by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 14, 2022 | Energy Rant
As of last week, year-to-date energy prices are up 58% for NYMEX crude oil, 91% for NYMEX gasoline, and only 39% for retail gasoline. Retail prices seem to have a long way to climb as the high NYMEX prices make their way to the local gasoline pump. This week we look...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 7, 2022 | Energy Rant
I drove the 3.5-hour route to see my mother last weekend. In preparation, I decided to fill my little tank the night before. And besides, I thought, prices are likely to be higher tomorrow. It was $4.149 per gallon. The next day, about 45 miles down the road on I-90...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 31, 2022 | Energy Rant
Another week and we have two more dire warning shots of forecast blackouts this summer. These come from The Wall Street Journal and describe challenges from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region to California. Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 24, 2022 | Energy Rant
NERC sounds alarm on solar tripping in sobering summer reliability report, May 19, 2022, UtilityDive.com. This seems like a timely sequel to last week’s Blistering Wind and Solar Energy post, in which I summarized the results of a renewables integration study...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 17, 2022 | Energy Rant
Grid reliability issues are upon us, and they will become more severe and disruptive in the next 10-20 years. But first, why is this happening? If governments mandated things in medicine[1] as they do with the grid, they would declare that chemotherapy will phase out...