By Kennedy Maize Donald Trump’s March 21 midnight threat to Iran to “hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” If they don’t bend the knee, is — as are many Trump threats and outbursts — likely empty. An attempt to carry it out would be far more difficult, lengthy, … More Is Trump’s electric bombing threat to Iran meaningful?
By Kennedy Maize A controversial Consumers Energy deal to sell 13 small, old hydropower plants to a Maryland firm on an installment plan is drawing fire at the Michigan Public Service Commission. At a March 23 MPSC hearing, what would amount to a $160 million transaction faced skepticism from the commission staff, environmental and sport … More Sale of Michigan hydro plants faces challenges
By Kennedy Maize Data centers and AI have been prominent in the news, focusing largely on the impact on electric prices, incidents of political push back, and the thorny question of how they connect, or don’t, to the grid. Less attention has been paid to how these big money infrastructure finance their operations and how … More Data center finances and costs: show us the money
By Kennedy Maize The evidence has become clear. The Department of Energy’s orders to elderly, uneconomic coal-fired power plants to keep running is about politics, not grid reliability. It’s also a familiar case of hubris, where alleged “conservatives” get to Washington and decide they know more than locals about local conditions. Consider TransAlta’s Centralia plant … More DOE’s phony, costly coal plant policy exposed
By Kennedy Maize The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday (Mar. 19) spent a good portion of its monthly meeting discussing a notational order issued six days before, unanimously blessing a plan by the Southwest Power Pool to combine new generation requests and grid interconnection reviews. Chairman Laura Swett said she hoped the SPP plan would … More FERC green lights SPP consolidated planning plan
By Kennedy Maize President Donald Trump’s long list of offshore wind defeats is growing. Vineyard Wind 1 on March 13 installed the final of 62 13-MW wind turbines some 15 miles off of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It is the first major offshore wind project to come to completion in the Trump administration. Trump has long … More Offshore wind projects advance, despite Trump
By Kennedy Maize Spring is arriving in the Rocky Mountains as a two-decade drought tightens its grip, making the long-running regional impasse over the vital Colorado River system even more difficult to manage. Snow largely avoided the Rockies this winter, depriving the river of needed water for the coming year, as the current deal under … More As Spring arrives, Colorado River prospects dim
By Kennedy Maize Fifteen years ago, March 11, 2011, a civilian nuclear power catastrophe began in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture on the country’s east coast. It began early in the afternoon after a powerful offshore earthquake produced a tsunami sweeping westward and toward the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, located above the beach between the villages … More Fukushima, then and now
By Kennedy Maize National non-profit environmental law firm Earthjustice has sued the Interior Department over approval of an expansion of a notorious Montana underground coal mine. The suit this month (Mar. 3) in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Billings Division, charges that Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) in … More Greens sue DOI over Montana coal mine expansion
By Kennedy Maize The oil market has trumped President Trump’s repeated mantra that the key to national energy policy is “drill, baby, drill.” The Interior Department’s latest offering of drilling rights in oil-rich Alaska has failed, joining other flawed off-shore sales and failed on-shore coal sales in the Rocky Mountain west. DOI’s Bureau of Ocean … More Trump administration’s latest failed energy lease sale