During this year’s presidential campaign, the renewable energy industry and the tax credits that support it have become a hot political topic.
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney caused a ripple of anxiety in the US wind industry when he said he would not extend the Production Tax Credit that has helped grow the wind industry to 50GW of installed capacity. Keep reading →
Marshall Steam Station, just 30 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina, was the most efficient coal-fired power plant in the United States when it opened in 1966, and maintained its position as best in class until 1974.
The 2,000MW plant is a small part of Duke Energy’s 58,200MW fleet of electric power capacity,
which serves seven million customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Keep reading →
Decarbonization of the US electric grid is an almost impossible task. But in the absence of climate legislation, the most effective carbon reductions might fall to electric power companies that burn a lot of the black stuff, rather than Congress.
NRG Energy has 7.3GW capacity in coal assets and 11.1GW in natural gas. But those figures are dramatically reversed in generation: 48TWh (66%) comes from coal and 14TWh (20%) from natural gas. The Princeton-based company could double those figures pending its $1.7 billion acquisition of GenOn, which would bring its fleet to 46GW and make it the largest independent power generation company in the US. Keep reading →
It all comes down to the price of natural gas.
Complying with pending mercury and ozone rules, and possibly carbon regulations, will mean replacing substantial amounts of coal capacity, mainly with natural gas, Dale Nesbitt, founder of Deloitte MarketPoint, told a Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions seminar in Washington July 18. Keep reading →
The US president of the world’s largest PV manufacturer said this week that he was more concerned about a change of administration in the White House that could revoke incentives for solar than he was about controversial trade tariffs on Chinese suppliers.
John Lefebvre, the president of Suntech America, said that he was especially concerned about potential Republican attempts to revoke the Investment Tax Credit, which returns 30% of the cost of a solar project, and state-level renewable goals. Keep reading →
Energy benchmarking can help you better understand your commercial property’s energy use and monitor performance over time. It allows for comparisons among similar building types and helps identify which ones could operate more efficiently.
The Environmental Protection Agency and its ENERGY STAR® Program offers a free online tool called Portfolio Manager that allows users to track and assess building energy consumption for a single building or an entire portfolio. Portfolio Manager can help comply with local energy laws, set investment priorities, identify under-performing buildings, verify efficiency improvements and receive EPA recognition for superior energy performance. Keep reading →
Memo to EPA: Two more years and some flexibility on technology will make a $100 billion difference.
That’s the finding of multi-year Electric Power Research Institute study on the cumulative costs faced by coal generators to meet new Environmental Protection Agency requirements. Keep reading →
Long-term shifts in electric sector demand from coal to natural gas are under way and will drive gas prices higher than expected this year and to $4 per million Btu in 2013, says a veteran analyst.
Record gas use by electric utilities, combined with production cuts from drillers stung by recent low prices, have combined to start an upward pricing trend, says Teri Viswanath of BNP Paribas Commodity Markets Strategy Group, in a May 11 market commentary. Keep reading →
Natural gas exports are clearly in the US national interest, concludes a year-long Brookings Institution study, and the Department of Energy should approve the nine export applications now pending.
All the projects won’t get built because there’s not a big enough global market for all the liquefied natural gas they could produce, said Charles Ebinger, Director of the Brookings’ Energy Security Initiative, who led the study team. Keep reading →
If it’s true that it takes a crisis to force change then the US car manufacturing sector understands this better than anyone. Detroit has undergone a renaissance in the wake of the global economic and financial meltdown, broadening their offerings to include more fuel efficient passenger vehicles, hybrid models and electric cars.
“We are experiencing technological changes in automobiles that I have not seen in my lifetime,” said Ford Motor Company Chairman Bill Ford at a recent reception to promote Ford’s partnership with sustainability innovator SHFT.com. AOL Huffington Post is also a founding partner of the site. Keep reading →
