Environmental

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early October announced it would rescind yet another signature Obama administration policy: the electricity regulation known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP). As with

When it comes to the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the tables have turned, but the arguments are largely the same. On November 28 and 29, during the Trump administration’s only public hearing on its plan to repeal the CPP, an Obama-era regulation aimed at reducing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, old arguments for and […]

The bell has tolled for another U.S. coal-fired power plant. WEC Energy Group on November 28 said it would shutter its Pleasant Prairie facility in Wisconsin, another victim of energy market dynamics that include low natural gas prices, falling demand for electricity, and the continuing move by utilities toward renewable power generation sources such as […]

A U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2015 from U.S. coal consumption shows 43 states recorded lower emissions year-over-year, with just four states showing increased levels, while three states and the District of Columbia had little to no emissions. On the whole, the EIA report released in mid-November comparing […]

Virginia regulators are ready to consider a proposal to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the Northeast, becoming the 10th state in the nation’s largest carbon-trading market. The move comes as newly elected governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, prepares to take office in a state where the Republican-led legislature has shot down previous […]

In the next 25 years, the world will turn increasingly to renewables and natural gas to meet energy demand, turning away from coal, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2017 (WEO). As in previous years, the report makes predictions based on different scenarios. This year’s include a New Policies Scenario, which […]

The focus of the coverage of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) plan to kill the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) has been on what it will mean for coal. The consensus is that it won’t have much impact, as major consumers of steam coal have already written off the fuel as a result of […]

Giant UK Tidal Lagoon Project Secures Grid Connection Deal. Tidal Lagoon Power’s project to build a full-scale 3.2-GW tidal lagoon power plant in the Severn Estuary in Swansea Bay to harness strong tides on

The UK dropped the ball on carbon capture and storage (CCS) development and Scotland intends to pick it up, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced in early September. In the government’s program

The PJM Interconnection, the largest regional transmission operator in the U.S., faces many problems: adapting to state policies designed to skew power markets in the face of natural gas and renewable