Tag: power grid

Commentary: China’s Land Purchases in U.S. Spark Outcry for Federal Solution

Admin
Smithfield Foods factory farm

Over the past two years, nearly half the states in America acted to scrutinize purchases of land linked to China and other foreign adversaries. Concerns focus primarily on national security threats from China, and they’re well-founded.

The federal government has no idea how much real estate Chinese entities own in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture legally is required to track foreign ownership of agricultural land, but underestimates Chinese ownership by at least 50 percent.

Read the full story

Big Tech Championed Zero Emissions but Now Its Power-Hungry Data Centers are Straining the Grid

Just the News
Data center

For years, tech giants in California and Washington have been leading the charge to eliminate fossil fuels from the grid. Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple, for example, are members of Climate Group RE100, an organization of major corporations who are dedicated to accelerating “change toward zero-carbon grids at scale by 2040.”

In 2018, Apple proclaimed that it was globally powered entirely by 100 percent renewable energy.

Read the full story

U.S. House Passes Bill to Require Tennessee Valley Authority Disclose Salaries for Top Executives

Tom Pappert

The U.S. House of Representatives on recently legislation filed by Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) and Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) that would require the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to publish the salaries of its top executives, Cohen announced in a Monday press release.

Titled the TVA Salary Transparency Act, text of the two-page bill reveals new requirements would be posed for the TVA to provide annually “a report of the total number of employees at the management level or above, to include all executives and board members, that shall include the names, salaries, and duties” of employees “that are receiving compensation” higher than that allotted to the highest paid government employees.

Read the full story

Red Tape Closes Pennsylvania Power Plants Before Replacements Ready

The Center Square
Power Plant

Despite the key positions states like Ohio and Pennsylvania hold to solve future energy problems, shifting the power grid from coal and natural gas to wind and solar isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.

A cadre of Pennsylvania legislators trekked to Columbus for a joint meeting of three House and Senate committees from the two states to be advised by energy officials on PJM, the regional power grid to which both belong.

Read the full story

Power Grid Watchdog Warns of Future Blackouts, Need for Natural Gas to Support Renewables

Just the News
Power Grid

The watchdog overseeing the North American power grid warns that the combination of rapid retirement of coal-fired electricity generation and the increasing reliance on wind and solar are risking large swaths of the United States with blackouts during heat waves and cold snaps.

“This assessment provides clear evidence of growing resource adequacy concerns over the next 10 years,” the latest report states. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) produces annual long-term assessments of potential electricity shortfalls over the next decade. In its latest long-term assessment published Wednesday, NERC stated that a priority action to ensure more grid reliability is increasing natural gas supply infrastructure.

Read the full story

Commentary: Bill Will Keep Wisconsin’s Power Grid in State’s Hands and Out of the Control of Federal Regulators or Out-of-State Developers

M.D. Kittle

Today, I introduced legislation to retain Wisconsin control over the safety and reliability of our state’s power grid instead of ceding that control to federal regulators and opportunistic out-of-state developers. This bill, known as Right of First Refusal, prevents fragmentation of the state’s transmission grid and retains the regulation and operation of the grid in Wisconsin.

Read the full story

Tennessee Valley Authority Requests Businesses, Residents Reduce Power Usage as State Hits ‘All-Time’ December Power Peak

Kaitlin Housler

Amid temperatures in the teens and single digits across the state on Friday, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced that power demand in Tennessee hit an “all-time December peak.”

TVA announced Friday that it and local power company employees were “actively working to maintain a stable power grid for everyone amid unprecedented demand,” by “temporarily reducing power supplies to localized areas.”

Read the full story