01Jun

Is America’s Electric Grid Ready for the EV Revolution?

Via The Geeley Tribune: America’s energy future will be shaped to a significant degree by two new tensions that are rapidly converging. A massive number of electric vehicles (EVs) will soon be populating our roads, but our nation’s electric grid is woefully unprepared to supply the additional capacity required to fuel these vehicles. Even this […]
26May

The Grid Reliability Warnings Keep Coming

Back in the summer of 2019, Jim Robb, the president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), said that when most engineers look at the Texas grid, they conclude that “there’s no way in hell they can keep the lights on. And yet they do.” Robb, speaking to the Federal Energy Regulatory […]
19May

Here Come the Blackouts

We now know that the rolling blackouts that gripped California last summer weren’t an anomaly. They were, in fact, a preview of a reliability crisis that has grown to stretch across the Western grid. The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) is warning that the West simply doesn’t have enough power supply to meet a region-wide […]
12May

In the Era of Cyberattacks, Fuel Diversity and Security Reign Supreme

The cyber threat to the nation’s energy infrastructure just crossed the Rubicon. A cyberattack forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which transports 45% of the refined fuel used on the East Coast. Gas stations from New England to Georgia are without fuel and it will be days before the pipeline is operating normally, and […]
05May

An EV Future Means Electricity Demand is Expected to Double by 2050. Will the Grid Be Ready?

Not so long ago the electric vehicle (EV) revolution seemed far more hype than substance. But global EV sales were up 40% in 2020, the world’s major automakers are falling over one another to announce all-electric futures and the Biden administration appears to be all in, announcing that the federal vehicle fleet will go all […]
28Apr

The Carbon Capture Moonshot

For all of the momentum building towards tackling the climate challenge, a sobering reality remains: according to the International Energy Agency, fully half of the key technologies needed to produce globally effective solutions need significant support to bring to full maturity and market use. Or as Bill Gates quipped last week, “using today’s technology, it […]
15Apr

Reliability Crisis Déjà vu

Texas, again. Just weeks after the February power disaster that left more than 130 dead, thousands homeless and put 70% of the state in the dark, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) came stunningly close to declaring another grid emergency on Tuesday. On a relatively mild day – no deep freeze nor roasting summer […]
08Apr

Not All Jobs Are Created Equal

How we manage the energy transition will have huge implications for the reliability and affordability of our energy supply and for the millions of workers that are the foundation of our current energy system. While there are strong voices – including from labor – calling for caution during the transition, the Biden administration has now […]
31Mar

Infrastructure Go-Time for America’s Met Mines

Today, President Biden is laying out his vision for reinvesting in and modernizing the nation’s infrastructure. Few issues are more in need of attention and even fewer have such bipartisan support. There will be fighting and horse trading over what ends up in a final infrastructure package, but both parties recognize the urgency of action. […]
29Mar

Appalachian Coal Will Fuel America’s Recovery

Via The Wheeling News-Register: Tens-of-millions of Americans are now vaccinated and millions more will be very soon. The U.S. appears to be turning the corner on the pandemic, and as we shift from just trying to hold the economy together to rebuilding and recovery, Appalachian miners are poised to take center stage. Thermal coal has […]