Tag: Still
Buffett Still Banking on Energy—BHE Announces Canadian Wind Farm
The post Buffett Still Banking on Energy—BHE Announces Canadian Wind Farm appeared first on POWER Magazine.
The evolving landscape of power includes not only new types of generation, but also involves new investors, including some of the most well-known names in global business.
Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft with the late Paul Allen, formed Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) in 2016, a group that supports battery energy storage, nuclear power innovation, geothermal, and hydropower technology, among others. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, ranked as the world’s richest individual in Forbes magazine’s annual rankings of billionaires (Gates is second), also is an investor in BEV, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) topped 50% renewable energy usage in 2018. AWS operates several wind and solar farms.
Michael Bloomberg, the media mogul and former New York City mayor, is an investor in BEV. So is Virgin’s Richard Branson, and Alibaba’s Jack Ma.
Berkshire Hathaway a Big Energy Investor
Warren Buffett is ranked third on Forbes’ list.…
Gas Now Tops Coal in PJM, but Nuclear Still No. 1
A report from an independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection shows that natural gas-fired power generation topped coal-fired output in PJM in 2018, the first time that gas has topped coal in the history of the largest U.S. grid operator.
The “2018 State of the Market” report from Monitoring Analytics LLC, which includes Volume 1 and Volume 2, was released March 14. It showed that while nuclear power continues to lead PJM electricity production, at 34.2%, natural gas-fired generation accounted for 30.6% of PJM’s power mix last year, while coal-fired units provided 28.6% of the region’s power.
The report showed that gas-fired generation in PJM rose by more than 18% in 2018. Coal generation dropped by 6.6%, and nuclear generation fell by 0.5%.
PJM serves 65 million people in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia.
“This winter confirms what we have been seeing in PJM recently,” said PJM President and CEO Andrew L. Ott in a March 18 news release.…
Coal’s ACE in the Hole? New Rule Still Faces Headwinds
The Trump administration has extended a potential lifeline to coal-fired power plants with its Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. Now the debate is about how much the plan will actually help coal generation.
Energy analysts and other industry experts who spoke with POWER on August 28 say the new rule, which would give individual states the power to determine how to regulate power plant emissions—or whether to regulate them at all—may not make a difference when it comes to the market for coal-based power.
Economic forces, which have increasingly favored natural gas and also renewable energy sources in recent years, have contributed to the fall of coal. And while Trump said the ACE rule is a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP), the CPP has never been implemented due to protracted legal challenges, including a continuing stay of the rule by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Other regulations dealing with power plant emissions, including the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), along with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule, remain in force and continue to impact power plant operators.…