Climate change

NTPC Ltd., one of India’s largest power generating companies, on Sept. 3 announced it had commissioned the country’s first ultrasupercritical (USC) coal-fired unit at the two-unit 1,320-MW Khargone plant that is under construction in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The development marks a major milestone for India, which depends on coal for 56% of its […]

NRG Energy has joined a growing list of major U.S. coal generators that want to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.  The Princeton, New Jersey-based energy company on Sept. 24 said it would accelerate carbon goals it set in 2014 to reach its 50% GHG reduction target (from a 2014 baseline) by 2025—not […]

DTE Energy has announced a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, following steps by Duke Energy, American Electric Power, and NRG Energy to do the same over the past two weeks. The Detroit-based company on Sept. 26 said it would go beyond its existing commitment to reduce carbon emissions 50% by 2030 and […]

“The world’s nuclear plants continue to perform excellently,” Agneta Rising, director general of the World Nuclear Association, wrote in the preface to the recently released World Nuclear Performance Report 2019. Yet, if the nuclear industry is to reach its “Harmony” goal, which is for nuclear generation to supply 25% of the world’s electricity before 2050, […]

The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) is meeting this week in Salt Lake City, Utah, joining with the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) to present North America Smart Energy Week, which this year includes both the long-running Solar Power International gathering along with Energy Storage International. A big theme this week is the integration of […]

New York City (September 23, 2019) — Schneider Electric announced today at Climate Week NYC 2019 that it is drastically stepping up its commitment to carbon neutrality with three new actions: (1) accelerating its 2030 goal of carbon neutrality by demonstrating carbon neutrality in its extended ecosystem by 2025, bringing forward its objective by 5 years […]

Two formidable U.S. coal power generators this week separately revised their carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets. Duke Energy announced it would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. American Electric Power (AEP), meanwhile, said it would extend its target from 60% to 70% from 2000 levels by 2030, and by more than 80% by 2050—but it […]

A Vistra Energy subsidiary on Sept. 16 said it will close the nearly 60-year-old E.D. Edwards coal-fired plant in Bartonville, Illinois, by year-end 2022 under a settlement between the company and environmental groups the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Respiratory Health Association. The groups made a joint announcement Monday of the […]

A coalition of nine utility companies is suing the Trump administration over its plan to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. New York-based Consolidated Edison said the Affordable Clean Energy, or ACE, rule undermines efforts the companies already have in place to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power generation. The companies, who call their group […]

Last year, five of the world’s 449 operable nuclear reactors reached 50 years of operation for the first time, four first-of-their kind reactor designs were brought online, and while the industry showed capacity factor impacts from load-following, the global nuclear fleet performed  at an average capacity factor of about 80%, says a new report from […]

As of August 2019, 29 U.S. states and the District of Columbia had renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), and eight others had non-binding renewable portfolio goals. Three states also had clean energy standards, which set targets for low-carbon non-renewables, like nuclear, and two had clean energy goals. Shown in the bars below are the shares of generation by source […]

This year, it seems hardly a week has gone by without a new report making us even more nervous about climate change. It’s as if the editorial theme for 2019 was: “It’s worse than you thought.” Maybe

German officials on Aug. 28 approved a plan to spend as much as €40 billion ($44.4 billion) over the next 20 years on projects designed to lessen the impact of the country’s complete move away from coal-fired power generation. Peter Altmaier, the country’s economy minister, said the money will become available after lawmakers pass legislation […]

The list of 181 CEOs who earlier this week moved to publicly degrade shareholder value in a bid to redefine the “purpose of a corporation” includes several chief executives from power companies.  The Aug. 19 statement issued by the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs “to promote a thriving U.S. economy and expanded opportunity for […]

COMMENTARY At this point, one thing should be abundantly clear about the Trump administration’s theme on energy policy: the president will do whatever it takes to prop up coal, even if the market and the public choose otherwise. The Trump administration’s latest pro-coal gambit is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) so-called Affordable Clean Energy rule, […]

Community solar projects, also known as solar farms or solar gardens, are maturing and moving forward. Minnesota leads the nation with 559 MW of capacity on the ground, and other states are following with new

The hard realities of an energy system based on renewables will soon be with us, causing far more problems than are realized. Renewables don’t offer a quick fix, and we need to get the transition from

BHP and Mitsubishi Development Pty (MDP) in late June signed a memorandum of understanding for joint research, development, and deployment of greenhouse gas emissions reduction technologies in several countries, including projects with battery storage, solar, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). The agreement, signed in Tokyo, Japan, on June 20, also calls for research into […]

Nuclear power advocates suggest there are many benefits associated with nuclear energy. They point to high-paying jobs; billions of dollars in economic activity for plant-hosting communities; and secure, reliable, baseload electricity. But the most-important benefit of nuclear power may be that it emits no greenhouse gases, and therefore does not contribute to climate change. According […]

New York on July 18 enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA),  law that requires the state to produce 100% of its power from renewables and nuclear by 2040. The legislation includes agreements to build two offshore wind projects worth a combined 1.7 GW by 2025, the single largest renewable energy procurement in […]

According to the Energy Impact Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research institute focused on deep decarbonization, CO2 emissions “must go net-negative by 2040, globally across all energy sectors” to begin countering climate change. The only way it sees to accomplish this is to “produce energy inexpensive enough to make carbon negative fuels that compete with fossil […]

The pairing of wind and solar is emerging as a smart strategy to implement renewable energy sources with better economic feasibility. The pairing of wind and solar power is an advantageous complement; the two benefit each other. The synergistic combination is an emerging trend in renewable energy and power generation as costs drop. The pairing […]

The worldwide movement toward a clean energy future is barreling ahead. Most clean energy advocates seem to focus on wind and solar power as their resources of choice, and it shows, as the installed capacity

Chile, a country that relied on coal for about two-fifths of its power generation in 2016, in June announced it would mothball eight coal plants, totaling 23 GW, of its existing 28-plant coal fleet over the

Africa has a number of power supply challenges, many of which can be overcome with renewable energy. Foremost among the options is hydropower. While large projects can meet stiff resistance in the development

Coal power, which has seen a marked decline in the U.S., is necessary for reliability and energy affordability, and sustaining it could boost pollution technology exports and “improve lives while driving down emissions worldwide,” said Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a speech last week. Wheeler made the remarks at a 90-minute event […]

Six of the 10 most-destructive wildfires in California’s history have occurred over the past two years, and the state’s aging electrical infrastructure is a big part of the problem. According to a report from Gov. Newsom’s Strike Force, equipment owned by California’s three largest investor-owned utilities has ignited more than 2,000 fires (about 1.5 fires […]

Danish renewables firm Ørsted’s 1.1-GW Ocean Wind project is the winner of New Jersey’s first award for offshore wind, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) said on June 21.  Ørsted, with support from Public Service Enterprise Group’s (PSEG’s) non-utility affiliate, vied for the award with two other offshore wind developers that submitted bids […]

Power plant SO2 and NOx emissions have decreased 92% and 84%, respectively, since Congress passed major amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990. Meanwhile, mercury air emissions from power plants have decreased 90% since 2000, as federal limits on mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants went into effect in 2015. […]

A new report from BloombergNEF (BNEF) predicts about half of the world’s power will come from renewable resources, including solar and wind, by 2050. The group’s New Energy Outlook 2019, released June 18, noted the trend will be driven by falling prices for solar, wind, and battery storage, along with trillions of dollars of investments […]