Jim Pierobon is Founder and principal writer of The Energy Fix. He is a policy, marketing and social media strategist who has reported on, testified and consulted about smarter grids, cyber-security as it affects the power grid, fossil fuel shortages, price spikes, energy efficiency and the rise and fall -- and the rise again of nuclear and renewable energy sources.With Obama’s win, cleaner energy has another chance, but these questions loom
Just because President Obama won four more years, doesn’t mean the next four will be any easier. Sure, it’s now his legacy he is beginning to focus on. But there are tall hurdles even the election results will do to change. Renewable energy developers and suppliers have a few rays of sunshine and a more [...]
Demand response and cleaner energy outbidding some coal-fired generation in PJM
Almost like a tree falling in the forest, the recent auction for wholesale power supplies from utilities and competitive generators produced a relatively quiet but telling shift in the PJM power grid which stretches from the Mid-Atlantic states into parts of the Midwest: Several aging coal-fired power plants were outbid by cleaner sources, including demand-response [...]
New Jersey Gov. Christie says he has a better way than RGGI to cut carbon emissions
That’s the conclusion one could reach after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced the Garden State is withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. If he’s right, he may be on to something because he asserted there are better ways to fight global warming, which he says is real and caused by humans. [...]
Coal’s health costs at least $140 billion per year: ‘heads in the sand’
How many credible studies will it take before elected officials and regulators acknowledge that coal has a quantifiable, net negative, impact on the health of human beings and the U.S. economy? The latest study, from the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment does a credible and persuasive job of estimating the [...]