Welcome to our second issue of Currents 2025, our energy e-newsletter. Energy Demand Rises with Growth of Data Centers - In recent years, significantly higher electricity demands have been forecasted with the growth of...more
Dominion Energy and Duke Energy Cancel Construction of Atlantic Coast Pipeline - "Despite a recent win for the project in the US Supreme Court, ongoing delays, litigation and an expected increase in costs threatened the...more
China Resumes LNG Imports from the U.S. - "Chinese buyers have resumed imports of liquefied natural gas from U.S. exporters, as Beijing started granting waivers to a 25% import tariff." Why this is important: In the...more
The UAE Gets Green Light to Operate the Arab World’s First Nuclear Power Plant - "The project, which national officials describe as a strategic and economic imperative for the UAE, is more than a decade in the making and...more
Energy Blockchain’s Most Obvious Use Case is Not What You Think - "Instead, a select group of blockchain companies is finding success with a focus on certificates of origin, helping demonstrate the provenance of renewable...more
Russian, Colombian Competition Continuing to Slow U.S. Thermal Coal Exports - "'Central Appalachian and Northern Appalachian exports remain out of the money for shipment to Europe and Illinois Basin coal has significant...more
South Africa's Integrated Resources Plan 2019 ("IRP") continues to espouse the need to balance supply and demand on a least-cost basis, and gives limited guidance in relation to the "Where from here?"...more
Big Oil’s Climate Change Reckoning Finally Arrives in Court - "New York’s $1.6 billion lawsuit arose from a national effort to hold Big Oil responsible for global warming." Why this is important: The most important...more
Crisis in Middle East Should Remind Us of the Importance of Fracking - "Oil prices are likely to spike in the short-term aftermath of the attack on Saudi Arabia, but, as Clifford Krauss and Stanley Reed of The New York...more
A Turning Point for U.S. Power Generation - "For the first time in U.S. history, renewable energies briefly generated more electricity than coal in April this year, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and...more
PA Supreme Court Upholds Decision Allowing Drilling in All Districts Under a Local Zoning Ordinance as Long as They Meet Standards - "This case is one of several recent decisions in Commonwealth Court and the PA Supreme...more
2018 began with the United States producing immense amounts of oil and natural gas; pipeline companies struggling to build out the national pipeline system but not being transparent about how they are doing it; Europe, led by...more
It has become commonplace to note that, as a country, we seem to be more divided than ever – divided on politics, education, rural-urban living, religion, you name it. But topics relating to the ways we generate energy and...more
The 'Trump Effect' is Slowing International Progress on Climate Change, Think Tank Warns - "The report from the Institute of International and European Affairs ("IIEA") considered the impact President Donald Trump was...more
New York Sues Exxon Mobil, Saying It Deceived Shareholders on Climate Change - "The litigation, which follows more than three years of investigation, represents the most significant legal effort yet to establish that a...more
How DC Unleashed Fossil-Fuel Exports Despite Climate Worries - "Since Donald Trump took office in 2017, exports of LNG and crude oil have surged, rivaling the likes of Saudi Arabia and Russia." Why this is important: The...more
China's Provinces are Secretly Building Coal Plants in Defiance of the National Government - "CoalSwarm, a global network of researchers tracking fossil-fuel infrastructure, analyzed satellite imagery as of July 2018, and...more
As Storm Looms, 4th Circuit Reverses Ruling Against Dominion on Coal Ash Pollution at Chesapeake Site - "Water pollution from a coal ash landfill and settling ponds at a closed power plant in Chesapeake is not a violation of...more
Russian Hackers Penetrated Networks of U.S. Electric Utilities - "Russian hackers gained access to the networks of U.S. electric utilities last year, which could have allowed them to cause blackouts, according to federal...more
Trump Budget Seeks 23 Percent Cut at EPA, Eliminating Dozens of Programs - "The fiscal 2019 proposal released marks the Trump administration's latest attempt to shrink the reach of an agency the president once promised to...more
On October 13, 2016, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy’s dramatic proposal to shift away from coal generation toward renewable energy. In authorizing the company’s 2016-2030 Integrated Resource...more