New Ventures

U.S. Nuclear Energy: Where I’ve Been and Where It’s Going

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As a scientist with one eye squarely on the environment and the other on people, I’m proud that, for the last six years, I’ve helped to lead the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and its diverse array of members to help the public make decisions about nuclear energy and America’s energy future based on facts.

As I step down as co-chair of CASEnergy Coalition following a busy, fulfilling six years, I feel fortunate that, along with my co-chair and friend Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, we’ve made a lot of progress Keep reading →

 /  Published March 7, 2013 at 1:00 PM

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

Challenge and Opportunity: Financing Renewable Energy Projects

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Structuring renewable energy projects that provide acceptable investment returns is often helped by using feed in tariffs in European and other markets, but tax equity vehicles are more common in the US. Tax equity arrangements can be structurally complicated and difficult to administer, but can also provide double-digit returns when done properly.

These were some of the issues discussed by an expert panel at the AGRION Energy Summit and Sustainability Meeting held this week in New York City. The production tax credit for wind projects – recently extended for one year after much controversy – and the investment tax credit for solar are two tax equity vehicles commonly used in the US to help finance projects. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 21, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Three Ways for a Solar Energy Deal to Fail

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The solar business has been overshadowed in the past two years by rapidly declining prices, related “trade wars” replete with accusations of dumping on global markets and the failure of a high-profile company – Solyndra – pushing an unproved technology.

But solar power has in the past decade gone from a hippie style accessory and an expensive small-scale solution to a large, proven generation source with installations that can rival and exceed the scale of competing fossil fuel plants. Nonetheless, financing remains a fundamental challenge, with many projects highly dependent on market forecasts that have too little historic data for banks wary of lending to any but the most traditional enterprises at a time of intense regulatory oversight. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 20, 2013 at 10:30 AM

Debunking Five Myths about Alternative Fuels

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Few innovations hold more promise than alternative fuels. The prospect of driving our cars on clean, renewable fuel has tremendous appeal. Yet few technologies have had more hype and disappointment than biofuels. And given all the fits and starts in the renewable fuel category it’s easy to be skeptical about the future of biofuel. Today, there is reason to renew hope. The breakthrough innovations we have all been waiting for to make clean, renewable fuel are finally becoming reality. Here is a look at five myths surrounding biofuels that can now be debunked based on new thinking and new technological advancements:

Myth #1: Producing biofuel takes valuable food out of the food supply and is inefficient use of farm land. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 25, 2013 at 1:00 PM

DOE Plunks $120 Million into Rare Earths Research Hub

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Citing concerns over domestic shortages of rare earths and other materials critical to U.S. energy security, the Department of Energy is creating a research team led by Iowa’s Ames Laboratory to develop solutions.

DOE will invest up to $120 million over a five-year period to develop a new research center, which will be named the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), that bring together leading researchers from academia, four Department of Energy national laboratories, as well as the private sector. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 10, 2013 at 3:50 PM

Gazprom, Novatek Sign Deal on LNG Joint Venture

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Russian state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) and OAO Novatek (NVTK.RS), the country’s largest independent producer, signed a deal Thursday to create a joint venture to produce liquefied natural gas on the Yamal peninsula in the Arctic, Gazprom said in a statement.

 /  Published January 10, 2013 at 11:15 AM

Oil Refiner Looks to Rejuvenate East Coast Business Models with Rail

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US refining economics have been under pressure in recent years, particularly on the East Coast, where lack of infrastructure or bottlenecks forced some refineries to process crude imported from overseas markets at prices linked to the more expensive Brent benchmark. But independent refiner PBF Energy saw an opportunity and bought 3 major facilities between late 2010 and early 2011 in an effort to access increasing volumes coming on from the Bakken region and Western Canadian oil sands via rail.

PBF acquired 2 refineries located in Delaware City, Delaware and Paulsboro, New Jersey from Valero with a combined refining capacity of 370,000 b/d. Crude was traditionally transported to these plants via barge and ship along the Delaware River, but PBF constructed a crude rail unloading facility at the Delaware City refinery designed to accept shipments from the Mid-Continent and Western Canada at prices linked to West Texas Intermediate – the US benchmark grade – currently trading at a roughly $20/barrel discount to Brent. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 8, 2013 at 8:00 AM

Top Energy Stories of 2012

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The past year has proved a fundamental pivot in North American energy markets, and set the stage for the coming years to look very different from the past four decades of US energy industry history.

I’ve reviewed the ways the changes that originated in 2012 will affect the political scene in the US here, but in looking through our most popular and most compelling posts on Breaking Energy in the last year I noted how many of them supercede easy categorization. Stories about fracking cut across the buckets in which we seek to put our daily dose of energy news, analysis and discussion, but so have stories about the wind industry, financial shifts and smart grid technology. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 31, 2012 at 1:00 PM

SolarCity Lowers Share Price, Then Postpones IPO

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Complicated financials in a solar firm with legal issues make it difficult to get through the IPO gate.

After lowering its stock price to a reported $10 per share from a range of $13 to $15, IPO aspirant SolarCity was unable to fill its book and has postponed its IPO, according to Reuters, which quoted an underwriter of the deal. SolarCity has not returned requests for comment. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 12, 2012 at 11:30 AM
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