New England’s dependence on fuel oil for heating is putting the region in the energy crosshairs this winter, with the average heating oil price projected to hit a record $3.81 per gallon.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says it currently looks like the US winter will be slightly warmer than normal, but not nearly as warm as last winter in much of the nation. Keep reading →
Touted by movie stars, discussed in presidential debates, solar and wind energy are the technological ‘it girls’ of our time. Meanwhile, combined heat and power, 100 years old and shaped like a box, can’t get a date with popular culture.
Such was the lament that threaded through last week’s annual gathering in Washington, D.C. of about 120 industry supporters of CHP, as the technology is more commonly known (for those who know it). Keep reading →
An effort by 22 U.S. states to spur demand for natural gas vehicles has produced a strong response from auto dealers to a request to supply CNG-powered cars, vans and trucks for state fleets.
Dealerships in 28 states representing the three big U.S. manufacturers plus Honda submitted more than 100 bids in response to a joint request for proposals by the states, which are seeking to boost demand for abundant domestic natural gas, and support the price after it fell to a decade-low in spring 2011. Keep reading →
US President Barack Obama tours the General Electric Plant with GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt (L) and plant manager Kevin Sharkey January 21, 2011 in Schenectady, New York.
General Electric recently announced $1.2bn orders for its new FlexEfficiency 60 turbine, which the company claims is a step change for the industry in its ability to supply both baseload power and ramp quickly to smooth intermittent loads from solar and wind. Keep reading →
Natural gas is being taken more seriously as a transportation fuel by U.S. fleet operators and trucking companies, but its scarce availability is standing in the way of widespread adoption by the general public, industry experts said recently.
Despite the clear price advantage enjoyed by the relatively few car and truck drivers that use natural gas, it won’t become a significant source of transportation fuel until there’s a network of publicly available natural gas filling stations comparable to that for gasoline, or until home refueling is a viable option for most consumers, the experts said. Keep reading →
On the surface, LNG appears to represent a new opportunity where easy profits are for the taking. In reality, producing and delivering LNG is a difficult business, and that business will only get harder as time goes on.
Unlike natural gas, where prices are established regionally, LNG is becoming a global commodity. Market prices depend on global supplies and demand. It is expected supplies will remain constrained for the next three years. 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 →
The Marcellus Shale is living up to its promise.
The biggest portion of the massive Appalachian gas field – that underlying Pennsylvania – produced 895 billion cubic feet of gas in the first half of 2012, more than twice as much as it did a year earlier, and 42 percent more than in the second half of last year. Keep reading →
Are deregulated power markets producing the long-term, reliable energy infrastructure that manufacturers need to invest and expand?
The issue looms because the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom has raised the potential for a “manufacturing renaissance” in Pennsylvania and other shale states, David Ciarlone, manager of Global Energy Services for Alcoa told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) technical conference on growing electricity and gas industry interdependencies recently held in Washington, DC. Keep reading →
The Flawed US Energy Policy Discussion
By Jared AndersonAre the energy industry and the business of politics incompatible?
It could be the simplest explanation for why the US does not have a comprehensive, efficient or constructive energy policy set. On the most basic level, two-year and four-year election cycles are problematic for an industry that needs to make decisions and investments over twenty- to thirty-year time horizons. Keep reading →