Electricity bills are rising across much of the United States, sparking heated debate. With AI fueling explosive data center growth, many point to hyperscale facilities as the culprit behind higher rates. But a new independent analysis from Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), released May 18, 2026, alongside corroborating work from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), […]
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The Trump administration continues its aggressive use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to stabilize surging oil prices and provide relief to American consumers amid ongoing global supply disruptions tied to the U.S.-Iran conflict. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the release of an additional 53.3 million barrels of crude oil from […]
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PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest regional transmission organization, is confronting a historic shift from electricity surplus to structural scarcity. A new special report released by PJM on May 6, 2026, titled Powering Reliability Through Market Design, details how unprecedented demand growth—fueled largely by hyperscale data centers and AI infrastructure—combined with accelerated retirements of dispatchable generation […]
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Europe’s natural gas market is once again on the brink of turmoil as traders place aggressive bets that benchmark prices could more than double ahead of the 2026/2027 winter. Options contracts for the October–March delivery period have traded as high as €100 per megawatt-hour (MWh), compared to the current front-month TTF price hovering around €45/MWh. […]
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As recently as April 25, 2026, multiple U.S. states—many of them longtime Democratic strongholds—are quietly scaling back or delaying ambitious climate targets. The driver? Surging energy costs, fading federal support under the current Trump administration, and growing voter pushback over affordability. This retreat, detailed in a timely analysis by OilPrice.com, marks a significant shift from […]
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The standard Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) has dominated energy policy discussions for years. Policymakers, media, and even some industry reports cite it to claim that wind and solar are now the “cheapest” forms of new electricity generation. But as Germany’s Energiewende and certain U.S. states demonstrate, this metric is dangerously incomplete. It ignores the […]
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New York and California have long positioned themselves as national leaders—some might say the “gold standard”—in aggressive climate legislation. Laws like New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA, 2019) and California’s AB 32 (2006), SB 32 (2016), and SB 100 (2018) set ambitious targets for greenhouse gas reductions, renewable energy mandates, and electrification. […]
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Tesla’s energy storage division—once a quiet, high-margin moneymaker that outpaced the company’s slowing EV sales—has hit an unexpected bump. Bloomberg’s latest report highlights how the battery business, which fueled rapid revenue growth amid softening auto demand, suddenly stalled in early 2026. In Q1 2026, Tesla deployed just 8.8 GWh of energy storage products—down about 15% […]
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For years, net-zero advocates have pointed to Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) charts from Lazard, IRENA, and government reports to claim that wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of electricity. These models supposedly prove renewables beat gas, coal, or nuclear on cost. But as Energy News Beat has long argued, this narrative is […]
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The AI-fueled data center boom is slamming into a hard reality: there simply aren’t enough transformers, switchgear, and other critical electrical equipment to bring the projects online. According to Bloomberg’s April 1, 2026 newsletter, more than half of the U.S. data centers planned for this year are now expected to be delayed or canceled — […]
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