Energy and Land-Use: Rural Communities Continue to Spurn Renewables
Robert Bryce has a great piece in RealClearEnergy today on the latest land-use conflicts roiling planned wind and solar buildouts across rural middle America. From the piece: The hype about wind and solar energy keeps colliding with the hard reality of land-use conflicts. Nowhere is that more obvious than in Ohio, where 41 townships have […]
Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Nuclear Takes Too Long to Build
I’ve extolled the virtues of nuclear energy for its reliability, clean emissions, efficient land use, “just transition” potential, and energy security upside on several occasions. I’ve even documented why many of the fears surrounding nuclear and aversion to its deployment are often irrational and misguided. But one of the legitimate, good-faith critiques of nuclear is […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Energy and Land Use: A Sober Look at the Space Needed to Power the Future
Much of the conversation surrounding energy policy in Colorado these days has to do primarily with the emissions currently being produced and ways to continue reducing said emissions. The arguments over the role of various energy sources in getting to a decarbonized future are familiar at this point. But there has been comparatively little discussion […]
Gone with the Wind: Weather Dependent Energy Puts Residents at Risk
The power grid in Texas is a little bit under the weather. A major heat wave has arrived just as the wind stopped blowing, creating a perfect storm for residents looking for relief from the blistering summer sun in the country’s second-largest state. As Bloomberg reports: Wind power — a key source of electricity in […]
Clean and Reliable: The Case for Small-Modular Reactors in Colorado
Electric grid reliability is on the forefront of everyone’s mind following a sobering report from the country’s grid overseer. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a regulatory body overseeing grid operations across the United States and Canada, warned last month in its latest summer reliability assessment that vast swaths of the West and Midwest […]
Conclusion: Reflection and New Hope for 2020
Conclusion of our series on the Colorado Green New Deal As the summer ends, it’s time to wrap up our series on the Colorado Green New Deal (CGND). Democrats in the house, senate, and governor’s office have been dedicated to moving the state toward what the Polis Administration describes as a “clean energy future.” This […]
Glitzy headlines can’t hide the failure of subsidy-rich solar
Despite billions in taxpayer subsidies, the United States currently generates less energy from solar and wind, the darlings of government favoritism, than it did from renewables in 1950.
When it comes to Xcel, where do hundreds of millions of dollars come from?
By Cortney Crouch On April 12, 2016, the Denver Business Journal published an article, “Xcel, Vestas to build Colorado’s biggest wind farm,” in which David Eves, the President and CEO of Public Service Company of Colorado, stated that the newly announced 600-MW wind farm that PSCo would be building in partnership with Vestas would mean […]
Despite skyrocketing electricity rates, former Gov. Ritter says voters ‘willing to pay more’
On April 11, 2016, former Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter, spoke to Colorado Public Radio host Ryan Warner about renewable energy and energy costs in Colorado. Warner pressed Ritter on the issue of costs, saying: Cost is central, central to the debate that is raging in the courts right now, in the state legislature, over the […]
