The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Nov. 8 announced the completion of the environmental review for the SouthCoast offshore wind project. Once operational, the wind farm could have a power generation capacity of 2.4 gigawatts, sufficient to supply over 800,000 households. The SouthCoast offshore wind lease area spans around 127,388 acres and is approximately…...
The California Air Resources Board on Nov. 8 announced updates to its Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, program that would speed up the decarbonization of the state’s transportation sector by increasing clean fuel and transportation options for consumers. The updated LCFS sets new targets to reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuel by 30…...
The U.S. Energy Department on Nov. 8 announced that 200 million barrels of crude oil have been delivered or contracted at an average price of $74.75 per barrel with the conclusion of the latest solicitation to procure 2.4 million crude oil barrels for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR. The Biden administration’s aggressive buyback strategy…...
The Michigan Public Service Commission on Nov. 8 approved a settlement allowing DTE Gas Co. to increase its rate by nearly $114 million, about 57 percent lower than the utility’s initial request. The company filed the rate request in January 2024, requesting to raise rates by $266 million to fund infrastructure projects to modernize its…...
The U.S. Interior Department on Nov. 7 announced over $140 million in funding for fiscal year 2024 to tackle polluting and abandoned mine lands, or AML, and spur economic development in coal communities across West Virginia. With this, more than $492 million in fiscal year 2024 awards have been allocated nationwide. Additional funding will be…...
The U.S. Energy Department on Nov. 7 announced the closing of a $445 million loan to Li-Cycle U.S. Inc. to support the first-of-its-kind lithium-ion battery resource recovery facility to be built in New York. The project aims to produce up to 180,000 electric vehicles (EVs) annually using recycled materials, while also supporting efforts to onshore…...
U.S. electricity production from hydroelectric plants is expected to be 13 percent lower during 2024 than the 10-year average, according to a Nov. 7 report published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If realized this will be the lowest volume of electricity produced from hydropower since 2001. The decrease in hydropower generation can be attributed…...
U.S. fuel ethanol exports are projected to reach a record high during 2024, according to an Nov. 6 report published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The growth in U.S. fuel ethanol exports can be attributed to relatively lower U.S. fuel ethanol prices, high U.S. fuel ethanol production and robust demand in countries with biofuel…...
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will provide technical guidance to three projects the U.S. Energy Department selected for its Distributed Energy Systems Demonstrations Program, according to a Nov. 6 press release. In September 2023, the department launched a $50 million funding opportunity for three projects to deploy distributed energy resource management systems, or DERMS…....
Washington voters on Nov. 5 rejected Initiative 2117, a ballot measure that sought to repeal the 2021 Climate Commitment Act, which established the cap-and-invest program, a key component of the state’s efforts to achieve emission limits set in law and progress toward net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Nearly 62 percent of voters cast ballots against…...
Average U.S. nuclear capacity outages declined to around 2.6 gigawatts (GW) per day during summer 2024, down 0.5 GW compared to summer 2023, according to an Nov. 5 report published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. nuclear capacity outages were mostly evident in mid-July and early August, averaging 3.1 GW per day during the…...
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) on Nov. 4 released the second and third parts of its Interregional Transfer Capability Study, or ITCS, initiated last year to analyze the amount of power that can be moved reliably across interconnected transmission systems. The report recommends that the U.S. add 35 gigawatts (GW) of power transfer…...