Coal in the News

05Jul

Creating Our Own Electricity Crisis

Via Inside Sources: Across the country, electricity grid operators are finding themselves short of generating capacity when power demand spikes. The situation has become so tenuous that energy regulators are warning of rolling blackouts for entire regions of the United States. A leading culprit for this grid reliability crisis: our energy policy. According to the […]
29Jun

California and Texas Blackouts Could Be Coming, Energy Experts Warn

Via Inside Sources: It could be a cruel summer for millions of Americans who are not only paying big energy bills but also worried the AC will conk out. That is because energy experts warn, several regions face potential blackouts and much higher utility bills. The Midwest electric grid has “a high risk” of failure […]
28Jun

An electricity crisis of our own making

Via The Washington Times: The North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC), the little-known organization that oversees the reliability of the nation’s power supply, recently warned that electricity grids from the West Coast to Texas and up through the Midwest are in danger of electricity shortfalls this summer. The Midwest is at particularly high risk, and just […]
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

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 […]
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 […]
25May

Don’t write off coal. We need it to ensure power grid reliability

Via The Hill: Weather forecasters predict a long, hot summer for most of the United States, with significant implications for the nation’s electric power grids. For example, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the regulatory authority that oversees grid operations in the U.S. and Canada, recently warned that the entire West and many areas of the […]
17May

America’s power grid is facing real trouble

Via The Salem News: There are two reasons why consumers experience a power outage. The first is obvious: a storm comes along and knocks down trees and power lines. That’s what typically happens. But there’s now a second reason for power outages in the United States–there simply isn’t enough electricity to go around. Power generation […]