Ohio-based electric utility holding company FirstEnergy last Friday (Feb. 9) announced a retreat from its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goal and a reprieve for two large West Virginia coal-fired power plants. The same day, a state court in the company’s headquarters city of Akron indicted and arraigned two former top FirstEnergy executives and the former … More FirstEnergy: Retreat on coal, more criminal fallout
The PJM Interconnection will hold its newly-configured capacity auction for the 2025-2026 year starting June 12 and closing June 18, aiming to avoid the near-catastrophe in 2022’s holiday season Winter Storm Elliott. The revised auction responds to two Federal Energy Commission orders to the nation’s largest regional transmission organization designed to reform a capacity market … More PJM to roll out reformed capacity market auction in June
Wyoming’s dominant Republican Party is in turmoil over the fraught topic of climate change, an important issue in the nation’s largest coal producer and location for the largest uranium reserves and second largest uranium production. The issue pits the state’s governor, Mark Gordon, who is pushing a policy position that the Cowboy State should work … More Climate politics roils Wyoming GOP
Hydrogen, the “Holy Grail” of energy for some who follow energy policy and politics, is a futile endeavor, and the Biden administration’s “green” hydrogen push is “a multi-billion dollar boondoggle,” according to a new analysis from the conservative Manhattan Institute. Hydrogen, writes economist Jonathan Lesser, “green or otherwise, is not a useful energy resource because … More Manhattan Institute on the hydrogen “boondoggle”
Holtec dodges N.J. criminal charges New Jersey-based Holtec International last Tuesday (Jan. 30) agreed to pay its home state a $5 million fine in order to avoid criminal prosecution for falsifying documents related to a 2018 state-awarded tax break program. The development in New Jersey could scuttle widespread rumors, most likely spread by Holtec, that … More Nuclear Gatherings: Palisades, Vogtle 4, Hinkley Point, France
A federal judge in Oklahoma late last year (Dec. 20) ordered removal of a large wind farm that violates both federal mineral rights and Osage tribal land. The case, United States v. Osage Wind, LLC, has been in litigation for more than a decade. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves, sitting in the U.S District Court for the … More Federal judge kills Okla. wind farm on Osage Nation land
The never-ending tale of the Hanford, Wash., nuke waste cleanup waste, fraud, and abuse returns, time after time. It’s the longest-running saga of the cascading failure of the U.S. government to deal with the wastes, past and present, from its nuclear weapons program. Last Wednesday (Jan. 24), the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of … More Hanford nuke waste Groundhog Day
“We do have the opportunity to be the first generation that builds a sustainable world,” says 30-year-old Scottish data scientist Hannah Ritchie at the University of Oxford. “Let’s take it.” Ritchie has become a leading figure in a group of scientists and analysts who are pushing back at the currently dominant apocalyptic warnings about a … More The case for climate optimism
For close to 50 years, energy futurists have touted solar energy straight from the source: space-based, sun-focused solar panels beaming electricity back to earth. Why try to replicate the enormous temperatures that power the fusion reactor that is our home star? How about fusion without the incredibly difficult terrestrial engineering challenges and no greenhouse gas … More NASA pessimistic about space-based solar power
Is the Biden administration’s priority on reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations a wise move or a distraction from the more important goal of controlling carbon dioxide emissions? It’s not an easy question, despite a lot of buzz around methane reductions, claiming that action harvests (here’s the cliché) “low-hanging fruit.” Touting the program, … More Methane reductions: smart or a policy diversion?