Free Republic

Pennsylvania was supposed to be the energy state that got it right.Thanks to the Marcellus Shale formation, natural gas made Pennsylvania a net exporter of electricity. Fracking enabled Pennsylvania to power homes and industry not just here, but across the entire Mid-Atlantic. The state’s natural gas built modern power plants, attracted investment, and helped America move toward energy independence.So how is it that Pennsylvanians are still paying more for electricity every year?Over the past five years, electricity prices in Pennsylvania have risen 45%. It is a tick lower than the national average of a 46% price increase. However, that is...

The sun will soon be setting on the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert. Boosted by $1.6 billion in taxpayer-backed loans in 2011, the gargantuan project was hailed by President Obama’s first energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, as “an example of how America is becoming a world leader in solar energy.” Instead, it has become yet another example of central planners squandering taxpayer money on an ill-conceived green-energy boondoggle. Covering five square miles of the sun-drenched Mojave Desert, 65 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Ivanpah features three 459-foot towers and 173,500 computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats. “The mirrors reflect...

In 2020, California imported about 25% of its demand for electricity from Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Arizona due to the capacity limitations of the three utilities that serve the State (Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric). These capacity limitations resulted from the closure of fossil fuel plants and environmental restrictions imposed by regulatory authorities in California to meet climate change standards. New England, New Jersey, and New York combined imported about 30% of their demand from either neighboring states or Canada. Many utilities in PJM and MISO import electricity from TVA and the...

Trump Warns Against Using Your Toaster In Your Bathtub! Yes, I repeated the title because that's all the text there is. But you've got to watch this short Trump parody video with Shawn, speaking in Trump's voice, has the PERFECT warning to Americans. It' is freaking hilarious! Enjoy!

The US power grid is under significant stress due to rapidly increasing electricity demand from AI data centers and electric vehicles, coupled with the retirement of traditional power plants.The grid faces mounting vulnerabilities from extreme weather events, cybersecurity threats, and physical sabotage, while policy gridlock and infrastructure delays hinder necessary upgrades.Despite challenges, the situation presents investment opportunities in grid modernization, diversified generation, and solutions for energy storage and load management.America’s power grid is straining under the weight of a fast-changing energy landscape. Beyond the usual summer hum of air conditioners, power demand is surging from electric vehicle chargers and sprawling...

wo people charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities – a neo-Nazi leader and a woman with whom he had a personal relationship – allegedly planned to attack electrical substations encircling Baltimore and “completely destroy” the entire city, according to federal court documents. The Justice Department has charged Brandon Clint Russell and Sarah Beth Clendaniel with conspiracy to damage energy facilities, alleging that the Maryland-focused plot was driven by ethnically or racially motivated extremist beliefs. They “conspired to inflict maximum harm on the power grid,” Tom Sobocinski, who heads the FBI’s field office in Baltimore, said during a news conference...

What if we told you that DARPA, the U.S. government agency, has developed a way to send electricity through great distances… with no batteries or cables involved in the process? That’s right, like out of a cartoon (it actually looks like a Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s idea), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been able to transmit energy using focused light beams. Of course, they have decided to call their project POWER —great copywriting, even better science. But, how does the DARPA’s POWER project work? This scientific experiment turns electricity into a tightly focused beam of light, sends that beam...

The lights are off, the house is quiet and nothing seems to be running. But electricity is silently flowing through the plugs in your home. This hidden drain is known as phantom energy. Also called vampire energy, the wasted electricity comes from leaving devices plugged in when they’re not in use.

The Energy Department projects that next year, data centers and other commercial facilities will use more electricity than households for the first time.Electricity costs continue to climb nationwide, and experts say infrastructure is a major factor. "I think it's important to understand that most of your electricity bill is infrastructure," said Mike O'Boyle, acting policy team director at Energy Innovation. "And you're paying for the infrastructure we have right now." O'Boyle said modernization of the nation's aging infrastructure is colliding with higher demand and rising natural gas costs, which account for about 40% of U.S. electricity production. "It's kind of...

Wyoming and 10 other states’ claims that giant investment companies conspired to drive coal production down and drive prices up — increasing people’s energy costs — are at least plausible enough to keep a lawsuit alive, a judge has ruled. Wyoming filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas in late November against Blackrock Inc., State Street Corp. and Vanguard Group Inc. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led the litigation. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia and Wyoming also signed the complaint. The states allege the three massive investment companies acquired substantial stockholdings in...

Work has begun to lay the underwater cable for the first electricity interconnector between Ireland and mainland Europe. It marks a major milestone in the €1.6 billion ($1.9 billion) Celtic Interconnector project, which will link the electricity grids of Ireland and France to ensure security of power supply. A specialist marine vessel Calypso, from Norway, has begun cable-laying along an 84-km (52-mile) section of the route. Once fully installed, the entire 575-km (357-mile) interconnector will run from east Cork to the northwest of Brittany. It will allow for the exchange of 700 MW of electricity, enough to power some 450,000...

Forced electric load reduction and possible rolling blackouts in Maryland. Electric system in crisis. Got Coal?

By Chris TalgoPresident Donald Trump wants the United States to become the world leader in artificial intelligence. “Winning the AI race will usher in a new golden age of human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security for the American people,” Trump said as he unveiled his AI Action Plan.The ambitious plan includes more than “90 Federal policy actions across three pillars – Accelerating Innovation, Building American AI Infrastructure, and Leading in International Diplomacy and Security.”One of the “key policies” of Trump’s AI Action Plan is the “rapid buildout of data centers.”Massive data centers are vital to AI. Massive data centers...

Tesla shares plunged as much as 10% in early trading Thursday after the company posted its steepest sales drop in more than a decade – and CEO Elon Musk warned the slump may not end anytime soon.The embattled electric carmaker reported that revenue from car sales fell 16% to $16.7 billion in the second quarter versus a year ago – its second straight quarter of declining sales. Tesla also missed Wall Street’s quarterly estimates for both earnings per share and overall revenue. “We probably could have a few rough quarters,” Musk admitted during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday.*** Tesla...

2024, prices jumped 800% at PJM Interconnection, a “traffic controller” part of the grid that provides service in 13 states as well as D.C. .. PJM operates the largest power grid in the U.S., with around 67 million customers—that’s more than 20% of the American population. ... amid a dwindling supply and an increase in demand, “Prices for power plants landed at $269.92 per megawatt-day, compared to $28.92 per megawatt-day” in 2023. ... prices are set to spike again, and the projection for this year is around 20%. If you live in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey,...

I keep reading how big batteries are all it takes to make wind and solar reliable as the sole grid electricity source. The reality is that making wind and solar work at all requires a fantastic amount of battery backup, far more than is possible. Below is an example using the PJM grid. PJM is America’s biggest grid operator, with a territory covering the Mid-Atlantic and points west. Their territory includes the Washington, DC metro area, where all the federal bigwigs live, making it a good place to start. I also live there. We are quantifying a fantasy, so let’s...

The Trump administration's Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday released a report that found currently scheduled retirements of energy-generating facilities coupled with delays in bringing new power sources online could lead to a rise in blackouts by the end of this decade. DOE's report found that with about 104 gigawatts of energy-generating capacity scheduled to be retired by 2030, power outages could see a significant rise if that capacity isn't replaced in a timely manner. It is estimated that annual outage hours could rise from single digits today to over 800 hours per year. The agency noted that while 104...

The dam, which will be located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, could generate three times more energy than the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world's largest hydropower plant. ... The Three Gorges hydropower dam required the resettlement of 1.4 million people. Reports indicate that the colossal development would require at least four 20km-long tunnels to be drilled through the Namcha Barwa mountain, diverting the flow of the Yarlung Tsangpo, Tibet's longest river. ... Shortly after China announced its plans for the Yarlung Tsangpo dam project in 2020, a senior Indian government official told Reuters that India's...

Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed the “one big, beautiful bill” will spike electricity costs on Sunday, seemingly ignoring the fact that ratepayers in state are drowning under some of the most exorbitant utility bills in the U.S. Newsom took to X and listed several grievances he has with the GOP reconciliation bill, including concerns that its passage would lead to rising electricity costs because it would limit subsidies for green energy. California has some of the highest energy prices in the U.S., and they are projected to keep climbing, according to multiple reports and energy sector experts. “Electricity costs...

New York is planning to build the nation’s first new major nuclear power plant in more than 15 years, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday. The “zero-admission advanced” plant in an upstate New York location still to be determined would generate 1 gigawatt of electricity — enough to juice up to 1 million homes, Hochul said. “If we don’t increase New York’s electricity supply in a major way, we’re going to risk losing our opportunities,” Hochul told a crowd outside the Niagara Power Project, a generating facility downstream from Niagara Falls. “They can go elsewhere, but we want them here.” The...