Tag

Department of Energy

Podcast, Policy

“What’s the value of national security?”

July 10, 2018

The Trump administration continues to look for ways to keep old coal and nuclear power plants operating, as lower-cost natural gas and renewable energy offers cheaper alternatives for generating electricity. A new proposal under consideration at the U.S. Department of Energy takes a new tact on the topic, claiming ongoing retirements of coal and nuclear plants presents a national security risk to the U.S., given growing concerns over the vulnerability of the grid to cyber and even physical attacks. If nothing else, the thinking goes, coal and nuclear plants have the advantage of storing fuel on-site rather than relying on pipelines, as is the case with gas power plants, or intermittent supplies of solar and wind energy. Here, in a Columbia Energy Exchange podcast with me, DOE’s assistant secretary for electricity, Bruce Walker, speaks out on the national-security rationale for…

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Consumer, Economy / Finance, Energy, Government and Politics, Technology

Clean-energy effort avoids D.C. dystopia

March 7, 2016

Democrats and Republicans agree on little when it comes to government policy, including how Washington should influence the ways that Americans produce and use energy. But one exception is a relatively small program at the U.S. Department of Energy that invests in early-stage technologies with the potential to provide new forms of low- or no-carbon energy efficiently, economically and satisfactorily. Established with bipartisan support in Congress in 2007 and first funded two years later, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has awarded $1.3 billion to more than 475 projects formed by teams from academia, private industry and national laboratories with ideas for technologies in such fields as biofuels, energy storage, superconducting wires, and solar and wind systems.

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Consumer, Corporations, Economy / Finance, Energy, Government and Politics

Energy Dept. loan chief leaves a shored-up office

July 5, 2015

When Peter Davidson was hired as executive director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office two years ago, his was not an enviable position. The controversial program had been operating without a full-time director for more than a year, had made no financial commitments in some two years, and was still reeling from the fallout of a major fiasco: the bankruptcy of one of its major clients, the solar-panel maker Solyndra. Now, Davidson, who resigned in June to return home to New York, is claiming success for a controversial loan program that supports technologies with the potential to transform the ways we use and produce energy, but with risks that can scare off commercial lenders. (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless