Blog

06Jun

Trust Us, We’ve Got This

June 6, 2018 What emergency? That’s the message we keep hearing from critics of the Trump administration’s plan to boost the reliability and resiliency of the nation’s grid. Sure, these critics admit, we’ve lost half the nation’s coal fleet since 2010 and dozens more coal plants are teetering on the edge of premature retirement. And […]
30May

Breaking: World Still Cares about Affordable, Reliable, Secure Energy

The New York Times reported this week on an environmental group’s analysis that shows banks are still (gasp!) investing in coal mining and new coal plants. Despite efforts from activists to green-shame financial institutions into walking away from coal, investment in 2017 from U.S. banks alone was up nearly $3 billion from 2016. Global demand […]
22May

When Playing to the Crowd Prevents Progress

May 22, 2018 It’s easy to get confused by the news these days. On a daily basis we see green rhetoric eclipsing the stated purpose of environmental crowd. Take New York’s Gov. Cuomo, for example. Even as he is greening-up his creds for a potential presidential run with commitments around reducing New York’s carbon emissions, […]
14May

Analysis Paralysis

May 14, 2018 Due, in part, to a winter that only begrudgingly and belatedly yielded to spring, this month’s EIA Short-term Energy Outlook now predicts higher coal production for the year than it predicted just last month: 751 million short tons, up from 740 MMST predicted in April. What does this tell you? When it […]
10May

Blowing Hot Air in the Energy Market Discussion

May 10, 2018 To pick a winner for clumsiest quote of last week would be tough. Some votes might go to Elon Musk berating “bonehead” questions from analysts who were simply doing their jobs. Others might choose former Mayor Giuliani conjuring the image of himself as a knight charging to Ivanka Trump’s rescue during his […]
30Apr

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your PR

Last week, while many watched with baited breath as EPA Administrator Pruitt was grilled at hearings on Capitol Hill – more for his travel preferences and security muscle than his policies – an important deadline came and went: the deadline for comment on the repeal of the so-called Clean Power Plan. And it’s ironic that, […]
25Apr

When It Isn’t the Ships but the Fleet that Sinks

There’s a sudden change in the wind, and it isn’t spring. In the space of a week, far-sighted officials at FERC, at the Department of Energy and in Congress have shifted attention away from saving First Energy’s plants to saving the grid’s reliability. Under assault is the lazy assumption held by the “do-nothing” faction that […]
18Apr

Reduce Coal Emissions? “No” Say NGOs, “Yes” Say Voters

It’s too soon to be alarmed, but there may be an outbreak of common sense upon us.  Unless stopped by doctrinaire ideologues, recent signs of rare agreement on the energy front just might lead to actual progress. We refer first to the bipartisan support for “45Q” fossil energy technology tax credits. Then last week’s Senate […]
11Apr

RFF Sees the Heat But Not the Blast

Did ancient Pompeii decline because of the heat? Well, yes, heat had much to do with its evisceration. But if you don’t consider the role of Vesuvius you wouldn’t appreciate what happened to Nero’s favorite metropolis. That’s the problem we have with the findings of a report last week from Resources for the Future. In […]
05Apr

A Common Thread in the Climate Change Debate

EPA’s listening session last week in Gillette, Wyo. – the last of four – brought to an end the coast-to-coast listening sessions, extending from the San Francisco Bay to the Powder River Basin, on through West Virginia, where voices from all sides debated the EPA’s future regulation of carbon emissions. The final hearing was a […]