In 1996, when the German Wind Energy Association (GWEA) came to life, the full force of Germany’s onshore wind power amounted to a handful of entrepreneurs experimenting with a budding but imperfect technology.
Today, only 16 years later, onshore wind power constitutes 8 percent of Germany’s energy supply, generating nearly half of the nation’s renewable electricity. More than 24,000 wind turbines dot the German landscape with a capacity of more than 32,000 megawatts. Keep reading →
While national opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project has focused on the environmental risks of pumping synthetic crude from Alberta’s oil sands across the United States to Gulf Coast refineries, it’s the issue of eminent domain that has riled critics in Texas.
Several appeals have been filed by Texas landowners trying to resist the efforts of pipeline company TransCanada to use a local law to force reluctant landowners to permit construction of a southern extension of the line from Cushing, Oklahoma to Nederland, Texas. Keep reading →
Chevron estimates that the abundance of cheap natural gas in the US will be short-lived, according to one of its key strategy staff.
Andre Peterhans, manager of strategic planning, last week told a group at the BERC Energy Symposium at UC Berkeley that “$2 gas has perhaps come and gone”. Keep reading →
On September 19th, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, sent a letter to the CEO of each Fortune 500 company requesting detailed information on his/her company’s cybersecurity practices. Given the particular importance of the energy sector to overall U.S. cybersecurity readiness, Senator Rockefeller’s expectations as to energy sector responses will undoubtedly be high.
The introductory message of the Rockefeller letter is emphatically simple: [we paraphrase] “In the face of an unprecedented national security challenge, The Chamber of Commerce and other inside-the-Beltway lobbyists have thwarted the passage of The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 which was supported by the President and the country’s top military officers. I now call on each of you as business leaders and Americans to express your support for the legislative efforts necessary to protect our economy and country.” Punchy perhaps, but on a stand-alone basis it would not be more than one would expect to get from a Ranking Democrat on a hotly debated issue in an election year. It does not, however, stand-alone. Keep reading →
The battle lines have been drawn for years, but the fight over nuclear power’s risks and benefits reached a new stage in New York this week where issues including public safety, reliability, the environment and ratepayer costs are being disputed.
The Indian Point nuclear power plant run by Entergy generates over 2,000 MW approximately 30 miles north of New York City. Supplying roughly 25% of New York City’s and Westchester County’s electricity, the plant’s operating licenses are due to expire within the next few years and the federal hearings are drawing Indian Point’s proponents and critics into stark relief. Keep reading →
The incentives offered by Arizona’s electric utilities have spurred their customers to install photovoltaic systems, which helps the companies comply with a mandate for renewable energy distribution. The incentives are renewable energy certificates, which are purchased by utilities from customers producing energy. But the RECs may soon become unnecessary – at least for the residential market – because the cost of producing PV energy is sinking towards parity with the cost for grid power.
This rapidly approaching reality is raising a tricky question: how will utilities demonstrate their compliance with the state’s renewable energy mandate without RECs? Keep reading →
Tidal energy and telecoms are proving testy neighbors in the Pacific Northwest.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is trying to broker a peace between Snohomish Public Utility District, which wants to install the first tidal energy turbines on the West Coast, and PC Landing, which operates a major telecommunication cable between Washington State and Japan. Keep reading →
The U.S. Commerce Department will announce a final decision today on duties in the China solar trade dispute that has split the U.S. industry and raised fears of a global trade war. Of course, for several months the government has already been collecting duties on certain Chinese solar imports. And, just to be clear, this won’t be the last word in the case. Keep reading →
Ongoing conflict between Pennsylvania’s booming natural gas industry and its opponents will reach a new focus on October 17 when the state’s Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over whether state law can pre-empt local regulations over gas development.
At issue is a section of Act 13, a wide-ranging new law that restricts the ability of municipalities to control the location of gas drilling within their bounds, as well as imposing impact fees and a host of other conditions on the industry drilling in the gas-rich Marcellus and Utica Shales beneath Pennsylvania. Keep reading →
Energy tax policy and regulation – what they are and what they should be – are the critical issues for the Presidential candidates, diverse energy experts agreed.
As with the candidates themselves, that was pretty much the end of the agreement in a Washington debate hosted by the American Petroleum Institute (API) Vote4Energy campaign. The experts split, politely, over what’s happening now and what that portends for the future, 40 years after the first oil embargo shocked Americans into paying attention to energy. Keep reading →
