Keyword: electricity
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Millions of middle-class California households are poised to pay an extra $24 per month for electricity, regardless of how much electricity they use. Regulators are hoping this utility billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars and appliances by redistributing the massive costs of the state’s electric grid so utilities can lower their usage rates. But critics say the income-based premium will likely further hike utility costs for millions of Californians—nearly one-fifth of whom are already behind in paying their bills after household electricity rates almost doubled in the last decade—and likely won’t do much to...
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"Wind Droughts": A 15-state region produced less than 10% of its potential 22 gigawatt wind output over an 82-hour period. For 42 hours straight within that period, the wind output was only 1.5% of the total.. Last month, multiple news outlets reported on the record-smashing year the wind industry had in 2023. The Global Wind Energy Council released its latest report showing the world installed 117 gigawatts of capacity. The Associated Press called 2023 a “record year for wind installations,” and Reuters noted that the U.S. was among the top five markets for wind installations. The U.S. Energy Information Administration...
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The Biden Administration’s regulations are coming so fast and furious that it’s hard even to keep track, but we’re trying. On Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed its latest doozy—rules that will effectively force coal plants to shut down while banning new natural-gas plants. “With the announcement today, the power sector can make planning decisions with a full array of information,” EPA’s press release declares. Translation: Get moving with the green-energy transition because we’re determined to eliminate fossil-fuel power. Barack Obama’s regulation spurred a wave of coal plant closures. Now President Biden is trying to finish the job by tightening...
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n a couple of weeks, California's Public Utilities Commission will vote on whether or not to adopt a new fixed charge for electricity, one that will likely be based on income.When I first wrote about this proposal a year ago, the utilities were suggesting that fee could be as high as $85 a month for some households. That's not including whatever the utilities charge for actual usage of electricity. The new fixed fee as proposed was essentially an income tax being paid via your electric bill. Since then, the proposal has been scaled back quite a bit but some version...
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As federal net-zero policies attempt to shift transportation, heating, and other essentials onto the electric grid, one of the hottest growth sectors of America’s economy is poised to increase electricity demand exponentially, further straining an energy infrastructure that is being pushed into the red. Data centers, the so-called “brains of the internet,” are industrial warehouses packed with rows upon rows of servers. They process, communicate, and store the data behind everything from bank records, online retailers, and social media platforms to Netflix shows and your personal iPhone videos. “Data centers are essential to cloud computing and its ability to give...
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Utilities inflation arguably hurts restaurants more than higher food and labor costs Every time Oakland restaurateur Geoff Davis looks at his PG&E bill, he feels helpless. “I talk about it a lot with my friends. It’s a big line item for us,” the chef-owner of Burdell told SFGATE. “Last month [PG&E] was like 40% of our rent. It’s an insane amount and obviously this is my first time being an owner, but I know from other places that I’ve worked that it wasn’t this big of a number.” It’s an expensive time to run a restaurant — or to eat...
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The future of Cuba and the trajectory of communism are under threat, with citizens fighting back against the regime. Protesters are taking to the streets amid an ongoing economic crisis, making their concerns heard. Cuba’s communist leadership is facing a fierce backlash that has not been seen since similar protests in July 2021. Since the 2021 protests, it is estimated that nearly 500,000 Cubans have sought refuge in the United States. In this Sky News Digital Originals, we explore whether Cuba’s communist leadership could be about to tumble. “The Cuban regime knows the Cuban people are getting smarter and they're...
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Energy prices, particularly the cost of electricity, have skyrocketed since President Biden took office, outpacing inflation and putting a dent in Americans’ wallets. Since January 2021, electricity prices have soared 29.4% — 50% more than overall inflation — rising 13 times faster than the previous seven years, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Meanwhile, in those seven years before Biden took office, electricity prices rose just 5%. News of the astronomical increase in electricity came in the wake of March’s Consumer Price Index, which showed US inflation rose 3.5% in March. Wednesday’s data...
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Let’s check in on the not exactly impressive energy and inflation results of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)...Data from the BLS, chart by MishBiden’s energy policy has been an inflationary disaster. And make no mistake, the IRA was nothing but energy policy, more precisely, climate policy.The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Climate BillBloomberg flashback, August 15, 2022: The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Climate Bill. Just Don’t Call It One.“It does seem kind of wacky and counterintuitive for the most consequential climate legislation ever to be called the ‘Inflation Reduction Act,’” says Angela Bradbery, a professor of public interest communications...
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The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act propelled forward President Joe Biden’s vision of a clean energy economy. As outlined in a 2023 guidebook, this remaking of the U.S. economy includes billions in funding for green tech manufacturing — everything from hydrogen production to batteries to solar panels. The plan will not only create jobs and investments for Americans, according to the Biden administration, it will lower the nation’s dependence on China, which currently controls 80% of the global production in polysilicon and other components used in solar panels, 80% of wind-turbine components, and 89% of the refining to produce...
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(The Center Square) — Pennsylvania’s energy future hangs in the balance amid a federal pause on liquified natural gas production, leaving taxpayers on the hook for more costly and less reliable power. At least, so say the critics of President Joe Biden’s decision to temporarily block LNG exports – which they say has a particularly devastating impact in the commonwealth. “We have to put our natural gas to work,” Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades said during a House Republican Policy Committee hearing on Monday. If Pennsylvania doesn’t do the work, he argued, that other...
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The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act propelled forward President Joe Biden’s vision of a clean energy economy. As outlined in a 2023 guidebook, this remaking of the U.S. economy includes billions in funding for green tech manufacturing — everything from hydrogen production to batteries to solar panels. The plan will not only create jobs and investments for Americans, according to the Biden administration, it will lower the nation’s dependence on China, which currently controls 80% of the global production in polysilicon and other components used in solar panels, 80% of wind-turbine components, and 89% of the refining to produce...
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Our Ebola just landed in England for a tour after a couple of years in Germany. His first few days have been the usual tumult of Air Force ineptitude coupled with adapting to another completely different country. As I've been knee-deep in England's self-induced energy challenges for going on a couple of years now, and the kiddo has to start house hunting this weekend, I've been kind of worried about what it's going to cost him to stay warm next winter. At least in Germany he had one of those uber-efficient and relatively affordable wood-burning stacks that will heat the...
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Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent...
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Arizona Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Nevada Rep. Susie Lee introduced legislation this week aimed at enabling $45 million in Bureau of Reclamation funds to be used for helping the Hoover Dam. Proponents of the "Help Hoover Dam Act" say it would cut regulations and allow the bureau to tap into the Colorado River Dam Fund to support efforts related to the dam's upkeep. Ed Gerak, Executive Director of Irrigation and Electrical Districts of Arizona, said in a statement that the funding could help mitigate possible price increases for electricity. This bill will allow the Bureau of Reclamation to use...
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Despite Biden’s belief that renewable energy such as wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity, New Yorkers are about to receive higher bills for offshore wind that will raise their rates by more than twice what was originally agreed to in earlier canceled contracts. New York’s solicitations to cover the higher cost for offshore wind is also being used in other Northeastern states, allowing wind developers to rebid for higher prices and receive new contracts. Offshore wind is much more expensive than most other forms of electricity and these states are committing their residents to markedly higher rates...
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Something unusual is happening in America. Demand for electricity, which has stayed largely flat for two decades, has begun to surge. Over the past year, electric utilities have nearly doubled their forecasts of how much additional power they’ll need by 2028 as they confront an unexpected explosion in the number of data centers, an abrupt resurgence in manufacturing driven by new federal laws, and millions of electric vehicles being plugged in. Many power companies were already struggling to keep the lights on, especially during extreme weather, and say the strain on the grid will only increase. Peak demand in the...
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Since this time in 2022 my electric rate has gone up 20%. I expect it will go even higher. The damage done to the supply of power will not be recovered. Plants that were paid for are gone and replaced by higher cost and higher cost of fuel plants mandated by biden and epa. Are you better off than you were four years ago? NOT ME.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom backed the controversial proposal to remove four Klamath River hydroelectric dams along the California-Oregon border. Now, the same fish he swore to protect could be killed in the process. The dams had been breached on claims that it would help salmon migrate, but the Klamath River is now full of destroyed spawning salmon beds and pollution including decomposed algae, organic deposition, chemicals, and fine silt which is killing its ecosystem, according to a report from the California Globe. Additionally, dead endangered steelhead trout and other species have been rising to the surface of the Klamath River,...
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In a post earlier this week, daughter Jane (just returned from maternity leave) reviewed, and put in an enthusiastic plug, for the new Robert Bryce documentary series titled “Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid.” Jane even embedded the first episode of the five-part series into the post. Several commenters offered what seemed to me to be serious criticisms of Bryce’s work. So I thought I owed it to the readers to watch some of Bryce’s series to see who was right. Having now watched a couple of episodes, and some of the rest, I have a few thoughts. “Deregulation.”Several commenters...
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