By Kennedy Maize The giant PJM Interconnection has been inundated by data centers — some real, some probably not — seeking to connect their load to the regional transmission organization’s high-voltage transmission grid. PJM’s independent market monitor — Monitoring Analytics — reported on January 5 that PJM’s 2027-2028 capacity auction for electricity supply, held in … More Ebbs and flows amid the AI deluge
By Kennedy Maize Donald Trump’s latest attack on offshore wind power is headed to court. Five projects off the East Coast from Massachusetts to Virginia — with some $25 billion in investments and 7-GW of generating capacity at risk — are pushing back. Their target is a December Interior Department order in December halting construction … More Trump’s multi-billion-dollar assault on offshore wind lands in court
By Kennedy Maize The Colorado River is dying. Water levels in government-made lakes Mead and Powell have sunk to heretofore unimaginable lows in a decades-long drought. They are now more than two-thirds empty. The giant river system spans two Mexican states, seven U.S. states, and 29 Indian tribes. The federal government owns the U.S. portion … More Dereliction of duty: DOI, the White House, and the Colorado River
By Kennedy Maize The Trump administration is implementing a stealthy nationwide policy to prevent any existing coal-fired electric power plant from closing. It is working through the Department of Energy with a series of orders to electric utilities, state regulators, and regional energy systems, using concocted emergencies. The DOE orders are leaving local retail electric … More DOE’s dubious, deceptive coal plant hoax
By Kennedy Maize Recent news about Donald J. Trump’s business venture into fusion power raises a key question: is LSD back in fashion? Or could it be just another Trump-orchestrated con job to enrich his family and himself? The merger of a company with no real money — Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. — … More Trump’s hallucinatory venture into energy confusion
By Kennedy Maize After more than a year in process, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week (Dec. 18) laid out a policy to facilitate co-location of data centers and power plants on the PJM Interconnection’s interstate high-voltage transmission grid. It could take nearly at least as long to see the new rules in action. … More FERC to PJM: Come on, baby, do the co-location
By Kennedy Maize President Trump’s war on wind power, articulated on his first day in office, has hit an administrative reversal in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Judge Patti Saris earlier this month (Dec. 8) struck down a major portion of Trump’s “temporary” across-the-board freeze on federal permits for offshore and … More Court clobbers Trump’s wind vendetta
By Henry Sokolski Although commentators have extensively critiqued President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy, they’ve neglected what’s missing. Throughout the document’s 33 pages, there is no mention of nuclear extended deterrence and nonproliferation. That’s worrisome. America’s security has long depended on the proper treatment of these two related matters. Ignoring them or misconstruing their … More Guest Commentary: What Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy Missed
By Kennedy Maize In a little-noticed proceeding, the Department of Energy in October again moved to centralize and federalize electricity generation. In a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, DOE attacked FERC’s policy of recognizing the right of Indian tribes to veto hydropower projects on tribal land. The DOE letter on tribal authorities, including … More Tribal sovereignty and DOE’s latest electric power grab
By Kennedy Maize Construction Work in Progress (CWIP, pronounced “quip”) is a nasty spawn of utility accounting, encouraging sloppiness, sloth, and avarice in building practices. That’s the take in a new study by the conservative Manhattan Institute, “The Hidden Tax on Your Power Bill.” “Construction Work in Progress, or CWIP, is the most influential energy … More CWIP: “FERC candy” and pernicious accounting practices