Commentary

It is clear that energy use will expand in the future as our population and society’s standard of living increase. Meanwhile, the push toward a sustainable lifestyle requires that all resources be utilized efficiently and sparingly. The National Academy of Sciences has identified paradigm shifts from current processes to an ideal vision centered on renewable energy and an atom economy—defined as maximum incorporation of starting materials into final products. These seemingly disparate paths converge if one considers energy production from municipal solid waste (MSW).

An "emergency war supplemental" appropriation bill that Congress was considering at this writing has implications for the power industry: The measure includes $9 billion each for new loan guarantees for nuclear power and renewable energy projects.

The recently unveiled Kerry-Lieberman global climate warming bill is an exercise in triviality. By century’s end, reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 83% will only result in global temperatures being one-fifth of one degree Fahrenheit less than they would otherwise be. That is a scientifically meaningless reduction.

Cape Wind was a momentous clean energy victory, but if climate change advocates truly take the immense scale of the energy and climate challenge seriously, we must ensure that this is the last time that a new zero-carbon energy source faces such prolonged NIMBY opposition

A group of 14 international academics from a variety of fields, under the auspices of the London School of Economics and Politics, have produced a paper calling for a new approach to the failed Kyoto Protocol model for dealing with global warming, scrapping the notion of emissions reductions.

Now that U.S. utilities have taken federal stimulus funds and seamlessly built out two-way advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) connecting utility control centers and end users (ok, not completely, but let’s assume that the “stall-ulus” becomes a true stimulus), the question becomes, what’s next? At the moment, this new “comm layer” or “platform” has utilities planning in two directions: upstream and downstream from the smart meters.

The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill is a very important step forward in the climate debate. We need federal action on climate legislation now. And we need to get it right.

In recent months, U.S. utilities, manufacturers, and technology firms received $3.4 billion as part of the economic stimulus package. These funds have been allocated to help modernize the country’s electric power system and increase energy efficiency. However, as these "smart-grid" grants continue to be awarded, questions are being raised about how to safeguard smart meters and other critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

I recently had the privilege of moderating the Power Industry Executive Roundtable, part of the annual ELECTRIC POWER Conference & Exhibition opening ceremonies. Usually, the power industry executives have predictable views of important issues, but not this year.

The demand for "green" electricity — electricity produced from renewable sources like wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biofuels — is at an all-time high in the U.S. Over the past decade, solar and wind capacity have increased dramatically due largely to mandatory renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which have now been adopted by 27 states.