FERC Federal

Senate Group Seeks Amendment of Proposed EPA Regulations

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A group of Senate Democrats requested the Administration to reconsider EPA’s proposed emissions regulations that would essentially ban construction of new coal-fueled power plants in the U.S.

Four Senate Democrats, led by Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), wrote to President Obama seeking amendments of EPA’s proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for new power plants. The letter – released on March 18, 2013 – explains that implementation of the current draft would effectively ban construction of new coal-based power plants. Drawing attention to provisions that place new coal-fueled plants and natural gas-fueled plants in the same standard, the Senators called for different emissions standards based on fossil fuel type. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 25, 2013 at 8:30 AM

OpEd: Why We Should Pity Utilities

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It’s time for some compassion for the owners of America’s $374 billion power industry – twenty-two of whose member firms appear on the Fortune 500 list.

While the fate of these companies may not automatically tug at the heartstrings of your average American, it deserves our attention – not least because it’s in our nation’s short-term and long-term best interests. These thousands of powerful companies not only keep our lights on and our iPhones charged; they also stand squarely in the path of our clean-energy future. Their ability to adapt to a bevy of unprecedented challenges will determine how well and how quickly the United States succeeds in weaning itself from fossil fuels. They’ll also play a key role in the $268 billion global clean-energy market. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 22, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Canadian Government and Business Leaders ‘Frustrated’ with Keystone XL Debate

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The controversial Keystone XL Pipeline was very much on the agenda at today’s FT Global Investment Series: Focus on Canada event held in New York City, with government officials and business leaders using strong language to underline the importance of US – Canadian trade relations with regard to the pipeline.

“For the record, I would note that is no small irritant to some in Canada that our American friends focus on the current and future emissions from the oil sands while, here in the United States, a far greater environmental impact is caused by hundreds of coal-fired plants that remain in operation,” said Jim Prentice, Senior Executive Vice President and Vice Chairman at CIBC. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 14, 2013 at 8:45 AM

Get Your Cruise On Now, Before Fuel Costs Double

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Not surprisingly, fuel makes up a significant portion of a cruise ship’s operating budget – about $1 million for a 10 day trip – but due to tighter maritime industry emissions regulations, these costs are sharply rising.

Cruise ships are often described as floating hotels, but they are also floating power plants. “This ship is a diesel-electric plant,” Richard Pruitt, Associate Vice President of Safety and Environmental Stewardship at Royal Caribbean recently told a group of journalists during a tour of the “Explorer of the Seas,” at the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Beyonne, New Jersey. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 8, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Pace of Transmission Investment Soars at Private Utilities

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Shareholder owned utilities are set to invest more than $1 billion each month in transmission projects in the US in 2013, with a planned total of $15.1 billion this year up from already-impressive $11 billion in total in 2011.

Transmission infrastructure shortfalls have been widely forecast for the entire US power sector, which last saw comprehensive buildouts decades ago. Since then, successive attempts to reform power markets have often been blamed for failing to create sufficient incentives for companies to invest in new needed power line upgrades. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Natural Gas Market Transparency: What does FERC Want?

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Everyone wants Washington to take action, but when politicians and regulators start moving ahead with reform plans it is a good bet almost no one is going to be happy with the outcome.

The energy sector, as one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, has some surprisingly freewheeling elements following the piecemeal and incomplete deregulation of energy trading that followed decades of extreme centralization. Efforts to dismantle the old central-planning model of energy markets were halted by the extraordinary complexity of market disruptions in the late 1990s and early 2000s and have been lagging in the decade since. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM

Jeremy Grantham to Join Keystone Pipeline Protest

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The fund manager will march in the Sierra Club’s first-ever act of civil disobedience against a controversial pipeline.

 /  Published February 13, 2013 at 10:15 AM

Exxon Paid Roughly Twice the Income Tax as Apple Last Year

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Tax code reform is expected to be high on the US political agenda this year and the issue of tax breaks or subsidies for Big Oil is often tossed around as part of the discussion. However, despite receiving various tax incentives, oil companies pay more in taxes than many other US-based multinational firms.

In their dogged pursuit of sensational headlines, media companies love to make a big deal about the largest US company by market capitalization, a title that ExxonMobil and Apple have traded for the past few years. Exxon recently reported its fourth quarter and full-year 2012 financials and on net income of roughly $45 billion last year, which is slightly higher than Apple’s approximately $42 billion, the oil company paid about twice as much in income taxes. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 7, 2013 at 9:15 AM

GE Goes Into the Software Business: The Energy Sector Industrial Internet

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Utilities are using only one fifth of the data they collect and create in analysis that can create efficiencies and improve performance, GE says, and the industrial giant is turning up its information technology efforts to help those companies better see and optimize their surging data agglomeration.

The new Grid IQ Insight analytics platform that GE is launching at this week’s high-profile DistribuTECH conference is part of the larger company’s focus on the “industrial internet,” a wave of monitored and intelligent infrastructure that can wring $150 billion of unrealized efficiencies out of the economy, Grid IQ insight product line leader Giri Iyer told Breaking Energy in a recent interview. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 30, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Memo To DC: Think Long-Term On Clean Energy

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Memo To DC: Think Long-Term On Clean EnergIn his inaugural address, President Obama issued a ringing call for U.S. leadership on the development of sustainable energy technologies. Given Republican reluctance on the issue, what that will mean in practice is hard to say, but a leading nonpartisan research group has a message for the administration and Congress: Adopt long-term, consistent policies or lose out to the rest of the world.

“Although initiatives in recent years have helped to stimulate clean energy progress in the United States, the future of government policy is now uncertain and weighs heavily on U.S. industry and its competitive prospects,” the Pew Chartitable Trust says in its new study [PDF], “Innovate, Manufacture, Compete: A Clean Energy Action Plan.” Keep reading →

 /  Published January 25, 2013 at 2:00 PM
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