Lynne Kiesling Did you know that there is excess demand for silicon? No, I bet you didn’t. Actually, there probably isn’t excess demand, because prices have been rising to signal the scarcity and people are looking for substitutes. All sorts of technologies use silicon, and supplies are scarce and prices high. One technology that uses …
Michael Giberson Is now a good time for investors to get into solar energy? A story from the Wall Street Journal raises that question (article available here via the Washington Post): Shares of solar energy companies in the United States and Asia have fallen about 25 to 50 percent in recent months as declining oil …
Lynne Kiesling Check out this interesting Wired article with some electric company executives on carbon policy. It indicates that there is not uniform agreement among utility CEOs regarding appropriate carbon policy, its timeline, its breadth, and its costs and benefits. There is an oblique reference to AEP’s participation in the Chicago Climate Exchange, but no …
Power Company Executives on Carbon Emission Policy Read More »
Michael Giberson As the fine folks at the Energy Legal Blog report: Illinois Considers Continuation of Retail Rate Freeze. Back in 1997, Illinois politicians cooked up the Illinois Electric Service Customer Choice and Rate Relief Law, no doubt with ample input from industry and consumers in the state. The law mandated retail rate reductions of …
Michael Giberson In what is identified as the “first article of a series,” the New York Times reports that the results of power industry restructuring have disappointed many people. A decade after competition was introduced in their industries, long-distance phone rates had fallen by half, air fares by more than a fourth and trucking rates …
A Newspaper Peeks at Power Industry and Restructuring Read More »
Michael Giberson The Washington Post headlined a story in today’s edition, “In Ontario, Making ‘Clean Energy’ Pay.” From what I gather reading the article, they have in fact discovered how to make renewable energy pay in Ontario, at least if by “clean energy” you mean “other people’s wallets.” The story kicks off with a solar …
Michael Giberson A visit to the website of the Renewable Energy Policy Project turned up a link to this article by REPP’s executive director, George Sterzinger, urging that federal tax credits for certain renewable energy technologies be made permanent. Sterzinger complains that it is hard for the renewable energy industry to plan for the long …
Does Renewable Energy Require Endless Subsidies? Read More »
Michael Giberson I’m having trouble following the logic of the utility regulatory staff in Colorado on the issue of wind power, at least as described in the Denver Post article. Xcel Energy has a popular program through which they sell windpower at a premium to some of their customers — “more than 34,000 Colorado participants …
Michael Giberson Just released, the the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force’s Final Report on the Implementation of the Task Force Recommendations. (PDF) At the present, I don’t find this announced on the U.S. Department of Energy website, but here is the Natural Resources Canada press release. Haven’t looked at the report yet, but I’m …
U.S.-canada Power System Outage Task Force’s Final Report Read More »
Michael Giberson In Scotland, wind turbines installed at five schools by a school district “at a cost of £50,000 produced savings of less than £50 in their first year.” The project has been described as “riddled with technical problems” and the turbine makers promises to provide upgraded turbines to the district next year. A little …
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