North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)

27Jun

A Scorching Reminder of the Coal Fleet’s Importance

Searing summer heat has blanketed much of the country and once again coal power is playing an essential role in meeting soaring demand. But this coal capacity – the very power plants working overtime to keep the lights on and air conditioners running – comes from the same plants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) […]
08May

EPA’s Regulatory Blitz Collides with Hyperscale Power Demand

“You never like to have to sue, but we’re going to do what we have to do to defend our grid and our customers that use that grid,” Ben Fowke, American Electric Power (AEP) interim president, CEO and director, said during a recent earnings call. Facing surging power demand, AEP – which serves 5 million […]
25Apr

EPA Doubles Down on the Grid Reliability Crisis

Today, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) unleashed a suite of rules specifically designed to force the closure of well-operating coal plants and they did so with absolutely no analysis of the collective impact of these rules on the nation’s alarmingly shaky grid reliability. “For the last three years, the administration has methodically developed […]
11Apr

New Paper: EPA’s Grid Crisis Collides with Surging Power Demand

The National Mining Association (NMA) has released a new paper on the collision of soaring power demand with rapidly eroding grid reliability driven by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory agenda. This is a familiar story to readers of this blog, but this new white paper connects some important dots on the interconnected challenges […]
20Mar

Missing the Heart of the Story

Over the past few weeks, both The Washington Post and The New York Times have discovered the sudden reemergence of soaring electricity demand and its collision with the nation’s teetering supply of power. The Post feature, which ran on the front page the morning of the State of the Union, was dramatically titled, “Amid explosive […]
06Mar

Mr. President: Listen to Americans on Energy Policy

With the State of the Union address now here and energy policy likely to have a significant role in the President’s agenda, it’s valuable to understand what Americans actually want from the nation’s energy policy. As new national polling released from the National Mining Association (NMA) and conducted by Maru Public Opinion makes clear, Americans […]
01Mar

EPA Misses the Point on Grid Reliability

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has picked a winner in the energy markets and, in doing so, the American people will undoubtedly be the losers. Yesterday, the news broke that existing natural gas power plants will be exempted from the so-called Clean Power Plan 2.0. While EPA claims that a new comprehensive rule on […]
14Feb

Not So Fast, We Need Those Plants

Concern about its ability to keep the lights on has led FirstEnergy, one of the nation’s largest regulated utilities, to walk back the proposed closure of two of its coal power plants. The decision to continue the operation of the utility’s two West Virginia coal plants past 2030 – the Fort Martin and Harrison power stations […]
22Jan

Essential Dispatchable Capacity

While the lights haven’t yet gone out during this winter’s blast of bitter cold, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner (FERC) Mark Christie recently provided an important reminder of how utilities and grid operators are meeting record power demand. During a FERC open meeting last week, Christie reminded all in attendance that it’s dispatchable power – namely […]
27Dec

2023 in Review

The year is coming to a close but, before the ball drops and we ring in 2024, it’s worth looking back on the energy stories and themes that shaped 2023 and coal’s role in them. Globally, coal demand hit an all-time high while at home – despite ever-louder warnings about imploding grid reliability – the […]