Latest news with #ValerieVolcovici
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NextEra CEO says renewables needed as bridge to expanding gas power
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are needed to meet rapidly growing energy demand in the United States amid near-term obstacles to increasing natural gas capacity, said NextEra CEO John Ketchum on Tuesday. The head of the Florida-based power producer said at the Politico Energy Summit that competition and high costs to obtain gas turbines, a construction labor shortage, and the costs associated with tariffs mean that it will take at least seven years to get new gas-fired power plants online. "We need a bridge to get ourselves to 2032 when that gas shows up ... And when that gas shows up, it's going be three times more expensive than it's ever been," Ketchum said. "If we take renewables off the table, we are going to have a real power shortage problem in this country." U.S. House lawmakers narrowly passed a budget reconciliation bill last month that would phase out clean energy tax credits, slash spending on renewables, and claw back other climate-related funds. The House bill, which is now being debated by the Senate, shortens the window for developers to start and complete new clean energy projects to qualify for tax credits, and makes the incentives unworkable, Ketchum said. Ketchum's comments reverse an oft-repeated defense of natural gas in the fossil fuel industry during previous administrations seeking to fight climate change that had framed the fuel as a bridge to a renewables-driven carbon-free energy system. Trump opposes renewable energy subsidies and wants to expand production of oil, gas and coal. He has also declared an "energy emergency" to spur more fuel and electricity production, in part to meet growing demand for power for data centers and artificial intelligence. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NextEra CEO says renewables needed as bridge to expanding gas power
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are needed to meet rapidly growing energy demand in the United States amid near-term obstacles to increasing natural gas capacity, said NextEra CEO John Ketchum on Tuesday. The head of the Florida-based power producer said at the Politico Energy Summit that competition and high costs to obtain gas turbines, a construction labor shortage, and the costs associated with tariffs mean that it will take at least seven years to get new gas-fired power plants online. "We need a bridge to get ourselves to 2032 when that gas shows up ... And when that gas shows up, it's going be three times more expensive than it's ever been," Ketchum said. "If we take renewables off the table, we are going to have a real power shortage problem in this country." U.S. House lawmakers narrowly passed a budget reconciliation bill last month that would phase out clean energy tax credits, slash spending on renewables, and claw back other climate-related funds. The House bill, which is now being debated by the Senate, shortens the window for developers to start and complete new clean energy projects to qualify for tax credits, and makes the incentives unworkable, Ketchum said. Ketchum's comments reverse an oft-repeated defense of natural gas in the fossil fuel industry during previous administrations seeking to fight climate change that had framed the fuel as a bridge to a renewables-driven carbon-free energy system. Trump opposes renewable energy subsidies and wants to expand production of oil, gas and coal. He has also declared an "energy emergency" to spur more fuel and electricity production, in part to meet growing demand for power for data centers and artificial intelligence. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Trump job cuts hobble NOAA team that reopens ports after hurricanes, sources say
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Florida-based federal emergency response team that reopens U.S. ports after storms and accidents is unstaffed this hurricane season largely due to widespread federal workforce reductions driven by the Trump administration, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The closure of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Navigation Response Team in Fernandina, Florida – one of the network's six national locations - could mean slower response times and longer port closures if hurricanes slam into the U.S. Southeast this summer, the sources said. The teams are charged with deploying survey vessels to ports to locate underwater hazards that must be cleared to reopen shipping, and have been crucial in the aftermath of major storms like those that struck the Gulf Coast in recent years, as well as disasters like the 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. "I know that the Florida navigation response team is completely out of commission for this hurricane season, in large part due to staffing cuts," said former NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad, who has been in contact with the agency. Retired rear admiral Tim Gaulladet, who served as deputy NOAA administrator during the first Trump presidency, also said he is aware that the Florida location is no longer staffed, and that other offices have less capacity. NOAA did not respond to a specific question about the status of the Florida NRT and reduced NRT staffing but said the agency would be prepared this hurricane season. "In the event that ports are impacted by a hurricane or maritime disaster, NOAA will mobilize one or more Navigation Response Teams to be on scene after receiving an official request from the U.S. Coast Guard or Army Corps of Engineers," NOAA spokesperson Jasmine Blackwell NRT locations include Connecticut, Maryland, Mississippi, Washington state, and Galveston, Texas - a major U.S. oil-industry port. The NRT's home website was changed in March to remove both the Florida and Galveston, Texas locations, according to archived images of the site. NOAA did not respond to queries about the status of other locations and employees. The American Pilots Association did not directly comment on the cuts but said they will ensure that their members, consisting of harbor pilots who guide commercial ships in and out of U.S. ports, will continue to carry out this function and that its members who are ship captains and harbor pilots have the resources they need to protect maritime commerce. ABOVE-AVERAGE SEASON NOAA's National Weather Service in May forecast an above-average June 1-Nov. 30 hurricane season with six to 10 hurricanes. Its director, Ken Graham, said at the time he did not expect job cuts at NOAA to affect hurricane response. But sources said staff cuts which have amounted to around 1,000 people or 10% of its workforce so far have stretched the agency thin. Around 600 of the cuts are within NOAA's National Weather Service, said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. He said the cuts mean the loss for the first time of around-the-clock staffing at several U.S. weather offices, and staffing shortages of 40% in some key places like Miami-Dade and Key West in Florida. At least six NWS offices have also stopped the routine twice-a-day weather balloon launches that collect data for weather models, he said. "The employees' resilience has been stretched to the breaking point," he said. While NOAA attempts to reshuffle staff to keep services going, a period of overlapping weather events – like tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes all at once - could push the already stretched staff to its limits and make things impossible, said Spinrad. "This is like playing Whac-a-Mole with forecasters," he said. "We're going to be hard pressed to provide the standard of service that the public is used to."
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
House budget bill effectively kills US clean energy boom
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The House budget bill that narrowly passed in an early morning vote on Thursday would effectively put the brakes on a clean energy production boom in the United States spurred by tax credits enacted in 2022. The bill to carry out President Donald Trump's "one big beautiful bill" plan that would further his tax cuts and boost spending on the military and border enforcement would kill Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for clean energy years earlier than initially planned in an earlier draft, rendering them unusable for most projects. The changes made from the House tax-writing committee's proposal last week would advance by three years an end-date for the use of technology-neutral clean electricity tax credits for wind, solar and battery storage projects to 2028 and require projects to begin construction within 60 days of the final bill's passage, according to a bill summary. The House bill also eliminates the "transferability" of tax credits that enabled developers to sell their tax credits and use the funds to finance their projects' construction, a feature that made it easier to get projects up and running except for some nuclear energy projects. It also strengthened restrictions using tax credits for any project associated with 'foreign entities of concern,' which includes companies, subsidiaries and materials linked to China. China dominates all aspects of the clean energy supply chain and the restrictions effectively kill most projects, which rely on many components sourced from there. The budget proposal passed with the support of over two dozen Republican representatives who had urged House leaders to preserve key IRA tax credit provisions because their districts have benefited from clean energy and manufacturing investments. Advocates for the clean energy industry blasted the bill on Thursday, saying it will destroy billions in investments around the country and complaining that House leadership had initially promised to carefully reform the credits, not kill them. "If enacted as written, this bill will weaken our power system and send shockwaves throughout the U.S. economy by raising electricity prices, killing tens of thousands of jobs, and ceding energy dominance to China," said Heather O'Neill, president of clean energy lobby group Advanced Energy United. "This isn't a scalpel, it's a meat cleaver, and it will hurt us all." The American Petroleum Institute praised the bill for "preserving competitive tax policies" as well as opening up more oil lease sales and eliminating Biden administration policies such as its fee on methane emissions for the oil and gas industry. Analysts at JP Morgan described the IRA tax credit changes as "unfavorable" in an analysis, and said the bill contained "significant negative changes" from last week's proposal that it hopes the Senate can reverse. Energy analysts at the Rhodium Group said its preliminary review of the bill found the changes amount "to the impact of a full repeal of the energy tax credits" and could raise household energy costs by 7%. Clean energy stocks took a hit on Thursday. Sunrun shares fell as much as 33%, Complete Solaria fell nearly 22% while Enphase Energy, Maxeon Solar and SolarEdge Technologies dipped between 10% and 15.6%. Shares of JinkoSolar fell 2.3%, while First Solar and Canadian Solar dropped 6.5% and 10%, respectively. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Last-ditch lobbying blitz seeks to save Biden's clean-energy tax credits
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. energy industry trade groups have launched a last-minute lobbying blitz to urge Congress members to spare a slew of former President Joe Biden's clean energy tax credits from the chopping block in the Republican budget plan. On Monday, the House Ways and Means committee proposed the phase-out or cancellation of several lucrative subsidies from Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. On the block are several related to wind and solar power, hydrogen, and other technologies meant to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers will work over the next day or two to amend and pass their plans for the broader tax package. Trade group Advanced Energy United, which represents a range of clean energy, transmission, technology and transportation companies including NRG, Sunrun, Enel and Microsoft, launched a national ad campaign targeting lawmakers in five states whose districts benefit from investments spurred by the IRA. The ads, which specify how much a congressional district has received in IRA-generated private sector and manufacturing investments, will run until a final budget bill passes in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson wants the bill passed by May 26. AEU did not divulge total spending on the ads, but called it a "six-digit" campaign. "Without these credits, American families will be worse off, and U.S. manufacturers, who have invested in domestic manufacturing, will be forced to shutter assembly lines, lay off workers, and move production abroad," Advanced Energy United's CEO Heather O'Neill said on Tuesday. No Republicans voted for the IRA when it passed in 2022, yet districts and states led by Republicans accounted for 58% of new jobs created due to investments from the law, according to advocacy group Climate Power. Meanwhile, dozens of hydrogen industry lobbyists hit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to urge lawmakers to salvage the federal 45V tax credit to promote hydrogen projects, which they say could support around 60,000 jobs per year between 2025 and 2035 and generate more than $12 billion in annual GDP. The committee proposed to move the expiration of that tax credit from 2033 to 2026, making it impossible to develop longer-term projects. In a letter to Johnson and Ways and Means chair Jason Smith, companies and trade groups including Cummins, EQT, the ports of Long Beach and Corpus Christi and the American Petroleum Institute "urgently request" that they save the credits or risk ceding an advantage to China, which has rapidly developed its own hydrogen industry. Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, also urged member companies to pressure lawmakers to save tax credits, including the residential solar credit, which will be eliminated at year's end. She also noted that other proposed changes could hamper investment in commercial solar, and urged people to sign up to the Solar Powers America campaign, which generates letters to Congress members.
