natural gas

22Mar

Handcuffed to Natural Gas Volatility

Can U.S. natural gas be two maddeningly contradictory things at the same time? The answer appears to be a resounding yes. The nation’s supply of natural gas has become both the crutch of the U.S. energy system and also an energy affordability and reliability landmine. Once persistent fears of natural gas shortages were turned on […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
26Oct

Regulatory Intransigence

What changes over the course of four years? Not much if you compare President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to its predecessor from the Obama era. Team Biden came into office determined to pick up right where the Obama EPA had left off, hellbent on using every tool available to dismantle the domestic coal fleet. […]
21Sep

Picking the Wrong Bridge

Dispatchable fuel diversity has long provided a shield to electricity consumers from fuel price spikes. But that optionality is eroding in much of the U.S. – or is already gone – as the coal fleet is pushed off the grid. Years of warnings about the potential pain to consumers should natural gas prices spike, and […]
14Sep

The Next Grid Crisis is in New England

New England recognizes it has a dangerous fuel security problem on its hands. And a telling factor in that crisis is what it doesn’t have: fuel diversity in the form of coal capacity. New England’s overreliance on natural gas, constrained gas delivery system, and inability to site and build alternatives is barreling towards a completely […]
31Aug

The U.S. Coal Solution for Europe

The European energy crisis continues to deepen, and European leaders are now scrambling to break the link between the cost of natural gas and the price of electricity. Natural gas prices are 12 times higher than at the start of 2021 and power prices have exploded in tandem. The cost to consumers is enormous and […]
24Aug

Europe’s Energy Crisis Underscores the Need for Fuel Diversity

The energy crisis in Europe keeps getting worse. Months of warnings are now becoming grim reality. European power prices are now equivalent to more than $1,000 per barrel of oil. The price of natural gas is 13 times its normal seasonal price. As winter draws nearer, so does the pain of crushing energy costs. Britain […]
27Jul

Surging Natural Gas Prices Underscore the Need for Fuel Diversity

Consumers are finally getting some relief at the gas pump but the prices for natural gas and electricity are now soaring. As the economy treads water, fighting off recession, a new variant of energy-driven inflation is knocking at the door. With the U.S. now the world’s largest LNG exporter, and the U.S. gas market increasingly […]