23Jun

Voters support action to preserve coal fleet and ramp up domestic coal production

Via World Coal: Polling released by the National Mining Association (NMA) shows, in the face of rising warnings over rolling blackouts, nearly eight in 10 voters – including a majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents – want the US government to take action to prevent premature closings of functioning power plants until replacement generating capacity is […]
22Jun

Voters Want Action on Grid Reliability

Americans are deeply concerned about the reliability of the nation’s power grid and the affordability of their electricity supply. They’re so concerned, even frustrated, with warnings over the potential for rolling blackouts – or worse – they now want government action to fix the problem. According to national polling from Morning Consult, nearly 8 in […]
22Jun

Recent blackouts serve as warning for Ohio power grid

Via The Salem News (Ohio): Ohio just had a brush with rolling blackouts when a quarter of million people lost power due to storm damage. Losing so much electricity at one time is always troubling. However, it’s also an unfortunate preview of a similar disaster in the making. Ohio is one of the top 10 […]
15Jun

The Nation Braces for Blackouts

Warnings of blackouts this summer are quickly becoming a dangerous reality for much of the country In the Midwest, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which manages the region’s grid, issued a warning of tight capacity conditions on June 13 as the grid struggles to keep up with soaring demand from a heatwave. Utilities were […]
08Jun

U.S. Coal to Europe

Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, recently warned that the current global energy crisis is in fact bigger than the oil crises of the 1970s and 80s. “Now we have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis at the same time,” he said. He also warned it’s likely to last […]
08Jun

Opinion: Think things are bad under Biden? Get ready for the blackouts.

Via The Washington Post: First came the worst border crisis in U.S. history. Then came the worst inflation in four decades and record-high gas prices. Then came the baby formula shortage. Next up? Blackouts. That’s right, just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, add rolling blackouts to the rolling disasters President Biden has unleashed […]
03Jun

Red-Hot Coal Prices Threaten Even Higher Power Bills

Via The Wall Street Journal: Natural gas isn’t the only power-plant fuel on fire this year. Thermal-coal prices have soared from Appalachia to Australia, threatening more increases in manufacturing costs and power bills this summer. Futures for coal delivered to northwestern Europe have risen 137% so far this year, to $323.50 a metric ton as of […]
02Jun

A summer of blackouts? Wheezing power grid leaves states at risk.

Via The Washington Post: The nation’s power grid is under stress like never before, with regulators warning that the kind of rolling outages that are now familiar to California and Texas could be far more widespread as hot summer weather arrives. A large swath of the Midwest that has enjoyed stable electricity for decades is […]
01Jun

Facing Grid Unreliability Reality

Summer heat has arrived and for too many families there’s deep concern over whether they can afford to stay cool or whether the grid is going to hold up when they need it most. With natural gas prices nearly three times what they were last year, electricity prices soaring and startling warnings about eroding grid […]
25May

Soaring Energy Prices are Swallowing Economic Recovery

Contrasting the painful immediacy of an oil price shock to that from electricity prices, Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas wrote, “akin to a rising tide, it is slow but relentless and then, surprise, you are overwhelmed.” Blas penned that description about the crushing electricity costs about to overwhelm Europe, but the metaphor neatly describes the electricity crisis […]