By Kennedy Maize Are tariffs infectious? Maryland’s General Assembly is considering identical bills that would impose what looks like a tariff on West Virginia coal shipped through the Free State to Baltimore’s port for export. The cross-filed bills, titled “Coal Transportation Fee and Fossil Fuel Mitigation Fund (Coal Dust Cleanup and Asthma Remediation Act),” dropped … More Maryland, coal, and the ‘dormant Commerce Clause’

By Kennedy Maize As renewable electricity generation – primarily solar and wind power – continues to boom, energy storage, primarily battery storage of electricity, has also soared. Is that inevitable? The need for storage is clear: wind and solar are not dispatchable as the sun does not shine at night and wind is not predictable. … More Is the electric energy storage boom at risk?

By Kennedy Maize The corpse of COP 29 (Nov. 11-22 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan) has barely cooled, and COP 30 is already generating deserved obloquy. Warning, the headline you are about to read is not from The Onion but from the BBC: Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit. The venerable Beeb reported, … More Duck and cover, COP 30 is already on the way

By Kennedy Maize “Dear Chairman Smith: As Members of the House Republican Conference, we write to emphasize the importance of prioritizing energy affordability for American families and keeping on our current path to energy dominance amid efforts to repeal or reform current energy tax credits.” On Monday (Mar. 9), 21 Republican members of the House … More Biden’s IRA just won’t go away

By Kennedy Maize A Wyoming Republican legislator (Democratic legislators in Wyoming are only slightly more common than jackalopes) is hinting that he has a plan for a new coal-fired power plant in the state that leads the nation in coal production. Rep. Scott Heiner from Green River in the southwestern corner of the Cowboy State, … More New Wyoming coal plant: Cowboy fantasy?

By Kennedy Maize The long-lived absurdities of the nation’s handling of the dangerous spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants got aired at the Supreme Court of the United States this week (Mar. 5). Much of the discussion revolved around the convoluted meanings of words such as “permanent” and “interim” and how long is too … More U.S. nuke waste policy puzzles Supreme Court

It was the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the winter of despair. Is it the spring of hope for coal? Playing with the famous opening paragraph of the 1859 Charles Dickens masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities lays out the precarious position of coal in the U.S. now and … More Coal’s woes and hopes: A tale of two futures

When it comes to providing the enormous power demands of artificial intelligence-related data centers, is smaller better? So far, most approaches to meeting the AI loads have involved conventional big iron, such as co-locating data centers at existing nuclear and natural gas plants. A contrary view comes from San Diego-based software and engineering company Xendee … More Can microgrids let data centers dodge grid congestion chaos?

By Kennedy Maize Hydrogen – the primary element of the universe – has long had energy mavens looking longingly at its use as a fuel. H2 is plentiful – although not necessarily easily or cheaply produced – and energetic. It is versatile, able to be burned directly in internal combustion engines or to make steam … More Has hydrogen energy had its day?

By Kennedy Maize For decades in the U.S., geothermal energy has been full of promise but short on delivery. With private sector technology developments and an energy secretary who really knows, far more than his boss, what it means to “drill, baby, drill,” the fortunes of that renewable energy source may change. Energy Secretary Chris … More Is geothermal energy the Wright stuff?