infrastructure

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 […]
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 […]
30Mar

Burying the Lede, and Responsible Energy Policy

A new study designed to show that a future in Texas without coal is within reach in fact shows just the opposite. Like other studies and models before it, renewable boosters have an interesting propensity to bury the lede. In this case, a study about Texas’ vast wind and solar potential in fact highlights one […]
16Feb

Creating Our Own Energy Crisis

Perhaps the greatest challenge of the energy transition is timing the installation of the infrastructure and generating capacity required for our energy future in parallel with – or more quickly – than we are dismantling our current electricity mix and the affordability and reliability it underpins. Unfortunately, it’s a challenge policymakers either seem not to […]
02Feb

Power Grid Roulette

Another February storm has Texans wondering if they’re in for a repeat of the catastrophic grid failure of a year ago. While this storm isn’t expected to be nearly as severe, there’s an uneasy recognition from regulators and policymakers that given the right circumstances the Texas grid could go over the edge once again. Despite […]
15Dec

Looking Back as We Begin to Look Forward

The year is coming to a close, but before we look forward to 2022, it’s worth looking back on 2021 and the moments and themes that have shaped how we think about coal and its future. Over the course of 2021, this blog has tried to offer insight and perspective on an energy conversation that […]
17Nov

No One Wants the Grid of Tomorrow in their Backyard

With overwhelming evidence accumulating from Texas and California, New England and Europe, it’s becoming evident that dispatchable fuel diversity and robust capacity reserve margins are essential to navigating the energy transition. Even as real-life challenges abound, these cornerstones of reliability and affordability are disappearing in grids across the U.S. States and utilities continue to dismantle, […]
11Aug

Capture the Moment

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill marks a massive leap forward for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). It’s a leap forward that should be celebrated for advancing U.S. technological leadership and for advancing U.S. climate leadership. As Brad Crabtree, director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, described, it is “the most ambitious portfolio of carbon management policies […]
04Aug

Infrastructure Reinvestment: American Met for American Steel

Infrastructure week was a dream so fragile you could only whisper it for fear saying the words would mark its undoing. But long odds aside, it has arrived and none too soon. The nation’s roads, bridges, dams, water systems and electricity grid – just some examples of the breadth of our critically important and diverse […]
28Jul

Just How Unreliable Can the Grid Become?

As the inclusion of a potential clean electricity standard continues to be linked to infrastructure talks, context is important. The United States is already living on the grid reliability edge and, without thoughtful planning, could be poised to lunge towards the chasm. With the energy transition accelerating, and proposed timelines becoming shorter, just how much […]