coal

25Jun

Will the Power Keep Flowing?

What a week for congressional attention on grid reliability. A brutal heatwave is pushing the supply of power to its very limit in grids stretching across much of the country. Outages have already hit parts of New York City, while the PJM Interconnection and Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) grids have both issued “maximum generation […]
18Jun

Global Context Matters

When it comes to energy, coal production and use, China is in a league of its own. China generated over 10,000 terawatt hours of electricity in 2024. That’s more than the combined output of the U.S., E.U. and India—the next three biggest producers. China’s electricity production has skyrocketed. Remarkably, as recently as 2010, the U.S. […]
25Jul

U.S. Miners Make American Life Possible

As the U.S. labor market cools and employment gains slow, the mining industry continues to provide extraordinary career opportunities about which most Americans know very little. When asked to describe a day in the life of a miner, most think of pickaxes and canaries instead of the remotely-operated machinery, artificial intelligence and other innovations that […]
09Mar

Fight Back with American Energy

Just a week ago, sanctioning Russian energy seemed out of reach. Not anymore. On Tuesday, President Biden announced a ban on imports of Russian oil, natural gas and coal to the U.S. The United Kingdom is phasing out Russian oil imports this year and moving to ban Russian gas. And the European Union – alarmingly […]
27Jan

The Coal Fleet Remains Essential

A new report from the Sierra Club finds that dozens of the nation’s utilities plan on running their existing coal plants well beyond 2030. This is apparently devastating news for the Sierra Club’s “beyond coal” crowd, but for most Americans it should be a reminder of the incredibly important role coal continues to play in […]
13Jan

The Grids Are Not OK

Despite ongoing insistence that the fuel security, balance and reliability offered by coal can be easily replaced, mounting evidence points to just the opposite. In states and grids across the U.S., blackouts, near-misses and troubling warnings have become all too common. California suffered rolling blackouts this summer, Texas has stumbled from one near-miss and capacity […]
07Jan

Addressing the 95% Challenge

Over the next 80 years, the U.S. is likely to account for just 5% of global emissions. That’s the finding of Varun Sivaram, an expert at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy. As he recently told Axios, while reducing U.S. emissions is important, tackling the 95% percent challenge – rising global emissions – should be […]
09Dec

Coal’s Time Remains Now

The Economist has decided that it’s time for the world to stop using coal. The magazine argues that based on falling coal demand in Europe and the U.S., it’s not only possible for the world to turn its back on the leading fuel for electricity generation but it’s what responsible nations must do. Perhaps it’s […]
03Dec

Double Down on Carbon Capture Incentives

There is obvious momentum building behind carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). There’s widespread international recognition of the necessity of the technology, the president-elect has made it a centerpiece of his climate and energy approach, and it’s a rare place of bipartisan agreement in a divided Washington. And thanks to IRS guidance issued this May […]