Commentary

The age-old adage “water and electricity don’t mix” does not apply to 21st-century infrastructure planning. The two entities can no longer be viewed as separate commodities. The demands on both are intertwined, so solutions for meeting new and growing challenges associated with water scarcity and carbon regulations must also be integrated. Water is essential to […]

The enforcement mechanisms of the environmental statutes in the 1960s were both cumbersome and ineffective.

“Electricity use and gross national product [are] strongly correlated. The relationship…is so important that it should be considered in developing…energy and economic policies [which] seek to lower the real costs of electricity supply,” U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 1986

The plurality of regulatory proceedings originate with utilities seeking to improve their profitability. Profitability being part of the public interest, these submissions deserve our attention. But what if these filings are “framed” to divert our attention away from our public interest mission?

Water resources represent essential inputs into energy production while, at the same time, energy availability is a key factor in effective water resource use.

While the New Year officially begins Jan. 1, in my mind, the year really begins the day after Labor Day. That’s when Washington again takes up its never-ending, seldom-succeeding task of pushing the policy boulder up the hill.

When—not if—we pass climate legislation, we will put the U.S. on a path toward a low-carbon electric generation sector. As part of this shift, we’ll need more transmission, including lines to wind and solar power plants that are sometimes located far from today’s power grid. The question is: How do we plan for these new lines and how should we pay for them?

There is an idea that has been around for a long time, at least since the fall of 1973: All that stands between the U.S. and an abundant energy future is a lack of spending on research and development. It is as though the Knights Templar could find the Holy Grail, if only the Pope would commit just a few more resources to the hunt.

The EPA, determined to regulate U.S. carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, found that the low limits set by the Act for any “regulated pollutant” led to, in the EPA’s words, “absurd” results. Undeterred, the EPA developed the “Tailoring Rule,” which reinterprets the Act to apply to only larger emissions sources. Texas eloquently rejected the EPA’s legal gymnastics.

A proven solution for immediate and long-term job creation came from President Barack Obama and his administration earlier this year: investment in U.S. nuclear energy. Bulldozers in Georgia are already on the move and making preparations for expansion of a nuclear plant that has achieved several approvals, and long-awaited jobs in the skilled labor sector could materialize there within months.