Free Republic

NATURITA, Colo. — The future of nuclear power in America is back on the table, with all its vast implications, as global warming revives the search for energy sources that produce less greenhouse gas. But in this depressed corner of western Colorado — one of the first places in the world that uranium, nuclear energy’s primary fuel, was ever dug from the ground in industrial scale — the debate is both simpler and more complicated. A proposal for a new mill to process uranium ore, which would lead to the opening of long-shuttered mines in Colorado and Utah, has brought...

Nuclear energy is about to play a huge role in powering America, but the new reactors that will do the heavy lifting are surprisingly small. Some are so small they are classified as microreactors—mobile powerhouses capable of being transported anywhere they’re needed to provide power, including the most remote sites on the planet. Spotlight on America traveled to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where these microreactors are about to be powered up and tested for the very first time inside a facility already famous for making history. Now, history is unfolding here once again. The newly renovated and reconfigured Dome...

“It was the best of energy policies; it was the worst of energy policies” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. (Apocryphal) Higher electricity prices and a lack of cheap energy are in the news. Even before the start of the Iran war, consumers over the winter of 2025-2026 experienced some of the highest energy prices on record, especially electricity consumers in the Northeast and New England. A recent report by the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, America’s largest voluntary membership organization for state legislators, shows the problem lies in local politics, not supply and demand. When...

We are often best defined not by the company we keep, but by our enemies. Having the right—left—enemies tends to be a very good thing indeed, as it’s a reliable indicator we’re doing the right things with the right people and for the right reasons. It’s not always easy, however, to know the motives of people, or nations, when we’re dealing with issues of technology and/or public policy. One such issue is the proliferation of data centers, necessary for the burgeoning AI revolution, but controversial for that and other reasons. Among them is the amount of water and power they...

The world loves coal. That is the simple message from results showing new coal-fired power plants hit a global 10-year high in 2025, defying climate doomers who decry its use and long for wind farms, solar panels and hydro power everywhere. Rising gas prices and supply disruptions linked to the Middle East crisis are just some of the factors pushing countries like China, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Italy to rely more heavily on dependable coal-fired energy security even as the global coal fleet generated less electricity – for now. Overall coal power capacity — plants that came...

Lake Tahoe doesn’t know where its power will come from after next ski season—and it’s a major problem for the 49,000 residents who call the region home. The Sierra Nevada tourist hub—home to ski resorts, lakeside casinos, and roughly 25 to 28 million annual visitors—is facing an energy crisis with a familiar culprit: the data centers powering the AI boom. NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied the bulk of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, told Liberty Utilities—the small California company that services the region—that it will stop providing power after May 2027. The reason? NV Energy needs the...

Ireland has the highest household electricity prices in the European Union, latest figures from Eurostat show. According to the figures from the EU’s statistical agency — which cover the second half of last year — electricity in Ireland cost 40.42 cent per kilowatt-hour (including VAT and levies), which was nearly 40% above the EU average of 28.96 cent. As a result, the average household in Ireland is paying around €480 a year more for its electricity compared to the EU average. The figures show Irish electricity prices jumped by 32.7% between July and December 2025, when compared with the same...

Coal-fired power plant retirements in the United States dropped to their lowest level in more than a decade in 2025, as operators delayed or canceled closures and federal officials stepped in to keep some facilities running to support grid reliability, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). New data released Monday by EIA shows that the U.S. electric power sector retired 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of coal capacity across four plants last year — the smallest annual total since 2010, and a figure below the 8.5 GW of retirements that had been planned at the start of the year. Instead,...

Households will be called on to boost their consumption of Great Britain’s record renewable energy this summer to help balance the power grid and lower energy bills. Under the new plans, people could be encouraged to run dishwashers and washing machines or charge up their electric vehicles when there is more wind and solar power than the electricity grid needs. The plan will be delivered with the help of energy suppliers, which may choose to offer heavily discounted or free electricity to their customers during specific periods when the energy system operator predicts there will be a surplus of electricity....

ocky Mountain high, Colorado,” sang John Denver, AKA Henry Duetschendorf Jr. in 1972. Those were heady days for Colorado. Ski resorts, the Rockies, natural beauty aplenty and the promise of new beginnings enticed many, including me, to move to Colorado. My stay on the west slope was brief, and over the years, Colorado has descended from a more-or-less business-friendly and affordable state to a Democrat People’s Republic, increasingly crowded and hostile to civil liberties and prosperity. I occasionally travel to Colorado Springs for service on my recumbent trike and bike at the best recumbent shop in this part of the...

Cuba plunged into an unprecedented blackout after its entire electrical grid suddenly suffered a total collapse on Monday, briefly leaving roughly 10 million residents in total darkness. “At 1:54 p.m. local time, there was a disconnection of the national electrical grid resulting in a complete power outage across Cuba which includes the Havana metropolitan area,” the U.S. Embassy in Cuba said. The nationwide outage comes just two days after a large crowd of protesters, fed up with the island’s energy crisis, were caught on camera attacking a local Communist Party headquarters in Cuba, ransacking the building and attempting to set...

The NY Times is reporting this afternoon that President Trump is demanding Cuba's current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, be removed from power in any deal with the country. This may be the first time people inside the administration have said so directly, but it has been obvious for weeks that this is what they had in mind.The other part of this, which also isn't really news, is that Trump is willing to leave some version of the regime in place so long as that regime is America friendly moving forward.As U.S. and Cuban officials negotiate over the future of the Communist-ruled...

AI-driven power demand is surging far faster than expected, but a shortage of heavy-duty gas turbines is creating a bottleneck.Turbine makers like Siemens, GE Vernova, and Mitsubishi are ramping up production, but expansion projects could take up to 5 years.Without enough gas capacity, AI growth could slow or grids may turn back to coal, potentially delaying coal plant retirements.The surge in electricity demand in the world’s AI hotspots has prompted a comparable surge in demand for reliable supply. That surge was not expected. There are not enough gas turbines to secure that supply. This means the AI revolution would either...

TLANTA, Ga. (WALB) - Millions of Georgia power customers could see lower electricity bills after the U.S. Department of Energy closed a $26.5 billion loan package for Southern Company, the largest loan in the department’s history. Officials said the deal is expected to save customers more than $7 billion in electricity costs by reducing the utility’s interest expenses. Southern Company has announced plans for multi-year rate freezes as part of the partnership with the federal government.

Families won’t see relief from rising electricity prices anytime soon, as demand from artificial intelligence data centers soars while power supply grows slowly, according to Goldman Sachs. Electricity prices jumped 6.9% in year over year 2025, more than double the headline inflation rate of 2.9%, Goldman analysts told clients in a research note published Wednesday. Prices will continue to rise through the end of the decade as data centers make up 40% of electricity demand growth, the analysts said. This will lower disposable income, drag down consumer spending and slightly slow economic growth in the coming years, they said. Households...

<p>Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing a push to deregulate the state's electricity markets -- a move embraced by business leaders and some energy analysts but criticized by many Democrats and consumer advocates as a return to the failed policies that sparked California's energy crisis.</p>

Sometimes the debate over U.S. energy policy feels more like a shouting match, instead of a factual discussion about how to meet the nation’s rapidly growing needs. In one corner, there’s the push for 100% renewables. In the other corner, it’s almost all about oil and gas. But outside the competing echo chambers on the left and the right, a quiet success story is unfolding in America’s rural – and yes, more politically conservative – communities. It turns out that keeping the lights on isn’t about picking a side. It’s about picking all the energy sources that can deliver affordable...

The Trump administration and several state governors on Friday urged the largest electricity grid in the U.S. to make the big technology companies pay for new power plants. Electricity prices have exploded in recent years on PJM Interconnection due in part to the data centers that tech companies are building to train and power artificial intelligence. The PJM grid serves more than 65 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C. Its service area includes northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world. The Trump administration and several states signed a pact that calls for tech companies to...

A suspected arson attack has caused a widespread power cut in Berlin since Saturday. Authorities said on Sunday that it was a result of a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists". Around 45,000 households were left without electricity in southwest Berlin after high-voltage power lines were damaged by a fire, which authorities have described as a politically motivated attack by far-left extremists. Though power has been restored in some areas, thousands could be left without power until Thursday after what authorities say was a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists”. The blaze erupted on a cable bridge over the Teltow...

We’ve seen plenty of leftist violence in America in recent times, but we are hardly immune. Across the Pond, in Berlin, Germany, they’re finding out just how damaging crazed anarchists can be when they put their minds to it. To wit, a far-left pro-environmental organization called the Vulkan group claimed responsibility for an attack on the power grid that has left thousands of residents without electricity for days — even as freezing temperatures engulf the region.According to the newspaper Berlin Zeitung, the group posted a 4,163-word letter saying they did it to protest the energy industry, adding that they targeted...