The Quad Report

By Kennedy Maize Democrat Abigail Spanberger, 46, a three-term member of Congress and former CIA undercover agent, became Virginia’s 75th governor and first female chief executive last Saturday (Jan. 17) with a solid mandate to attack skyrocketing electric bills in the state harboring “data center alley.” While campaigning against high electricity prices helped her achieve … More Abigail Spanberger, Virginia’s new governor and energy

By Kennedy Maize In an eye-watering 1,600 pages, the U.S. Department of Interior has given the western state parties battling over a replacement to the 1922 Colorado River Compact’s stalled update five alternative solutions. In a draft environmental  impact statement, DOI offers its choices for divvying up the flow of the crucial river when the … More Interior’s massive Colorado River Compact supply options unveiled

By Kennedy Maize Looking at the current hoopla over a U.S. nuclear power revival brings to mind the words of renowned U.S. philosopher and athlete Lawrence “Yogi” Berra: “It’s deja vu all over again.” A nuclear revival faces tough going in 2026. A key attribute favoring nukes — no greenhouse gas emissions — has dematerialized … More Potholes on the road to a nuclear power revival

By Kennedy Maize Three words — “arbitrary and capricious” — are coming to define the Trump administration’s approach to trying to slap down long-established energy programs it doesn’t like: offshore wind power under the Department of Interior and clean energy grants at the Department of Energy. In a ruling from the bench Monday (Jan. 12), … More D.C. court slams multiple Trump actions against green energy programs

By Kennedy Maize The giant PJM Interconnection has been inundated by data centers — some real, some probably not — seeking to connect their load to the regional transmission organization’s high-voltage transmission grid. PJM’s independent market monitor — Monitoring Analytics — reported on January 5 that PJM’s 2027-2028 capacity auction for electricity supply, held in … More Ebbs and flows amid the AI deluge

By Kennedy Maize Donald Trump’s latest attack on offshore wind power is headed to court. Five projects off the East Coast from Massachusetts to Virginia —  with some $25 billion in investments and 7-GW of generating capacity at risk — are pushing back. Their target is a December Interior Department order in December halting construction … More Trump’s multi-billion-dollar assault on offshore wind lands in court

By Kennedy Maize The Colorado River is dying. Water levels in government-made lakes Mead and Powell have sunk to heretofore unimaginable lows in a decades-long drought. They are now more than two-thirds empty. The giant river system spans two Mexican states, seven U.S. states, and 29 Indian tribes. The federal government owns the U.S. portion … More Dereliction of duty: DOI, the White House, and the Colorado River

By Kennedy Maize The Trump administration is implementing a stealthy nationwide policy to prevent any existing coal-fired electric power plant from closing. It is working through the Department of Energy with a series of orders to electric utilities, state regulators, and regional energy systems, using concocted emergencies. The DOE orders are leaving local retail electric … More DOE’s dubious, deceptive coal plant hoax

By Kennedy Maize   Recent news about Donald J. Trump’s business venture into fusion power raises a key question: is LSD back in fashion? Or could it be just another Trump-orchestrated con job to enrich his family and himself?  The merger of a company with no real money — Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. — … More Trump’s hallucinatory venture into energy confusion

By Kennedy Maize After more than a year in process, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week (Dec. 18) laid out a policy to facilitate co-location of data centers and power plants on the PJM Interconnection’s interstate high-voltage transmission grid. It could take nearly at least as long to see the new rules in action. … More FERC to PJM: Come on, baby, do the co-location