Maine voters in November could approve a ballot initiative that is a hostile takeover of the Pine Tree State’s two investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities – Central Maine Power and Versant Power. Question 3 on the off-year initiative ballot, written by the Pine Tree Power coalition, is simple: “An Act to Create the Pine Tree … More Maine Ballot Initiative: Hostile Takeover of IOUs

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has largely upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s 2020 policy changes, known as Order 872, to the commission’s original implementation 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which FERC adopted in 1980. The three-judge panel in SEIA v. FERC rejected claims by the Solar Energy Industries … More Appeals Court Upholds FERC’s 2020 PURPA Rules

SoCalGas, the nation’s largest natural gas distribution utility, has suffered two public, self-inflicted black eyes as the Los Angeles company gears up for what promises to be a controversial price hike next year. The company has a “general rate case” pending at the California Public Utilities Commission, seeking an additional $5 billion in revenue over … More Self-Inflected Shiners for SoCal Gas

Predictable extreme Texas weather – this time heat, not cold – has again embarrassed the Lone Star State’s fossil fuel braggarts and humbled the state’s go-it-alone electric grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), once again rescued by allegedly unreliable renewables. Fortunately, the state was able to avoid rolling blackouts. The Houston Chronicle reported … More ERCOT Again Abandoned by Fossil Fuels

A federal appeals court has ruled against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and for Wyoming in a dispute over regional haze limits from large coal-fired power plants. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver last month (Aug. 15) found that EPA’s partial rejection of a state implementation plan (SIP) for cutting NOx emissions from … More 10th Circuit Rejects EPA Wyoming Haze Reduction Rule

For private equity investors in power plants in the PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest wholesale competitive power market, it’s been a case of live by the capacity market and die by the capacity market. That’s the finding in a new analysis from the non-profit Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, titled “Decade of strong … More Private Equity Generation Living and Dying in PJM

In a victory for Texas and the state’s oil and gas industry and a defeat for the nuclear power industry, a federal appeals court has overturned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s license for an above-ground, away-from-reactor storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the Lone Star State. In a case brought by Texas Gov. Greg … More 5th Circuit Kills Texas Spent Nuclear Fuel Project

By Henry Sokolski For several years now, Chinese officials have refused to negotiate nuclear arms control limits with the United States. Beijing says it shouldn’t have to until and unless America reduces its nuclear weapons arsenal to match much lower Chinese numbers. China, however, refuses to share how many nuclear weapons it has and it’s … More Guest Commentary: Getting China to Negotiate on Nuclear Arms Control

The Brits have a colloquial term for cleaning up a mess with a vacuum cleaner. They call it “hoovering” from the famous Hoover brand, verbification of a proper noun (“xeroxing,” anyone?). Now,  the U.S. government plans to spend billions of dollars in trying to vacuum carbon dioxide directly from the air, which they call “direct … More Hoovering the Sky for Carbon

One of the oldest forms of storing electric power, relying on gravity, which gets little attention in the current discussions of how to accommodate the intermittent nature of solar and wind generation, could be headed for northwestern Colorado and a major revitalization. A Salt Lake City renewables company working on solar, wind, and all forms … More Pumped Hydro: Storing Electricity with Gravity and Water