Energy Dept disappoints US coal industry: no order keeping plants open

The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]The Trump administration has reneged on one aspect of a promise widely discussed throughout the 2016 presidential campaign: reviving the coal industry. President Donald Trump declared the United States coal industry would thrive under his watch, but the Trump administration and the Energy Department have just delivered a blow to the...

Senate panel rejects clean-energy cuts, boosts DoE funding instead

Offshore wind farmThe Senate Committee on Appropriations recently exhibited a quality somewhat rare in U.S. politics these days: bipartisanship. The committee released a lengthy report on the 2018 fiscal year budget for the Department of Energy that walks away from the Trump Administration's efforts to defund clean energy. In fact, the committee voted on a...

Trump DoE to critique renewables against coal for grid reliability

wind farmIt is widely accepted in the energy industry that U.S. coal production will fall as a percentage of the total electric grid mix. That has little to do with its high carbon footprint per kilowatt-hour generated; it is largely due to far greater supplies of much cheaper fracked natural gas. It is also widely accepted that renewable energy sources...

SimpleFuel home hydrogen fuel dispenser wins $1 million DoE prize

SimpleFuel team demonstrating home hydrogen fuel dispenser with Hyundai Tucson Fuel CellLast week, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $1 million prize to a little-known team for what you might call a new garage appliance. The SimpleFuel team—actually a collaboration of three separate companies—won the prize, first offered in November 2014, for its hydrogen home-fueling station. The goal is to let drivers of hydrogen...

Trump: Rick Perry to lead Energy Department he vowed to eliminate

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, 2008President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the Department of Energy is a man who once vowed to eliminate it. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry is an ardent supporter of the fossil-fuel industry who ran for president in the last two elections. But the Energy Department was part of a memorable gaffe that helped put an end to Perry's first...