For a decade I’ve been tracking the exponential expansion of wind, solar, and to a lesser extent hydro electricity generation in China, mostly against nuclear generation’s much flatter growth trajectory. In recent years I’ve been looking at other aspects of generation, in part because of the regular refrain of delayers … [continued]
A. O. Smith just released a 120V plug-in heat pump water heater (HPWH), which is the second model to arrive on the mass market (the first to market, Rheem, I reviewed here). It is an exciting product with some innovative designs that allows many households to more easily replace their … [continued]
In recent months it’s become clear that there’s a distinctly non-cottage industry in Germany producing unintentionally and intentionally misleading reports about hydrogen for energy. Today yet another significant and respected organization crossed my screen, dena, or the German Energy Agency. (Lower-case is their branding and it’s an acronym of a … [continued]
Carbon capture and sequestration in all of its various ineffective, inefficient, and expensive forms is having another run up the hype cycle. Nothing has really changed. The problems still exist. The alternatives are still better. The potential for use is still minuscule. And so, we’ve got this CCS Redux series, … [continued]
Operators plan to retire 5.2 gigawatts (GW) of U.S. electric generating capacity in 2024, a 62% decrease from last year when 13.5 GW was retired and the least in any year since 2008, according to our latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. Coal and natural gas jointly account for 91% of the planned capacity retirements in the United States this year.
In recent months I’ve apparently taken on a sideline of assessing major total cost of ownership studies from reputable organizations, specifically looking at their usually weird assumptions around hydrogen. Now it’s the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research‘s turn, although it’s not a TCO study in this case. They’ve released … [continued]
The EPA’s standards to curb carbon emissions from power plants are crucial to addressing climate change. Strong and comprehensive rules are needed to address this major source of carbon pollution. Power plants are the nation’s second-largest source of carbon emissions after transportation, and, after years of delay, the U.S. Environmental … [continued]
Carbon capture and sequestration in all of its various ineffective, inefficient and expensive forms is having another run up the hype cycle. Nothing has really changed. The problems still exist. The alternatives are still better. The potential for use is still minuscule. And so, the CCS Redux series, republishing old … [continued]
Developers and power plant owners plan to add 62.8 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in 2024, according to our latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. This addition would be 55% more added capacity than the 40.4 GW added in 2023 (the most since 2003) and points to a continued … [continued]
On January 16, 2024, a record high of 141.5 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas was consumed in the U.S. Lower 48 states (L48), exceeding the previous record set on December 23, 2022, according to estimates from S&P Global Commodity Insights. Well-below-normal temperatures caused by a large mass of arctic … [continued]
