
A partisan split has revealed itself at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over, predictably, the commission’s role in analyzing the environmental impacts of natural gas pipelines. At the March 15 open FERC meeting, the commission’s two Democrats – Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick – issued combined partial dissents in a case involving the Birdsboro pipeline … More FERC displays a split on environmental analysis
Acting at the bureaucratic equivalent of warp speed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today adopted a series of actions to apply the impacts of last year’s federal income tax cuts to its jurisdictional wholesale electric markets and oil and natural gas interstate pipelines. When Congress last made major federal income tax reductions in 1986, it … More FERC responds to new federal tax law
As the Trump administration bench appears to completely unwind, with the firing of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, and the subsequent ousting of his deputy for telling the truth about the firing, attention has now shifted. The latest is the prospect of moving Energy Secretary Rick Perry to the Veterans Administration, replacing Dr. David … More Perry from DOE to VA?
Public Service Co. of New Mexico (PNM), the principal asset of Albuquerque-based PNM Resources, sits at the distant southeast corner of the western power grid, unruffled by many of the competitive forces that are roiling much of the country. Indeed, there is a remote feeling about the state, one of the nation’s poorest and one … More Was NM high court-approved San Juan plan tainted by regulator impropriety?