16 item(s) were returned.
Environmental Permitting Specialist
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; formerly Policy Analyst at ClearPath
Note: At the time of this discussion, Faith Martinez Smith was a Policy Analyst at ClearPath, managing the organization’s energy storage, geothermal, and hydropower portfolios. Grid-scale energy storage is critical for decarbonizing our economy and merits high-profile attention from our policymakers. Storage is technology agnostic—it can be used with any generation technology, provides ancillary services, and can reduce demand charges. As climate change policy continues to take center stage, the commercialization of U.S. energy storage technologies can play a pivotal role in enabling higher integration of variable renewable resources (wind and solar power) and addressing grid reliability. Thus far,… [more]
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Chair, Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Environment & Climate Change, U.S. House of Representatives
Co-Chair, Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition
In October 2012, Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the northeastern United States. Today, more than five years later, we are only just beginning to see the benefits of long-term recovery efforts coming to fruition, as states and utilities invest in smarter, more resilient grid technologies. It has taken time but a number of states, including my home state of New York, are deploying microgrids and storage resources, and valuing localized generation appropriately while also hardening traditional transmission and distribution infrastructure. These investments will help the grid withstand and recover from future catastrophe, whether a natural disaster, cyber attack, or act… [more]
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Cofounder
Spark Library
In late September, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) for consideration by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Using §403, a little-used provision in the DOE Organization Act of 1977, Secretary Perry proposed that FERC, an independent agency, exercise its authority to establish just and reasonable rates for wholesale electricity sales in the name of grid resiliency. Specifically, the NOPR requires ISO’s and RTO’s create special cost of service compensation for certain types of generation that DOE alleges are essential to protecting grid reliability and resiliency. Facilities would be eligible for this special, non-market… [more]
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President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, as the next Secretary of the Department of Energy. Some observers have noted that the nominations of Pruitt and Perry suggest that Mr. Trump intends to follow through on campaign promises to pursue energy policies supporting the development of fossil fuels. Pruitt and Perry each hail from states with strong oil and gas industries and both are known for their at-times skeptical views regarding the EPA and DOE, respectively. Mr. Pruitt describes himself as “a leading… [more]
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A recent “60 Minutes” segment essentially called the cleantech industry a failure, eliciting a flurry of criticisms defending the green technology sector. “Hoping to create innovation and jobs, [President Obama] committed north of $100 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks to cleantech. But instead of breakthroughs, the sector suffered a string of expensive tax-funded flops. Suddenly cleantech was a dirty word,” said “60 Minutes’” host, Lesley Stahl. One of the main criticisms against the CBS segment was that it conflated the cleantech venture capital sector of Silicon Valley with the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program. The critics have… [more]
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Since the development of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was terminated in 2011, no long-term plan for storing spent nuclear fuel accumulating at nuclear power plants has been developed. As a result, utilities have been forced to store spent nuclear fuel “on site,” where storage space grows tight and is increasingly expensive to manage. The federal government is required by law to provide (since 1998) offsite storage for spent nuclear fuel, but has yet to do so. Furthermore, until last month’s ruling by a federal appeals court, the Department of Energy (DOE) had been collecting a fee from nuclear… [more]
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At the recent National Clean Energy Summit in Nevada, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz lauded federal loans for green energy projects. You can also get other kinds of loans sanctioned immediately when applied through an online portal, with the help of iva advice from experts. “We have done a lot to try to get renewables out there, in fact in [Nevada] six loan guarantees, four in geothermal, one in CSP, and one on the grid… all come together to see real progress on the ground,” said Secretary Moniz. The loan guarantee programs have garnered significant skepticism and criticism, with much of… [more]
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President
Micro-Utilities, Inc.
The President was on target during his speech on climate change at Georgetown University when he announced new initiatives to curb the release of greenhouse gases and thereby slow down the effects of climate change. However, a key aspect to meeting this huge challenge is to set national goals based on specific timetables. Without President Kennedy setting a goal to land an American on the moon by a specific date, it is doubtful that we would have ever achieved this. President Obama’s goal-setting in his recent speech was incomplete and rather imbalanced. There was a goal to double renewable energy… [more]
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The new Secretary of Energy and MIT physicist, Ernest Moniz, has often cited nuclear power as an important means of developing a low-carbon future for America. Moniz has also advocated the use of natural gas for its economic, environmental and energy security benefits, as outlined in a report he authored while at MIT, “The Future of Natural Gas.” So what can we expect from the next Secretary of Energy? Throughout his confirmation process, which has taken place over the past six weeks, Secretary Moniz reiterated the need for an “all-of-the-above” strategy, while expressing his belief that the government is underinvesting… [more]
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President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 budget, released April 10th, contains many of the energy initiatives previously outlined in his Energy Blueprint. Programs such as the Race to the Top energy efficiency challenge and the Energy Security Trust are included, along with slight adjustments to the enacted budgets of the primary agencies that shape energy policy – the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Specifically, the DOE budget would see total funding growth of 8%, with funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy increasing 40%. The DOI budget would increase 4%, and include an… [more]
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