Jennifer Granholm, former governor of the auto-manufacturing mecca in Michigan, became the United States secretary of energy on February 25. Granholm now oversees a revamped agency that includes energy-justice advocate Shalanda Baker in a key role and other clean-energy doers in high places. Is this a downpayment on President Joe Biden's promise to reach carbon-neutral electricity in 14 years? It just might be, and Biden's White House team reinforces the idea.
When you fiddle with spreadsheet cells or engineering models all day in pursuit of clean energy, the sound of stasis can clang in your ears. So after local and national politicians blamed wind turbines for a power outage that interrupted water supplies and left people freezing for days across the state, we decided to document who really pays when legacy asset owners refuse to update their energy plans. Our reporter took breaks from checking on her family in Austin to round up stories about real people's real chills and real hunger.
Is this the direction for decarbonizing- and for big hydrocarbon concerns? (Image courtesy of Pixabay.)
Equinor Strategy Summit, Norway, 2019 – Executives of Equinor (formerly known as Statoil) were holed up in a room drinking hot chocolate after a day of skiing. Strategy staff members presented them with a list of unidentified companies (“Company 1,” “Company 2,” “Company 3”) along with historical and projected returns. One had 10% return ambitions; another roughly the same, etc. The executives were asked: Which companies do you think these are? Shell? Ørsted? Exxon? What happened next remains a mystery; but, according to Michael Wheeler, Equinor’s Principal of Corporate Strategy, who told the tale at a conference last year, the...
Dominion in Utah, like most utilities, makes energy efficiency look simple and costless.
With a real estate outlook morphed by Covid and the recession, advocates for energy efficiency policies have staked a new claim.
(Courtesy of Norfolk Solar) If dollars are flowing into under-served neighborhoods and staying there for as long as they throw off tax savings, why not channel some of them to improve energy justice? Plenty of opportunity remains.
The federal Opportunity Zones designation forgives capital gains taxes on investments in neighborhoods that have withstood economic isolation. One Norfolk, Virginia entrepreneur found dollars from investors looking for the tax break, found sites ready for solar development, and found a way to create jobs and increase solar market share in a three-pronged fund.
The first section of this story laid out how worldwide finance steered capital into Nigeria's rural communities through a grant process and a tender process, both designed to boost microgrid production. This conclusion asks how these programs pay off for residents and communities-and how their lessons can grow across sub-Saharan Africa to other fast-growing regions.
Bringing about clean electricity in sub-Saharan Africa means creating credit where historically lenders have held back. Two new programs, a loan and a tender, have drawn international solar developers and raised prospects for low-pollution, high-efficiency in rural Nigeria.
What happens when a 100-year-old electric system runs into a 100-year pandemic?
When an economy freezes, does it chill utility executives' ability to transform their energy sources? Macky McCleary, who directs energy, telecommunications and infrastructure for consulting firm Guidehouse, says the world will have to keep drawing more and more power from fossil-free sources- but he also warns that the United States may bungle the post-Covid recovery and thus thwart utilities' progress. Utilities figure to benefit from capital provisions that stoke the economic recovery- if and only if the federal government can lay out plans for public safety and retraining. We share McCleary's insight as we continue rolling out "CBEYond the Moment."
