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From the American Coal Magazine
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No Blackouts: Weathering the Perfect Storm
By Mark Viguet, Associated Electric Cooperative
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In mid-February, the midsection of America from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico endured one of the worst winter storms on record. For power generation companies like Associated Electric Cooperative, a system that supplies electricity to six transmission and 51 distribution cooperatives with 2.1 million member-consumers in rural Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma, it was the perfect storm.
Record-setting prolonged subzero temperatures, heavy snow and ice brought all-time high customer electricity usage…
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Why the Energy Transition Will Be So Complicated
By Daniel Yergin, contributor to The Atlantic
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(Nov. 27, 2021) – To appreciate the complexities of the competing demands between climate action and the continued need for energy, consider the story of an award—one that the recipient very much did not want and, indeed, did not bother to pick up.
It began when Innovex Downhole Solutions, a Texas-based company that provides technical services to the oil and gas industry, ordered 400 jackets from North Face with its corporate logo. But the iconic outdoor-clothing company refused to fulfill the order.
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‘Urban Myth’: Can Congress Replace Coal with Renewables?
By Benjamin Storrow, E&E News
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(Nov. 29, 2021) – As coal mines and power plants close across the U.S., many climate hawks envision a new generation of renewable energy facilities rising from the ashes of America’s coal fields.
Reality is more complex.
The United States is once again on pace to smash its yearly record for wind and solar installations. But few of those facilities are located in the communities that were once home to coal mines and power plants.
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Cautious Hope for CO2 Capture After ‘False Starts’
By Ben Geman, Axios
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(Nov. 29, 2021) – The pipeline of carbon capture projects worldwide is growing and there are signs that fewer plans will die on the vine than in the past, the International Energy Agency said, Ben writes.
Why it matters: Carbon capture, utilization and storage has the potential to curb emissions from heavy industries and power generation. But the long-hoped-for scale-up of commercial deployment has unfolded very slowly.
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China Will Gain Billions from U.S. Solar Tax Credits
By Staff, America’s Power
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(Dec. 8, 2021) – President Biden wants to decarbonize the electric power sector by 2035, with an interim goal of 80 percent carbon-free electricity by 2030. Meanwhile, the U.S. electricity supply will be 50 percent carbon free by 2030 without any new and expensive policy mandates. Achieving the President’s goals would require adding massive amounts of new wind and solar power to the nation’s electricity grid at a cost of more than $1 trillion.
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Learning the Right Lessons from the Texas Crisis
By Ed Crooks, Wood Mackenzie
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(Dec. 3, 2021) – Why did 4.5 million Texans lose power in freezing temperatures caused by Winter Storm Uri in February? It is a question that is of urgent importance to Texas, so it can learn how to prevent another catastrophe. At least 210 people died during the blackouts, of causes including hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning. But it is also highly relevant for the rest of the world.
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Price of Wyoming Coal Jumps to Unprecedented High
By Nicole Pollack, Casper Star-Tribune
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(Dec. 3, 2021) – Utilities are back in the market for coal.
Powder River Basin coal is known for its stability. Over the last decade, even as the industry contracted, its weekly spot price fluctuated by just $5 per short ton, never rising above $13.25, never sinking below $8.25. The spot price of costlier but more energy-dense Appalachian coal, meanwhile, ranged from $40 to nearly $84.
Then, on Oct. 29, Powder River Basin coal passed $14...
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Youngkin Pledges to Pull Virginia from Carbon Market by Executive Order
By Sara Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury
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(Dec. 8, 2021) – Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin is pledging to use executive action to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon market involving 10 other Mid-Atlantic and New England states.
“RGGI describes itself as a regional market for carbon, but it is really a carbon tax that is fully passed on to ratepayers. It’s a bad deal for Virginians. It’s a bad deal for Virginia businesses,” Youngkin told the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.
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These 25 Biden Administration Policies Are Raising Energy Costs
By Staff, Americans for Prosperity via Real Clear Energy
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(Dec. 6, 2021) – Americans who drove to their Thanksgiving destinations faced rising gas prices. (Not to mention higher costs for the gas station snacks!)
While holiday revelers were paying more at the pump, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. Department of Energy will release 50 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Energy experts told PBS interviewers that tapping...
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Biden Directs US Federal Government to be Carbon-Neutral by 2050
By Molly Christian, S&P Global Platts
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(Dec. 8, 2021) – President Joe Biden released an executive order Dec. 8 that calls on the federal government to produce net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, aligning with Biden’s target to decarbonize the broader economy by midcentury.
The directive involves five “pillars” for eliminating emissions, including a goal for the government to be powered by 100% carbon dioxide-free electricity by 2030.
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Daily on Energy: Fossil Fuel-Producing States Take on Big Banks
By Jeremy Beaman, The Washington Examiner
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(Dec. 6, 2021) – RED STATES VS. BANKS: Officials in a host of states with major fossil fuel interests are teaming up and employing their “financial leverage” to pressure banking partners against withholding financing from oil, coal, and gas projects as part of corporate social and environmental policies.
The chief fiduciaries of 15 states, including top coal producers Wyoming and West Virginia, leading oil producers Texas and North Dakota, and major crude refiner Louisiana, said in a letter to the banking industry...
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A Fraught and Rocky Energy Transition Pathway
By Ben Geman, Axios
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(Dec. 6, 2021) – Two wide-angle new essays explore how the global movement away from fossil fuels could be wrenching and geopolitically messy.
Driving the news: Adam Tooze’s piece in Foreign Policy covers a lot of ground. One key takeaway: He warns that it’s not clear if the red-blue U.S. political and policy divide will ever be successfully bridged, despite clean energy’s growth in conservative states, its growing economic importance...
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