Blog

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 […]
14Dec

American Manufacturers Warn Against Coal Retirements

U.S. natural gas prices have tripled in a year, and promises of its abundance are now being replaced by growing concerns of scarcity as demand outpaces interstate pipeline capacity. Supply chokepoints and regional price premiums are emerging across the country and it’s a problem poised to get far worse as more essential coal generating capacity […]
07Dec

Sailing into the Dark Doldrums

Europe’s energy crisis is finally getting its first real test. Winter has arrived and despite full gas inventories and aggressive action to slash energy demand, there’s a palpable sense across the continent that the lights staying on will come down to the weather. As Bloomberg’s commodities columnist, Javier Blas, recently observed, “The problem is, energy […]
30Nov

The Grid Reliability Crisis Keeps Getting Worse

The nation’s electricity grid regulators at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) must be exasperated. The reliability of the grid is rapidly eroding, driven to the edge by a mismanaged and haphazard energy transition, and they’re doing their best to urgently warn anyone who will listen that the nation desperately needs a policy reset […]
16Nov

A Vote for Realistic Energy Policy

Last week, we covered President Biden’s speech made in California in which he boasted that “we’re going to be shutting these (coal) plants down all across America.” The comment was remarkable in its apparent disregard for the loss of high-paying American jobs such a move would cause, the seeming indifference to the record electricity prices […]