Blog

08Mar

The Great Coal Disconnect

British consumers should be furious. Energy bills have all but wrecked the economy and delivered searing pain for households. Britain’s rush to slash its use of coal – that as of a decade ago met 40% of the nation’s power – left the nation extraordinarily exposed to the natural gas price spikes that came with […]
01Mar

PJM Sounds the Capacity Shortfall Alarm

The nation’s largest electricity market is warning that it will face a steep capacity shortfall by the close of the decade as forced power plant retirements far outpace planned additions. Policy-driven closures of primarily coal plants threaten to leave PJM Interconnection – which serves 65 million Americans in 13 states and the District of Columbia […]
23Feb

Mines for Manufacturing Tomorrow’s Steel

The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the energy and supply chain crises that followed, have all upended trade flows and commodity markets, requiring a near moment-to-moment focus on near-term market conditions with supply shocks and inflationary pressure driving unprecedented policy responses. While the shocks still reverberate, there’s now room for a return to long-term […]
15Feb

Does the EPA Care at All About Grid Reliability?

In July of last year, 26 House Republicans sent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan a letter asking for details on the agency’s efforts to assess the potential grid reliability threats posed by EPA’s regulatory agenda. Among other detailed questions, the letter asked what work had been done to coordinate with the Federal […]
08Feb

The Country Needs Coal Too Mr. President

Call it an admission of pragmatism. While talking to the nation’s energy future last night during the State of the Union address, President Biden went off script and admitted that “we’re still going to need oil and gas for a while.” It was a statement of fact even if it made climate hawks grimace. What […]
01Feb

New Study Underscores Threat to the Nation’s Grid Reliability

The latest iteration of a headline-grabbing study, “The Coal Cost Crossover” – which claims the entirety of the existing coal fleet is less economic than new renewable projects – is exactly the type of academic clickbait driving the nation’s reckless approach to the energy transition. Like previous versions, this iteration of the report once again […]
25Jan

U.S. Coal is Backstopping European Energy Security

The worst fears of an out-of-control energy crisis in Europe this winter appear not to be coming to fruition, and coal power and U.S. imports have played a significant role in shoring up European energy supplies and getting our allies through the storm. Coal has been particularly important for Germany. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, […]
18Jan

The U.S. Grid is Running on Empty

As we’re coming to learn, the bitter cold that forced rolling outages in parts of the Carolinas and Tennessee over Christmas also pushed neighboring grids right to the very edge. While the lights didn’t go out on the PJM, MISO and ERCOT grids, grid operators were at times left scrambling. And now, after-action reports are […]
11Jan

The Grid Crisis is a Certainty

The U.S. electricity grid is undeniably in crisis. As rolling blackouts over Christmas demonstrated, no corner of the country is immune. Regions that were supposed to be safe from power shortfalls found themselves unable to keep the lights on. Tens-of-millions of other ratepayers got the unexpected present of emergency alerts asking them to dial back […]
22Dec

A Year in Review

The year is coming to a close, but before we look forward to 2023 it’s worth looking back on the stories and themes that shaped the energy conversation in 2022 and coal’s role in it. An ongoing global energy crisis continues to upend markets and trade flows. Coal – so often the recipient of premature […]