The summer of 2026 tested the U.S. electric grid with record heat and rising demand. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Hourly Electric Grid Monitor (based on Form EIA-930 data), three major regional transmission organizations (RTOs) set new peak hourly load records.Eia PJM (serving roughly 65–67 million people across all or parts of 13 […]
Continue Reading
California’s Cap-and-Invest and Low Carbon Fuel Standard added about 47 cents a gallon in July (CEC). Washington’s carbon auction and clean-fuel rules add roughly 36–74 cents. The federal RFS is a separate 1-to-45-cent fight over gross credits versus net pump pass-through. We map the published estimates, keep taxes and refinery closures in their own buckets, […]
Continue Reading
A short-lived but intense blast of unseasonal heat is colliding with the annual autumn maintenance window, tightening power supplies on grids that serve roughly one-third of the U.S. population and prompting fresh federal emergency measures. On October 13, 2026, Bloomberg reported that temperatures were expected to run more than 25°F above normal in parts of […]
Continue Reading
If you live in one of the 13 states or D.C. served by PJM, data centers are already on your power bill. The grid’s own market monitor puts their added capacity cost at $29.4 billion over four auctions. On Friday evening, federal regulators threw out most of PJM’s plan to make new data centers bring […]
Continue Reading
President Donald Trump’s August 26, 2026, Executive Order 14421, “Declaring a National Emergency to Secure the United States Bulk-Power System,” aims to protect the U.S. electric grid from foreign supply-chain and cybersecurity risks. The order cites digital backdoors, malicious remote access, and supply disruptions as threats magnified by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence data […]
Continue Reading
Hurricane Isaias, the first named hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season, made landfall as a Category 2 storm near Destin, Florida, late Friday evening, bringing destructive winds, storm surge, and heavy rain that left hundreds of thousands of utility customers in the dark across the Gulf Coast and into the Southeast.Bloomberg If you have power, […]
Continue Reading
Chinese-headquartered companies have delivered more than 70 GW of inverters to America’s commercial and utility solar plants, while each U.S. grid is designed to ride through the sudden loss of roughly 2.8 to 3.9 GW. Replacing one big transformer now takes about two and a half years. What has actually been found, what Washington has […]
Continue Reading
The 2026 Virginia Energy Plan’s cheapest system-cost path is the one that allows new gas. Every clean pathway costs more on the bill, then wins only after a carbon adder. Governor Abigail Spanberger released the 2026 Virginia Energy Plan on October 1 and called it a path to affordable, reliable, local clean power. The modeling […]
Continue Reading
ENB Pub note: This article first appeared on the Energy News Beat Substack, and we reached out to Peter Clack about appearing on the Energy Realities or Energy News Beat Podcast. If you want to leave a comment, subscribe to the Energy News Beat Substack. The world is running out of easily accessible high-grade ores, […]
Continue Reading
Welcome back to the Energy Newsbeat podcast. Today, we’re diving deep into one of the most critical—and misunderstood—issues facing America’s energy future. Most people think the grid is just the wires and power plants they see. But what if I told you two grids are operating at the same time, and they’re increasingly working against […]
Continue Reading