New Media
With gas prices rising, Oregon drivers are paying some of the highest prices in the country
“We’re not seeing a [crude oil] shortage, but we are seeing our friends in Asia and Europe knock on the door for additional supplies from us,” Robert McCullough, Portland energy expert and consultant, said. “And as they do that, of course, the big players on the West Coast are raising their prices domestically to match their opportunities internationally.”
N.Y.C. to Get Green Energy From Canadian Hydropower
Climate reporter Hilary Howard explores the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a new transmission line that will deliver hydropower from Quebec to New York City. It’s planned to provide up to 20 percent of the city’s energy.
Hydropower Line From Quebec to Queens Could Power a Million N.Y.C. Homes
It turns out that even as Hydro-Québec was exporting hydropower to Massachusetts this winter, the Canadian power supplier was having to import
electricity generated from natural gas and oil from other Canadian provinces and the United States, “making environmental benefits questionable,” Mr. McCullough said.
New Articles
The Supremes sing a new tune: U.S. Supreme Court tariff decision, energy prices
On Feb. 20, the Supremes (the American judges, not the musicians) announced that they have rejected President Donald Trump’s wild misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. As I have noted before, the bizarre emergency orders that initiated a trade war with much of the planet might well have been written while on drugs, not simply responding to drugs.
Creating competitors: Trump’s regime changes in Canada and Venezuela
Recent press coverage of the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his replacement with Delcy Rodríguez has been a case of fanciful explanations chasing very few facts. The administration has been of little help with its recent endorsement of Maduro’s second-in-command as the new leader of Venezuela.
Problems with CleanBC roadmap
British Columbia’s CleanBC program was initiated in 2018. It has spawned innumerable websites, reports, studies, and communiques. In February 2023, it was updated with the Roadmap to 2030 plan.
The Roadmap is plainly aspirational. It is, as it says, a roadmap. However, 60 percent of the way to the objective, it is unclear whether real progress is present.
New Reports
Trump and Energy: Mercantilist or Simply Confused?
Mercantilism in its simplest form is government intervention in international trade to block imports and expand exports. Over the last fourteen months, the United States has embarked on the second largest set of tariffs in its history. Only the Smoot-Hawley legislation of June 17, 1930, was more significant, and Smoot-Hawley was a major cause of the Great Depression.
New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) Scheduling Interruptions and Net U.S. Exports to Quebec
Quebec is in its third year of a major drought, and reservoirs continue to be drawn down to meet peak winter loads. Lower reservoirs hamper operational flexibility, which can lead to interruptions in NECEC exports, and increased imports to Quebec to address loads.
Deconstructing Trump’s Energy Tariff
On February 1, 2025, the president issued an executive order imposing tariffs on Cana-dian energy. The actual tariff language was contained in a previous executive order enti-tled “Declaring A National Energy Emergency.”[…]
The anomalous energy sources in Section 8(a) do not include solar and wind which have no fuel. In the case of “geothermal heat” and “kinetic movement of flowing water”, this is a strange construction of words that attempts to define the “fuel” for geothermal and hydroelectricity. However, they are not commodities since they are not traded, trans-portable, and relatively difficult to measure.