UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week created a new government department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as part of his latest cabinet shuffle. The new entity will take on several issues affecting the UK power industry, including soaring wholesale prices resulting from a squeeze in generating capacity, the nation’s crumbling power infrastructure, and […]

U.S. baseload generation capacity reserve margins declined to 17% last year, and with demand expected to outpace capacity growth, the nation could face significant risk of costly power brownouts and blackouts as early as next summer, suggests a new study released by NextGen Energy Council.   The nonprofit organization is composed of a wide variety […]

Folks, this is a true story. We do not make this stuff up. As the late, great comic Steve Allen used to say, “I kid you not.” An NBC television crew, dispatched to the Arctic to show the horrendous effects of global warming – an ice-free Northwest passage – was stalled in the Arctic Sea […]

Did the now-irrelevant 1997 Kyoto Protocol reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, or even slow the rate of increase? No, according to Global Carbon Project, established in 2001 to measure worldwide, man-made carbon emissions patterns. According to the project’s “Global Carbon Budget,” released Sept. 25, “Anthropogenic CO2 emission have been growing about four times faster since […]

A majority of supporters of John McCain and Barack Obama largely agree on how to deal with both the country’s energy needs and the problem of climate change, a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll shows.   WorldPublicOpinion.org, an international research project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, surveyed 1,174 Americans […]

Current U.S. tax credits for renewable energy, including wind and solar energy, are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2008. Last week, both U.S. congressional houses passed versions of a bill that would extend these credits, but the House’s version of what has been called “the year’s most important tax package” prompted criticism from the […]

Nuclear energy giant Électricité de France (EDF) on Wednesday clinched a deal to acquire British Energy plc—a privatized UK company that provides almost 20% of Britain’s electricity—for £12.5 billion ($23.18 billion).   On Thursday, the majority French state-owned company bought a 26% stake in British Energy through its subsidiary Lake Acquisitions as part of its […]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last week announced a solicitation for up to $8 billion in federal loan guarantees for coal-powered projects that employ advanced technologies to reduce or sequester emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases.   This marks the third round of solicitations for the DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program. The DOE said […]

RWE npower has urged the UK government to address pitfalls in carbon capture and storage (CCS) regulation and policy that could prompt delays to vital investments. The company, which revealed it was close to completing a UK CCS facility, was responding to the government’s CCS consultation that closed last week.   RWE npower, which supplies […]

All 12.6 million allowances offered at the first U.S. carbon dioxide emissions auction sold on Sept. 25, 2008. The permits were bought by 59 participants from energy, financial, and environmental sectors at a clearing price of $3.07 per allowance, states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) said Monday.   RGGI said on its […]