Americans are exhausted by the cost of living—and energy sits at the heart of it. Recently published research by Kevin Dayaratna and Kat Miller at Advancing American Freedom (AAF) analyzing worldwide data finds that robust energy production is directly tied to higher incomes, greater productivity, longer life expectancy, and lower child mortality. The reality is stark: no country has ever achieved high living standards without substantial energy use.
The surge in data centers with energy needs equivalent to small cities has put a spotlight on the new transmission infrastructure required to serve these customers. But recent action from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), America’s top energy market regulator, takes aim at a more basic question in this rapid buildout: who pays for that new steel in the ground, and when? Right now, the rules that determine cost allocation are opaque enough that customers who never asked for those upgrades can end up footing the bill. That is the cost-shifting problem the Commission just put a target on for transmission utilities across the country.
Two months after the Trump administration canceled two large offshore wind energy leases, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a settlement with Duke Energy. The agreement, announced Monday by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, allows Duke Energy, the state’s largest electrical producer and provider, to voluntarily terminate its federal offshore wind lease for its Carolina Long Bay project. The Carolina Long Bay project was planned around 22 miles...
Trade tensions between the U.S. and China continue to escalate, and rare earths remain a central pawn, despite an apparent agreement reached last month, in which China would address U.S. concerns over shortages of rare earths and other critical minerals. Earlier this week, China added 10 companies to its export control list, banning exports of dual-use rare earths to firms it says are tied to the U.S. military. The move was a response to Washington’s decision earlier this month to add new companies, including large Chinese firms such as Alibaba and Baidu, to a list of entities it says assist the Chinese military, a designation that restricts their access to U.S. technology and trade.
As Western governments seek to reduce dependence on Chinese rare earth supply chains, Brazil is emerging as one of the world’s most promising new sources of critical minerals. The country holds the world’s second-largest rare earth resource base and is home to a growing number of advanced ionic clay projects. At the same time, the...
Farmers today are producing food under pressures that would have been unimaginable to previous generations. Input costs are rising and supply chains are unreliable. Water is scarcer. Weather is less predictable. And for a growing number of farmers — in Sudan, in Ukraine, in Myanmar, in Gaza — the challenge is producing food at all,...
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that three advanced nuclear reactors built by U.S. companies had reached key operational milestones, meeting its July 4 goal to advance the nascent technology it hopes will revolutionize the power sector. A reactor from Houston-based Deployable Energy became the third during Trump’s term to reach criticality, in which it produces...
Extreme heat is putting increasing pressure on Europe’s electricity grids as rising temperatures increase the need for air conditioning in homes, offices and businesses, driving up electricity demand, tightening power markets and, in some cases, reducing electricity supply. Although air-conditioning remains far less common in Europe than in many other parts of the world, ownership...
Two hundred and fifty years young, the United States of America remains the best country in the world. We’re not perfect, but we still pass “the gates test” with flying colors.
As the longtime conservative leader Bill Bennett noted in highlighting the Berlin Wall, “You can measure a nation’s worth by observing the flow of humanity when barriers are raised: do they fight to enter, or do they risk everything to escape?” In America, people are still desperately trying to get in, and for good reason.
When Dominion Energy first announced the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project in September 2019, the proposal was striking. At the time, the U.S. offshore wind market was still fairly nascent, though federal and state permitting activity, lease auctions, and offtake agreements were beginning to advance projects in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York....
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