What Not to Do: California Energy Policy Serves As a Warning to Colorado
Just days after finalizing a future ban on the sale of gas-powered vehicles, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) sent out a bulletin Tuesday afternoon warning that an expected heat wave posed serious threats to the reliability of the state’s electric grid. Starting tomorrow through Tuesday, California and the West are expecting extreme heat that […]
Environmentalists For… Higher Emissions?
A new bombshell report released today by the Breakthrough Institute details the lengths gone to by a prominent environmental group and a major renewables lobbyist to produce a bogus study in order to justify closing California’s last operating nuclear plant. Here’s an excerpt: Since PG&E negotiated an agreement with anti-nuclear environmental groups in 2016 to […]
Elon Musk Calls for Boost in Oil & Gas, Nuclear
The founder and CEO of one of the world’s largest electric vehicle and battery companies wants us to “drill baby drill.” According to CNBC: The world must continue to extract oil and gas in order to sustain civilization, while also developing sustainable sources of energy, Tesla founder Elon Musk told reporters at a conference in Norway on […]
Gas is Dead. Long Live Gas!
Natural gas is one of the go-to bogeymen for many climate hawks. This is despite the remarkable economic and climate contributions of natural gas over the last decade or so. As such, activists and policymakers have made a concerted effort over the last few years to begin constraining the industry and phasing out the fuel’s […]
California Finalizes Gas-Vehicle Ban. Is Colorado Next?
In 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D.) signed an unprecedented executive order banning the sale of new gas-powered cars and trucks after 2035. The order was then kicked to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a state regulatory agency dedicated to air pollution, to formalize the rules in order to make Newsom’s decree a reality. […]
Japan’s Nuclear U-Turn
The country of Japan is often trotted out by anti-nuclear environmental types as a go-to case study for why the U.S. should eschew nuclear energy in favor of renewables to meet our emissions goals. It’s experience during the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, when a massive tsunami triggered a partial meltdown in three of the plant’s […]
Study: Shoddy Public Charging Infrastructure Hampers EV Take-Up
Policymakers at both the national and state levels are making a concerted effort to encourage the widespread adoption of electric vehicles among the general public. Here in Colorado, the Polis administration has set a goal of having 940,000 EVs on the road by 2030 as part of its plan to electrify the state’s transportation sector […]
Polis Announces Push Back Against Looming EPA Mandates
In a rare break from his usual routine, Governor Jared Polis (D.) appears to be fighting back against unwelcome and costly environmental regulations for once. Per the Denver Gazette: In a reversal of his approach to federal ozone determinations three years ago, Gov. Jared Polis is poised to ask the Environmental Protection Agency to not rush […]
California, Germany Finally Receive Nuclear Energy Wake-up Call
Though it may not seem like it at first glance, the state of California and the country of Germany share some uncanny characteristics, particularly when it comes to energy policy. Both fancy themselves pioneers in the green energy transition, and both punch above their weight with their respective abilities to influence surrounding governments to adopt […]
Government Planners Nix Key Highway Expansions In Favor of Bike Lanes, Bus Travel
“Let them ride bikes,” say the transportation planners of the state’s most populated regional planning organization. The fallout from CDOT’s shift from an organization solely concerned with building and maintaining the state’s roads into a technocratic experiment in human behavioral engineering is beginning to take effect. From CPR News: The board of the Denver Regional […]
Virginia Regulators Set an Example for Ratepayer Accountability
Last Friday, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC)—a regulatory agency that, among other things, oversees the state’s utilities—imposed a strict performance standard that carries financial consequences if a proposed offshore wind project from the state’s largest utility fails to perform. This is a huge win for ratepayer accountability, and it has real implications for customers […]
Small Modular Reactors Get New Industry, Government Buy-In
Nuclear fission truly is a bit of unicorn in the world’s panoply of energy sources. Not only is it extremely efficient at reliably producing electricity—generating zero carbon emissions while doing so—it can also be used to co-produce heat and steam. That makes it an appealing option for hard to decarbonize businesses in the industrial sector, […]
