Washington’s first quarterly carbon allowance auction of 2024 has thrown two new wrinkles into the economics of the state’s fledgling — and controversial — cap-and-invest program.
First: The auction cleared at $25.76 per allowance. That’s sharply lower than clearing prices in 2023’s four quarterly auctions, which took a lot of blame for Washington’s high gasoline prices last summer.
Second: The March 6 auction, results …
The governor is proposing the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act (PACER) to set up a cap-and-invest program.
Seventy percent of PACER’s benefits would be returned to end-use customers as rebates on their electric bill — a higher percentage than any cap-and-trade program in the country. PACER also would support projects that cut air pollution, further reduce customer energy bills and invest in new job-creating clean energy projects, including carbon capture and storage, geothermal, and clean hydrogen.
A lithium processing plant that could help put 800,000 electric vehicles on the road per year has received a conditional commitment for a $2.26 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. The plant would be in Humboldt County, on the Nevada-Oregon border, at Thacker Pass, where Lithium Americas Corp. and its Lithium Nevada Corp. subsidiary are developing a mine containing the largest proven lithium reserves in North America.
To decarbonize the electrical grid, companies are finding creative ways to store energy during periods of low demand. By Amos Zeeberg March 18, 2024 Central Sardinia is not generally considered a hotbed of innovation: Arid…
Now, a new report from RMI shows how grid enhancing technologies — called “GETs” for short — could clear the way for gigawatts’ worth of clean energy projects to connect to the 84,000-mile interstate transmission network. That’s important for grid operators, utilities, regulators and policymakers trying to add new clean energy to U.S. power grids.
A boom in data centers and factories is straining electric grids and propping up fossil fuels. By Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich March 14, 2024 Something unusual is happening in America. Demand for electricity, which…
Note: Niskanen Center just released a study showing HOW improved inter-regional transmission capacity (like that required by BIG WIRES) will lead to lower costs for utilities and their customers.
[Niskanen] just published a commentary showing how high-voltage transmission infrastructure enhances electric power market efficiency and thereby drives down customer costs. The piece delves into how the power grid operates, provides a brief …
For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus. Sea surface temperatures eclipsed any month on record. And February, as well the previous two winter months, soared well past the internationally set threshold for long-term warming,
The Pasadena City Council approved a $512 million, 20-year contract to purchase solar photovoltaic energy and battery storage from the Bonanza Solar project, a 300mw solar project proposed on BLM lands near Indian Springs. The BLM is processing the applications amid some objections from Basin and Range Watch and others.
Politicians are vowing to roll back green policies and downplaying climate change ahead of key elections on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, former President Donald Trump, who has a long record of climate denial, is the frontrunner to challenge …
“There are tens of millions of dyed-in-the-wool environmentalists out there who just aren’t voting,” says Nathaniel Stinnett, founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project. “The climate movement doesn’t have a persuasion problem as much as we have a turnout problem.”
Enhanced geothermal technologies have been radically improving of late. In addition to the well-publicized project with Fervo Energy, perhaps the proof of concept project in central Nevada from the Chevron – Baseload Capital joint venture will prove current economic viability.
