Earth Track Blog

Nuclear economics remain underwhelming, but the creative ways the industry pursues to shift risks onto others and to seek new subsidies for themselves continue unabated. Here's a run-down of a few recent developments. 1) NRC approves sale of closed Pilgrim nuclear reactor to Holtec. After studying...

What is a savvy utility to do if it is wrapping up production at a plant that's been running for 40 years, and now faces decades of complex responsibility with no new revenues? Unload it, of course. But to whom? The thing isn't making money; indeed, it'll soon start Hoovering cash. Plus the cleanup...

Analysis of the early post-tax reform data from large public companies suggests that many profitable firms are paying no federal income taxes, and often getting refunds. Firms involved with fossil fuels have been big winners. An April paper by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in...

There are fewer and fewer non-fragmented ecosystems in the US; the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska is one of them. The Los Angeles Times notes that at 17 million acres, the Tongass is the "world's largest intact coastal temperate rain forest." For nearly two decades, the federal...

With the eighth anniversary of the Fukushima accident having recently passed, I wanted to mention a few Fukushima-related threads. 1. A Japanese translation of Learning from Fukushima was released in February, making the material accessible to more people within Japan. Namatame Norifumi was the main...

PJM Interconnection LLC (PJM) has been worried that certain state subsidies harm the competitiveness of capacity auctions within its territory. PJM serves as the grid operator for all or parts of Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio...

Natural resource giveaways to friends and family have long been a global concern, and there is an extensive literature documenting the problem. This 1999 paper by the International Monetary Fund, for example, finds a link between the degree to which a nation or state is dependent on natural...

When the drinks are flowing at the open bar, it's not a big surprise that patrons swarm for their free pints. Tax bills are the same, with amendments aplenty as the hours ticked on towards the Senate passage of a massive tax reform package last week. Hey, when you are spending somebody else's money...

The optimal position for your industry in any tax reform is to see general tax rates drop while also keeping all of your old subsidies. The political lobbying on these bills is enormous, and given the scale of the energy sector in the US economy, and the need to transition towards lower carbon fuel...

Republican-led plans to reform our tax system have now been introduced in the Senate and passed in the House. This is trillion dollar legislation (the extra deficits alone are estimated at $1.5 trillion between 2018 and 2027), and a feeding frenzy for lobbyists trying to get new perks in the bill or...

These have been busy months in the world of subsidies to nuclear power. 1) Reality continues to bite the nuclear renaissance. Over the summer, Duke Energy moved to cancel its Lee nuclear project in North Carolina and its Levy project in Florida. Duke is seeking reimbursement of $353 million in...

It's been a rough few months for nuclear power, with the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the US nuclear arm of Toshiba; continued cost escalation at both US reactor projects and the UK's Hinkley C; and the decision on Monday to abandon two in-process reactors at the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina...

PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission operator (RTO) serving more than 60 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia. The service region is centered in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Incumbent base load generators within PJM have complained that subsidies to...

1) Windmills hacked by Russians. In a worrying escalation of software attacks, Russian engineers penetrated control systems at a number of US windmills, causing erratic operating performance and increased bird kills. Yeah, if only things could be that simple. In another example that the "internet of...

Jobs matter. For the job holder, this is obvious: the wages support them and their family. But jobs also matter to the country overall, as economic strength forms the basis for a strong foundation of political stability, prosperity, and growth. Community relationships can turn ugly if lots of people...

1) Earth Track congressional testimony. Read Earth Track's testimony to the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives: Federal Energy-Related Tax Policy and its Effects on Markets, Prices, and Consumers. 2) New work on subsidies: US public lands...

If newly minted EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt managed environmental risks more similarly to the way he manages the financial risks in his own portfolio, we would be far better off. He does not. To the contrary, he leverages any hints of uncertainty on environmental damages as a justification to do...

In yesterday's confirmation hearings for Rex Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO stated that 'I'm not aware of anything the fossil fuel industry gets that I would characterize as a subsidy... Rather it is just the way the tax code applies to this particular industry.' You can review the relevant...

Most fossil fuel subsidy assessments tabulate aggregate support to a particular fuel at the national or international level. Our new paper, Effect of government subsidies for upstream oil infrastructure on U.S. oil production and global CO2 emissions, just released by the Stockholm Environment...

The mysterious Q Division in the James Bond movie franchise was always on hand with inane, though coldly effective, inventions that would save Bond and defeat even the most diabolical enemy. In the magic of the movies, a bit of public money directed towards the R&D staff of the British Secret...