Climate change

Marginal Utility

Changing the Electric Utility Financial Paradigm

Global capital markets have accommodated the industry with low interest rates and high stock price multiples, but capital markets are fickle. Electrics will be capitalized more like other industrial companies, and less like regulated monopolies.

The Economics of Clean Power

And how the market has outmaneuvered the political forces, so far.

While former CEO Charles Bayless says that economics remains the driving factor behind the shifting sands, there are plenty who would put the blame on the Obama administration and its “War on Coal.”

U.S. Department of Energy, SDG&E Partner to Improve Resiliency of Nation’s Electric Grid

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) joined U.S. Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz, to formally launch the U.S. Department of Energy's Partnership for Energy Sector Climate Resilience. SDG&E will collaborate with the Department of Energy (DOE) and 16 other utilities to improve the resilience of the nation's energy infrastructure against extreme weather and climate change impacts. Under the partnership program, owners and operators of energy assets will develop and pursue strategies to reduce climate and weather-related vulnerabilities.

Germany's Energiewende

Lessons learned for U.S. utilities – drawn from first-person fact-finding.

Policy experts travel to the continent to get a first-hand view on the lessons the U.S. utilities should take away from Germany’s rush to renewables.

Perfect Superstorm

Could carbon taxes emerge in the election aftermath?

Since Obama won reelection, we must ask whether we’d rather have EPA cracking down on carbon emissions, or whether a legislated framework would be better for everyone.

Climate Exposure

A state supreme court ruled last fall that damage resulting from climate change allegedly caused by power plant emissions was “reasonably foreseeable,” and therefore litigation expenses were not covered under a general liability insurance policy. The ruling creates an unworkable standard and raises questions about insurance coverage for climate-change liabilities.

While the policyholder was left adrift by Steadfast, the climate change insurance ship certainly hasn’t sailed.

On Sept. 16, 2011, the Supreme Court of Virginia became the highest state court in the country to rule on the issue of insurance coverage for climate-change claims under a general liability policy. In AES Corp. v. Steadfast Ins.

Embracing Wind

Integrating renewables in New York.

New York has developed new market mechanisms intended to effectively incorporate large amounts of renewable energy in the future — up to six times the current levels of intermittent energy without impacting system reliability. New York ISO executive Rana Mukerji explains how the market will drive new investment in renewable energy in the state.

Subsidy Addiction

Government incentives are smothering free enterprise.

When Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced legislation in November 2009 aimed at doubling America’s nuclear power capacity within 20 years, he compared the clean-energy challenge to fighting a war. “If we were going to war, we wouldn’t mothball our nuclear navy and start subsidizing sailboats,” he told attendees at the American Nuclear Society’s winter meeting. “If addressing climate change and creating low-cost, reliable energy are national imperatives, we shouldn’t stop building nuclear plants and start subsidizing windmills.”