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Germany's cabinet on Wednesday approved putting on-reserve lignite-fired power plants back online from October until the end of March 2024, the economy ministry said, as a step to replace scarce natural gas this winter and avoid shortages. In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a sudden drop in Russian gas imports to Germany, Berlin reactivated coal-fired power plants and extended their lifespans, with a total output of 1.9 gigawatt hours generated last winter. Despite gas bottlenecks easing since last winter with new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal deliveries, coal-fired power plans will be reactivated

Legislative select committee opens inquiry into high energy bills.. Colorado’s high energy costs are partly due to a high-stakes regulatory "game" being played largely outside of the public’s view, said the official advocating for customers before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. A joint committee hearing on high energy costs at the statehouse Wednesday provided insights into the regulatory process that determines how much money investor-owned utilities make and how much utility consumers have to pay. “I would say if a rate payer is deciding between paying their heating bill or paying their prescriptions this month, then yes, something is wrong,”...

Energy customers, many of whom say they are being crushed by gas and electricity bills that have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled in the last few months – accepted the Colorado Public Utility Commission’s invitation to comment on skyrocketing energy prices, and it wasn’t pretty. Dawn Fetzko, a customer, said she learned about the public meeting while watching the news. “We're working trying to earn a living and now trying to earn a living to pay our utility bill,” she said. “I know my utility bill went from $150 to a shocking $365 in one month.” “It's no secret that...

The state of California has taken a major step toward phasing out gas-powered vehicles, and Massachusetts is following suit. By 2035, all new cars sold in the state must run on electric or hydrogen power, after Governor Baker signed a climate change law earlier this month. The law includes a trigger, according to experts, that says that once California decided to implement zero-emission vehicles, Massachusetts must do the same. Since California made that decision Thursday, regulators here must now begin to work on the details and put auto dealers, along with the public, on notice that the change will be...

Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in West Virginia vs. EPA, ruling that the Clean Air Act did not specifically authorize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Now, any greenhouse gas regulations would need specific authorization from Congress. At issue was the Clean Power Plan (CPP), an EPA regulation promulgated by the Obama administration which mandated that existing coal and natural gas power plants reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. There were many problems with this regulation, some of them were legal, and some of them were practical. Legally Speaking.. The...

The IEA is calling on China and India to put their climate pledges into action. The agency argues that there is a disconnect between the commitments made by both countries, and their continued reliance on coal energy. Global power generation from coal is expected to jump by nine percent in 2021 to a new high. ... The International Energy Agency has called on China and India to reduce coal power generation and put their climate pledges into action, describing both countries as “holding the key to future coal demand”. The world’s two largest coal producers – with economies that account...

Colorado regulators will kick off a series of hearings Wednesday that could determine how the state’s largest utility generates its energy in the coming decades — and how much it will contribute to global warming. Xcel Energy, which supplies electricity to 1.5 million people across Colorado, announced plans to phase out its remaining coal plants earlier this year and instead rely more on natural gas, renewable energy, and emerging technology such as hydrogen power. The utility’s plans came as the state, pushed by activists and environmental groups, set a goal to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by half of its...

The share of coal in U.S. power-generation is rising for the first time since 2014 amid Joe Biden’s crackdown on oil drilling and pipelines. The Energy Information Administration found coal-fired power generation has increased by 22 percent over the past year amid surging prices of natural gas and oil. The cost of coal power stands at nearly $2 per million of British Thermal Units. Meanwhile, natural gas costs almost $5 for the same amount of energy. ... The coal comeback comes despite Biden’s calls to eradicate the use of fossil fuels and a Democrat push for electric cars, which end...

China is making a mockery of climate targets as it announced plans to build more coal-fired power plants and increase oil and gas exploration, just weeks ahead of the COP26 summit where world leaders were expected to agree to ambitious emission cuts. Beijing's National Energy Commission said late Tuesday it is important 'to build advanced coal-fired power plants' and intensify domestic oil and gas exploration after the country was hit by blackouts last week.Li Keqiang, China's second-in-command, made the announcement after the meeting and hinted that a pledge to cap the country's carbon emissions by 2030 - which already lags...

If the Public Utilities Commission OK's Xcel’s largest ever rate increase, electric bills for Colorado customers will have increased 20% since the start of the year.. Xcel Energy has proposed a massive transmission project to help move power from rural areas to the urban Front Range. Xcel Energy is pushing for a record $344 million rate increase it says it needs to build a smarter, greener electric grid. But consumer advocates and state regulators are pushing back over the price tag. A major concern is that along with an earlier rate increase and other pending requests since the start of...

DENVER — Xcel Energy customers could see higher bills in 2022. The company submitted a proposal to raise rates to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. They say the increase will help fund “next-generation technology investments that expand and strengthen the reliability of the electric grid for customers, advance Colorado’s clean energy policies, and increase capacity to meet growing customer needs and expectations.” Xcel said that since 2019 and through 2022, it will spend for $4 billion on the investments. How much will my bill increase? Residential customers would see their bills increase by an average of $9.46 a month, or...

When coal mine employee John Morecraft heard last Monday that United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts approved of President Joe Biden's plan to move the nation's energy industry away from fossil fuels, Morecraft said he anticipated the news would be misconstrued. "I knew the story would come across as though all coal miners approved of this deal, with no mention of how (un)representative the UMWA is of the coal miner population," said Morecraft, just before going down for his shift at the Bailey Mine here in Greene County. "The UMWA in actuality represents a small portion of the...

Representative K.C. Becker and Senator Faith Winter have introduced legislation that would give Xcel Energy a green light and blank check to prematurely close existing power plants, replace them with expensive, intermittent resources, and then force captive electric ratepayers to pick up the tab with interest for the massive fuel switching scheme and workforce transition plans. ... Colorado Energy Plan (CEP) .. The monopoly utility is more than willing to build and build and build so it can fuel switch to utility-scale wind, solar, and batteries (which don’t really exist yet) at the expense of Colorado ratepayers. Instead of saving...

No matter how hard environmental do-gooders are trying to kill coal, they're clearly not succeeding. According to a new report by the Energy Information Administration, despite the ongoing fear-mongering from the left, coal continues to be a major source of power generation in both developed and emerging nations, accounting for as much of the world's electricity today as it did in the 1990s. As it turns out, coal has proven to be incredibly resilient in Asia and Africa, where it has been pushed up by rising demand. This information may come as a shock for anti-coal crusaders, but IT should...

When the Colorado Public Utilities Commission recently approved Xcel Energy’s Colorado Energy Plan, the commissioners made a highly politicized decision that ignored economic reality, bypassed the state legislature and allowed the company to break its promise to save customers money. Coloradans should be troubled not just by the plan itself, but by how it won approval through an end-run of the democratic process. In August 2017, Xcel unveiled the Colorado Energy Plan .. The plan’s cheerleaders, including Gov. John Hickenlooper and state agencies, celebrated the monopoly utility’s proposal to spend $2.5 billion on fuel switching ... Earlier in 2017, Xcel...

Xcel again proved its preeminent power over every crack and crevasse of state government when the governor’s appointed Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel’s plan to close two state-of-the-art power plants a decade before they’re supposed to. At the same time the PUC acknowledges Xcel was lying when they said the move would save us money. ... The public relations spin on this corporate heist is glorious. Even though the coal-fired power plants, Comanche 1 and 2, are the most clean-burning that modern technology allows, making them the cleanest in the nation, they still use vilified coal, so this move looks...

"...It was no surprise that Gov. Jay Inslee was promising the state would take the feds to court over a proposed change in the Clean Power Plan rules regarding coal-burning generating facilities. "...The real surprise was one of Inslee’s reasons for challenging the proposed rule to allow states more control over emissions from coal-burning power plants, a reason that suggests either an unfamiliarity with geography or meteorology. (1st money quote - from the village idiot): "...“We’re breathing smoke from Mississippi,” he told reporters. “We’re breathing smoke from the rest of the United States.” "...Weather patterns generally go from west to...

We’re three weeks out from Virginia’s gubernatorial race and it’s been mostly relegated to the backburner thanks to the endless news that emanates from the Trump White House. It’s an off-year election, but it’s in D.C.'s backyard. The state has increasingly become more bluish since the Bush years, albeit the state legislature is Republican. The House of Delegates, the lower chamber, is reliably Republican where they hold a supermajority. The state Senate is more competitive. Anti-gun groups under the Bloomberg umbrella tried and failed to flip the Senate in 2015. Those groups are mounting a second invasion of the state...

How did we not think of this before? You can almost smell the excitement in the air around the green energy warrior community. The Washington Post ran an op-ed this week from “environmental attorney” Stephen Kass in which he puts forth a bold plan for dealing with climate change and the nation’s stubborn refusal to let go of proven, reliable energy generation via fossil fuels. The big target in Kass’ sights is the coal industry and the nation’s remaining coal fired power plants. With resistance growing to the Obama administration’s deceptively named Clean Power Plan, the author comes up...

The world will use 48 percent more energy by 2040, three-quarters of which will come from coal, oil or natural gas, according to projections made Thursday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The report states that most of the world’s new energy use will come from developing countries, particularly China and India, and most of the 75 percent of that energy will be coal, oil or natural gas. Only a relatively small percentage of the world’s energy will come from wind and solar power despite massive subsidies, contrary to the claims from environmental groups like The Sierra Club.