🔌💡 Energy bills are complex, but there’s a simple reason prices are soaring: natural gas.
Check out the recent piece in @coloradosun.com by our @silviomarcacci.bsky.social & @danespo14.bsky.social 👇
coloradosun.com/2026/02/24/o...
My new @latimes.com op-ed explains why gas utilities' proposals to blend hydrogen into pipelines would waste money, worsen health/safety risks, and do nothing for climate. They serve only to justify continued pipeline investments and delay lower-cost electrification.
www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
How do we allow (not to mention fund & suppress criticism of) such slaughter--and similar atrocities over the last 20 months and beyond? We all need to speak out more--to save innocent lives and stop the theft of our souls. From Omar El Akkad in "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This"
Join @energyinnovation.org and the Regulatory Energy Transition Accelerator on Weds. June 25 at 10am for a webinar covering our new Regulating Hydrogen paper, including discussion with a panel of regulators from British Columbia, Chile, and New York State:
energyinnovation.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is actually One Big Expensive Bill that, if passed as is, will do major damage to the U.S. economy, harm workers and families, and put the U.S. in the backseat when it comes to global competitiveness. The team at @energyinnovation.org modeled it, here's what we found:
New research from my colleagues out today looking at the environmental and social impacts of food crop-based biofuels in the US, where we now use >30% of the corn supply and >40% of the soybean oil supply (on tens of millions of acres of prime cropland) to produce only ~6% of US transport fuel. 🧪
I wrote about why we started our new Fuels & Chemicals program--encompassing hydrogen, biofuels, carbon capture, and their derivatives--at @energyinnovation.org, and why the timing felt right to do so. Check out the full Substack post:
thepowerline.substack.com/p/clean-fuel...
It also stresses that regulators can make smarter decisions on these issues by widening their aperture of awareness to consider -- and coordinate with other agencies and authorities on -- other issues affecting hydrogen's growth that may fall outside of their direct decision-making power.
This map highlights 28 countries around the world from which we had energy regulator participants in our workshops. These countries include Albania, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Czechia, Dominica, Estonia, France, Germany, Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Peru, Portugal, Turks and Caicos Islands, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay.
The roadmap pulls together insights from a collaborative process involving two global workshops and hundreds of comments from energy regulators from around the world. It identifies, organizes, and offers question and priority sets for key issue areas that fall within energy regulators' purview.
A graphic titled "Hydrogen Regulatory Overview." It includes two concentric circles. The inner circle is orange with the sub-title "issues in energy regulators' purview." It includes four bubbles labeled "electricity systems," "natural gas systems," "hydrogen infrastructure," and "pipeline and appliance safety," each with illustrative icons. The outer circle is blue with the sub-title "other issues affecting hydrogen's growth." It includes four bubbles labeled "government policy goals," "emissions accounting schemes," "local air pollution," and "water consumption," again with each having its own illustrative icon. An Energy Innovation watermark logo is included in the bottom-left corner.
The hydrogen hype cycle has confused the industry's growth trajectory--with implications for electric and gas utilities. @oboylemm.bsky.social and I worked with the Regulatory Energy Transition Accelerator on a new @energyinnovation.org hydrogen regulation paper:
energyinnovation.org/report/regul...
One Big Beautiful Bill, or One Big Blackout Bill?
Killing clean energy tax credits threatens 150 GW of new wind, solar, and battery storage right as surging power demand means America needs new energy more than ever.
Passing the bill could crash our grid.
www.realclearenergy.org/articles/202...
Happy Earth Day!! 🌍 Consider how remarkable this planet is. Among all the planets, we live on this one. This is our home. Our beautiful, brilliant orb and all its life forms are worth protecting, preserving, conserving, regenerating, restoring, and replenishing. www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/happy-e...
A huge energy story is unfolding in Pueblo, CO - with big implications for our state's grid, climate goals, and energy costs.
An "energy park" could help Colorado replace coal and lead US innovation. Me with @michelle-solomon.bsky.social
#COleg #COpolitics
www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/repl...
🚨 The largest federal program helping low income households pay their energy bills no longer has any staff.
Colorado utility bills could rise, emissions cuts would be slowed if Trump ends clean energy tax credits
📣 BREAKING: The UK Climate Change Committee now says there’s no role for hydrogen in building heating.
That’s study #61 on my list showing little to no role for hydrogen in heating—up from 54 in my meta-review from Dec 2023: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial Technology Innovation Advisory Committee (ITIAC) released our first report containing recommendations on how DOE can accelerate a transition to clean, competitive U.S. #manufacturing. Check it out at: www.energy.gov/sites/defaul...
Want a deeper dive into what made it into the final 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit rules? In a new blog, we share six insights on the electrolytic hydrogen side, covering pros/cons for emissions integrity, investment risk, and industry viability:
energyinnovation.org/expert-voice...
NEW: The U.S. Treasury's final 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit rules are out. In my new @latitudemedia.bsky.social op-ed, I argue these rules are a remarkable compromise that can spur a domestic clean hydrogen industry--but stakeholders must unite:
www.latitudemedia.com/news/clean-h...
It's the moment you've been waiting for... a new 2,000 words (ok its a bit more) from me on the 45V hydrogen tax credit. Except this time we have final rules!
"3 Pillars" are still in...sort of. Path for existing nuclear, w/ 200 mw cap per reactor. More details inside ⤵️ heatmap.news/climate/fina...
🤔Curious about what our Reports #Wrapped2024 looks like?
energyinnovation.org/research-res...
New to @bsky.app and want to follow our experts? Here's a starter pack
go.bsky.app/8E1BeV5
The paper includes two sets of policy recommendations: tools to boost hydrogen's uptake in high-value uses, and measures to minimize risks of H2's low-value uses. This thread is too long already, so I'll cover these another time. For now, read them here:
energyinnovation.org/publication/...
Key Finding 6: Hydrogen's uptake in high-value uses will require targeted demand-side policies. Supply-side subsidies alone will not ensure this outcome (and may make better alternatives for low-value uses look worse). Policymakers need to intervene.
Key Finding 5: In the U.S., hydrogen's market potential for high-value uses exceeds clean H2 production goals--so any H2 flowing to low-value uses cuts into decarbonizing high-value sectors on the needed timeline. (Efficiency, biofuels can help cut H2 demand in high-value uses.)
Key Finding 4 (cont.): This figure shows using clean electricity to displace fossil fuel power almost always does more to reduce GHGs than using it to electrolyze H2 for use in any downstream application. H2 is important, but it must not reverse progress on cleaning the grid.
Key Finding 4 (cont.): This figure shows the net climate pollution impact from hydrogen production and use. Blue bars = GHGs avoided from H2 use. Turquoise dashed line = GHGs emitted from electrolytic H2 production that fails to meet certain guardrails (the "three pillars").
Key Finding 4: Electrolytic hydrogen that relies on fossil fuel power would fail to reduce net climate pollution across all end uses, with steel as the lone potential exception. H2 would almost universally do MORE HARM THAN GOOD if its production isn't subject to strict rules.
Key Finding 3: Hydrogen's low-value uses often increase the risk of social harms and inequitable outcomes, while its high-value uses generally do the opposite. Proactively directing H2 away from low-value uses and toward high-value ones can help rather than set back equity goals.
Key Finding 2: Hydrogen's low-value uses depend much more on the development of sprawling H2 pipelines and end-use equipment than its high-value uses. Thus, H2 infrastructure likely can be focused on tight industrial clusters--it need not be intertwined throughout the economy.
