Washington, D.C. is positioning itself on the climate policy fast track. The District of Columbia city council voted unanimously last week to approve an expansive climate bill requiring utility providers to generate 100 percent of their energy supply from renewable sources by 2032. If D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signs the legislation as expected, the provisions […]
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is leaning toward spending billions of dollars to rebuild three aging gas-fired power plants, even as California aims to eliminate fossil fuels, a goal endorsed by Mayor Eric Garcetti. Consultants hired by the utility say the city should invest those ratepayer dollars in continuing to burn natural […]
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. asked regulators Thursday for permission to raise nearly $2 billion in new revenue from ratepayers over three years, starting in 2020, with more than half the proceeds going to cover wildfire prevention work. If it is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the proposal would increase an average residential […]
Already paying some of the highest electricity prices in the country, customers of California’s largest utility, PG&E Corp. could soon face large rate increases due to the state’s catastrophic wildfires. PG&E asked state regulators on Thursday to approve a plan to sharply increase revenues it seeks from customers over a three-year period, with a hike […]
Progress in the fight against global warming has taken a big step backward, according to research published Wednesday, which projects greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels will hit a record high this year after a recent and promising lull. And next year, emissions are expected to be even higher. The research by the Global Carbon Project, […]
And yet, three years after the Paris agreement, when world leaders promised action, coal shows no sign of disappearing. While coal use looks certain to eventually wane worldwide, according to the latest assessment by the International Energy Agency, it is not on track to happen anywhere fast enough to avert the worst effects of climate […]
None of the scenarios in the latest International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook show renewables growing fast enough to meet global climate goals. Under current policies, said the IEA this week, the world would see increasing strains on almost all aspects of energy security and “a major additional rise” in energy-related carbon emissions. And under […]
A new report calls the lie on the grand Paris climate change treaty. None of the promised cuts in CO2 emissions that 200-plus countries made will come close to preventing a climate “catastrophe.” And many of the industrialized nations aren’t even living up to the promises they did make. . . . What did it […]
Efforts to nudge the nation away from burning fossil fuels and toward harnessing renewable source of energy were rejected by voters Tuesday across a swath of resource-rich states in the western United States. Voters in Arizona, one of the nation’s most sun-soaked states, shot down a measure that would have accelerated its shift toward generating […]
Tuesday’s election highlighted that more voters like Donald Trump’s policies than like him. Consider this week’s voter embrace of Mr. Trump’s pro-growth energy positions, via nationwide rejection of initiatives to raise energy costs. Most notable was Washington State’s defeat of a carbon tax for the second time in two years. Climate activists designed the 2016 […]
Where in the country you drive an electric vehicle matters a lot for the environment, a point made repeatedly — both by economists (here and here) and by engineers (here and here). You know what else matters a lot? How much you drive. This gets very little attention, but has major implications for the environmental […]
Gas prices are expected to plunge sharply in the final days leading up to the midterm elections, potentially nearing $2 per gallon at some stations in low-tax states. The sudden respite at the pump comes from sharply lower oil prices and declining wholesale gasoline prices. Oil Price Information Service analyst Tom Kloza said it could […]
The third and most ignored reason California doesn’t use much electricity is that their tax and regulatory policies and high costs of doing business have steadily driven out industries that use a lot of energy to manufacture things such as steel and cement. There’s irony in this, of course, and it’s this: California’s environmentally-minded leaders […]
The USA is now a net exporter of crude oil, with crude oil exports exceeding imports. This oil boom is beneficial to 49 states, but not to California. The American shale boom has important security implications as well, as America is now less dependent on crude oil from the turbulent Middle East, again, except for […]
SMUD officials say the new system is revenue neutral, meaning that ratepayers overall should end up paying the same annually as they do under the current system because of lower winter rates. But, as the chart below shows, many ratepayers will be hit with price shock during summer months, including a price spike in July […]
