Hoping to give a kick to greater solar generation, electric storage, and electric transmission, the Biden administration’s Department of Energy last Thursday (Nov. 16) proposed new and streamlined “categorical exclusions” to required environmental reviews mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act. On Friday (Nov. 17) the Treasury Department and its Internal Revenue Service announced liberalized … More Two Biden Moves to Aid Renewables

Loading up consumers’ electricity bills with socially desirable but costly items, as California and other states are wont to do, has unanticipated and undesirable consequences, says prominent energy economist Severin Borenstein of Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas. In a recent blog, he says that “the problem is that the electricity price you face – if … More Hass’s Borenstein Pans California Electric Rate Plan

Natural gas infrastructure – pipelines, producing wells, and generating plants – were the chief culprits in Winter Storm Elliott last Christmas “that contributed to power outages for millions of electricity customers in the Eastern half of the country,” the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. found in … More FERC Winter Storm Report: Congress Needs to Act

Dominion Energy’s latest integrated resource plan (IRP) for its Virginia electric utility raises more questions than it answers, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Veteran analyst Dennis Wamsted recommends that the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the state’s utility regulator, reject the plan unless the Richmond-based company makes … More IEEFA Pans Dominion Resource Plan

NuScale Power [NYSE:SMR], the nation’s most mature purveyor of small modular nuclear power plants, has lost its only valid customer, raising doubts about the Oregon company’s continued existence. The company announced Wednesday (Nov. 8) that Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) has cancelled its contract for the “Carbon Free Power Project” after being unable to … More Is NuScale Headed for Collapse?

Voters in Maine yesterday (Nov. 7) resoundingly rejected creating a statewide public power system to replace the Pine Tree State’s two investor-owned electric distribution utilities, CMP and Versant. Question 3 on the statewide ballot would have created Pine Tree Power Co., a state-wide transmission and distribution retail utility governed by an elected board. The new … More Mainers Chop Down Pine Tree Power

Texas and Maine voters tomorrow (Nov. 7) face contested energy-related ballot initiatives with billion dollar price tags. In Texas, Proposition 7 would amend the state constitution to create a $10 billion Texas Energy Fund, administered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, to build and refurbish gas-fired electric generating plants, a response to the state’s … More Texas, Maine Face Billion Dollar Ballots Tuesday

In a long-running environmental dispute between the federal government and the state of Alabama, Alabama Power, a Southern Co. utility, is facing potential costs of billions of dollars to clean up its coal ash ponds. Disposing of coal combustion residues is a problem going back decades, and Alabama Power is likely to become the most … More Alabama Power, TVA Face Big Coal Ash Cleanup Costs

Georgia Power, the largest of Atlanta-based holding company Southern Co. utilities, has unveiled an updated integrated resource plan (IRP) almost certain to generate new controversy for a utility mired in controversy for more than a decade over its investment in large, new nuclear units. The company’s push for new natural gas generation will generate new … More Georgia Power Goes Big on Gas

Electric vehicles, which many have viewed as a key to a low-carbon future, have seen their sales and financial conditions booming for the past several years. Now the bright EV prospects are fading a bit. Bears are ravaging Tesla’s stock. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has fallen 50% from its all-time highs, which rose over 116% from its … More Is the Accelerating EV Business Slowing Down?