Electricity
Changes in the Power Sector Are an Opportunity, Not a Threat
On August 23, the U.S. Department of Energy released the findings and recommendations of its highly anticipated study on grid resilience and reliability. Secretary Perry commissioned the study in April, in a memo leading with the thoroughly debunked proposition that “baseload power is necessary to a well-functioning…
RMI’s 2017 Micropower Database Release: Electricity Generation from Micropower Is on the Rise while Nuclear Power’s Output Share Continues to Flatline
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) just released its 2017 Micropower Database, a compilation of global generation and capacity data for low-carbon micropower and nuclear electricity sources. “Micropower” refers to sources of electricity that are relatively small, modular, mass-producible, quick-to-deploy, and hence rapidly scalable. For the purposes of this database, it means…
Understanding the Innovation Dividend of Clean Energy Investment
While current political discourse seems to focus on what divides us, there are many topics on which people from across the political spectrum seem to agree. One of these is the critical importance of innovation. Innovation can create jobs, bolster our economy, and improve our lives. In clean energy, regular…
Fourteen Alleged Magical Properties That Coal and Nuclear Plants Don’t Have and Shouldn’t Be Paid Extra for Providing
As the U.S. electricity sector awaits the release of a Department of Energy study assessing the impact of current market design on baseload generation and grid reliability, Rocky Mountain Institute’s Cofounder and Chief Scientist, Amory B. Lovins, has outlined and debunked in a soon-to-be-published Electricity Journal article 14 claimed…
Does “Fuel On Hand” Make Coal and Nuclear Power Plants More Valuable?
On April 14, Energy Secretary Rick Perry sent a memo ordering a 60-day departmental study of whether federal policies favoring an unnamed competitor—evidently renewable electricity like solar and windpower—are constraining supposedly vital “baseload” plants (impliedly coal and nuclear), to the assumed detriment of grid reliability and resilience. Existing studies by grid …
