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February 3, 2025

The Ivanpah Solar Power Monstrosity Bites the Taxpayers. Again.

It was the future. It would demonstrate how to save the planet. It would produce electricity clean and cheap and immune to the vagaries of international shifts in prices, interest rates, currency exchange values, and the caprice of foreign governments. It was a demonstration of the massive achievements possible from public/private “partnerships,” that is, central…

December 23, 2024

Big Tech’s Data Centers Won’t Get Far Unless the Power Grid Is Regulated Less

The United States holds a commanding lead in data-center capacity, hosting 37% of the world’s facilities, and being home to the largest data center providers — Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Alphabet. These data centers are more than just infrastructure; they are the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI), driving innovations from personalized healthcare to automated supply chains. They are…

December 20, 2024

Did the Courts Just Nuke Environmental Review?

Description AEI fellows James W. Coleman and Adam J. White join Santi Ruiz of the Institute for Progress and Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan Law School to discuss two court cases that could have huge ramifications for how we build things in America.

December 19, 2024

Economics of Grid Defection III

The discussion of grid defection has reemerged with the changes in the technical capabilities of distributed resources, the growth of data center demand, and questions about whether utilities are up to the task of being nimble enough to adapt to these fast-changing circumstances. In parts I and II of this series I discussed the 2014…

December 3, 2024

Message from Voters: Remove Politicized Constraints on Fossil Energy Production

On Election Day, voters delivered at least one clear message: Remove the policy roadblocks standing in the way of greater fossil energy production, American oil and natural gas in particular. The reason is obvious: The efficient production of more fossil energy yields huge economic benefits for millions of working Americans and for the productivity of…

November 15, 2024

Should State Laws Determine National Energy and Climate Policies?

Opponents of fossil fuels claim to oppose pollution, but they are all too happy to pollute our legal and constitutional institutions in pursuit of their climate-policy agenda. The latest manifestation of this trend is a litigation campaign against fossil-energy producers in state courts under state laws, alleging that the energy producers “knew” decades ago that…

October 30, 2024

The Energy Permitting Reform Act Doesn’t Go Far Enough

This summer, Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso’s Energy Permitting Reform Act passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee by a 15-4 vote and the House of Representatives is now working on passing its own permitting reform. Both bills reflects a growing bipartisan consensus that after years of bottlenecks and delays to…

October 25, 2024

The Clean Energy Transition’s Voter Problem

The future of the clean energy transition is cloudy. It’s well-known that there are disagreements—wide disagreements—between Republicans and Democrats about our energy future. But less well-known is the bedrock of public opinion on America’s energy supply, the importance of a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, and the general salience of the climate change issue….