New Media
With Earthquakes and Storms, Puerto Ricoʼs Power Grid Canʼt Catch a Break
“This really is the point at which we have to face the fact that the current institutions just aren’t doing the job,” said Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, a utility consulting firm based in Portland, Ore. “It really is like one of the slow-motion accidents in a movie. You really wish it would end.”
No American City Has Ever Tried a Climate Justice Tax Like the One Portland Is Launching. What’s the Plan?
Robert McCullough, a Portland energy economist, says the fund faces two challenges: the declining effectiveness of energy efficiency measures, and the city’s poor track record of fiscal prudence.
Mayors’ ambitious plan for customer-owned PG&E fix would put California on uncharted electricity path
“This is unprecedented,” said Robert McCullough, an energy consultant and adjunct professor of economics at Portland State University.
New Articles
Oregon natural gas facility could be fuelled by Canadian sources
The Lawyer’s Daily, Robert McCullough
Jordan Cove is planned for Coos Bay. In order to procure natural gas, a pipeline is planned to connect to supplies at Malin, Ore. Malin connects to Kingsgate, Alta., and Opal, Wyo. Overall, Coos Bay is over 909 miles from sources of supply in the east and 841 miles from Alberta.
The end of big hydro
The Lawyer’s Daily, Robert McCullough
From the Tennessee to the Columbia rivers, hydroelectric dams have played a decisive role in making cheap electricity widely distributed throughout the North American economy. From declining fish populations to flooded land, some Canadians and Americans have had to pay a higher price to make hydro power possible.
That social trade-off is making less sense today as the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) from wind and solar generation has now dropped below the LCOE of hydro and most all thermal energy resources. The portion of a U.S. state’s power generation by hydro no longer predicts its electricity prices.
Taking the path less followed
Vancouver Sun, Robert McCullough
A month ago, I had the honour of sitting down with the NDP cabinet and Premier John Horgan. I gave a detailed presentation why proceeding with Site C would be costly and risky. Curiously, after the cabinet meeting the only followup involved questions from specific MLAs — not inquiries from the cabinet or their staff.
New Reports
FERC’s MOPR Dissected
The two leading renewable technologies are non-dispatchable intermittent resources. The unsubstantiated assumption that they will lower the value of capacity needs to be examined closely.
Is Existing Coal Actually Cost Effective in the Presence of Falling Renewable Prices?
The conclusions arrived at by IER – conventional coal is cheaper than renewables – is both incorrect and ill-conceived.
The End of Big Iron: How Wind and Solar Became Cheaper than Hydro, Coal, and Nuclear
That traditional environmental trade-off no longer make sense as the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) from wind and solar generation has now dropped below the LCOE of hydro and most thermal energy resources.