Amy Harder, a veteran journalist, now runs a new site out of Breakthrough Energy called Cipher. She looks at the transition's hard questions, hard slogs, and compelling stories in a casual Zoom with undergraduates.
(Photo by overWHAMmed, from Flickr Creative Commons). This transmission line in Pelzer, SC, testifies to the market potential for investment in new high-voltage lines.
The main line is the main event. Transmission of clean electricity, combined with storage, means that every state and nearly every community can effectively live on fossil-free power. Financing and permitting involve economic, political, and engineering knots. This explainer takes in the breakthrough ideas and baseline for speedier deployment.
(Photo by Don and Suzan Weller, via Flickr Creative Commons.) As the sun sets over Waterford, CT, an expert proposes a price floor in wholesale electricity markets.
As New England states progress towards decarbonization goals, the electricity spot market will see offers from solar and wind generators that incur no marginal cost. That can harm reliability and put some operators hastily out of business. To retain existing resources and the stability they bring, we need to set...
(Photo by Oran Viriyincy via Flickr Creative Commons.) Where can the 20th Century grid consistently carry 21st Century energy across regional lines?
To someone facing a wildfire in California or bunking in a shelter after a flood in Louisiana, what does power supply from a far corner of the country have to do with survival? Quite a bit, as this tale of grid interconnection, will show. Connections of supply from one electric...
On an unspoiled site or an unloved one, a renewable-energy installation navigates tricky economics.
Solar and wind projects are essential to the energy evolution, but most of them take up a lot of space. This story looks at the two main sorts of land developers can use and walks through economics, strategies, and public policies that can foster solar and wind while attending to...
