#ferc

[pastelprince18]

Friendly fight

My friends oc is way too dang precious that they drew the two as buds QvQ this is just them doing a practice battle, tbh might make em hang out again and do this coloring style since I wanted a manga/ comic like art?

Oc name is ferc btw and he belongs to charro_64 !

[rjzimmerman]

FERC approves plans to restart a second idled U.S. nuclear plant. (Heatmap AM)

Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the green light to restart a permanently shuttered nuclear plant for the first time in U.S. history, with plans to bring the Palisades atomic station in Michigan back online later this year. Now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has started the processto restart a second nuclear plant, the Duane Arnold station. The agency approved a waiver request on Monday that will allow utility NextEra Energy to restart the single-reactor nuclear plant in Iowa by the end of 2029. 

NextEra closed down the plant in 2020 amid mounting financial challenges for the nuclear facility. But surging electricity demand and a newfound societal appreciation of the 24-hour, zero-carbon power atomic energy produces has put a new premium on keeping existing plants running, particularly given the high costs and long timelines associated with building new reactors. Last year, Microsoft agreed to spend $16 billion to reopen the idled reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania to power its data centers. As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin wrote at the time of the deal, “The days of nuclear power plants shuttering not because of old age, safety concerns, or local opposition, but because of the economics of subsidized wind and solar and cheap natural gas, are likely over.” On Monday, the Palisades plant officially transitionedfrom decommissioning status back to operations status. 

[stastrodome]

Fun Facts. 100% verified.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence was given her nickname, "Nitro", by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Romanian Leader Nicolae Ceaușescu was fond of saying “All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt”.

Unable to control her jealousy, Anne Bronte sometimes called Charlotte Bronte "Yorkshire Pudding Butt".

A production of Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler was sued for its "reckless anti-Gablerism".

According to his trainer, Moose, the dog who played "Eddie" on Frasier, hated Kelsey Grammar "with such a pure single mindedness it was almost beautiful".

[floorcharts]

Who: Rep. Sean Casen (D-Illinois)

Twitter: @RepSeanCasten

When: July 2021

What: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission #HotFERCSummer

Watch on C-SPAN

[liberalsarecool]

Trump-appointed regulators reject Trump plan to prop-up coal and nuclear plants. The markets have spoken, coal is dead. Go figure Trump picked the loser energy amid massive growth in solar, wind, and electric.

“So to recap Rick Perry & the Trump admin were asking for American consumers to pay higher energy bills to try to save coal plants which the market has moved away from. Generous to call that picking winners and losers -- we'd just all be losers.” @benlabolt

[rjzimmerman]

Federal Appeals Court Reverses Approval of Massive LNG Export Plants in South Texas - Inside Climate News

The Washington D.C. court ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission failed to adequately assess the plants’ environmental justice,

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

For the second time, a federal court struck down a regulatory agency’s authorization of two controversial, multi-billion-dollar gas export projects in far South Texas, one of which is already under construction. 

In an Aug. 6 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit cited “the nature and severity of the flaws” in reviews by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of the two proposed gas liquefaction and export complexes, Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG, along with the associated Rio Bravo Pipeline. 

“Although we do not take this step lightly, the circumstances here require it,” the ruling said. “We appreciate the significant disruption vacatur may cause the projects. But that does not outweigh the seriousness of the Commission’s procedural defects.”

The court wrote that FERC failed in its analyses of environmental justice and climate impacts, air pollution modeling and procedural obligations. FERC and the developers now have 45 days to seek a re-hearing.  

The two complexes in question plan to pipe in Texas shale gas, condense it and load millions of tons per year onto tanker ships for sale overseas as liquified natural gas, or LNG. Each complex costs billions of dollars, spans hundreds of acres and makes up part of an ongoing boom in gas export projects along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. 

Rio Grande LNG parent company NextDecade said in a statement it was “disappointed in the Court’s decision and disagrees with its conclusions.” 

The company added that construction continues on the first three liquefaction trains and related infrastructure at Rio Grande LNG near Brownsville and it will examine what impact the court’s order will have on future plans for added infrastructure.

The company announced last July it had secured investor funding to begin construction on its 750-acre, $18 billion facility. 

A spokesperson for Texas LNG, a smaller, adjacent project on the Brownsville Ship Channel that is yet to secure sufficient funding, said the ruling was a procedural decision to correct a technical deficiency, which they were still studying. 

“We have full confidence FERC will address this matter judiciously and efficiently and look forward to working with them on this important issue,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Three small surrounding cities and the local water district have passed resolutions opposing the projects, situated between national wildlife refuges and atop wetlands. 

[rjzimmerman]

New Rules to Overhaul Electric Grids Could Boost Wind and Solar Power

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the biggest changes in more than a decade to the way U.S. power lines are planned and fund

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Federal regulators on Monday approved sweeping changes to how America’s electric grids are planned and funded, in a move that supporters hope could spur thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy.

The new rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity transmission, is the most significant attempt in years to upgrade and expand the country’s creaking electricity network. Experts have warned that there aren’t nearly enough high-voltage power lines being built today, putting the country at greater risk of blackouts from extreme weather while making it harder to shift to renewable sources of energy and cope with rising electricity demand.

A big reason for the slow pace of grid expansion is that operators rarely plan for the long term, the commission said.

The nation’s three main electric grids are overseen by a patchwork of utilities and regional grid operators that mainly focus on ensuring the reliability of electricity to homes and businesses. When it comes to building new transmission lines, grid operators tend to be reactive, responding after a wind-farm developer asks to connect to the existing network or once a reliability problem is spotted.

The new federal rule, which was two years in the making, requires grid operators around the country to identify needs 20 years into the future, taking into account factors like changes in the energy mix, the growing number of states that require wind and solar power and the risks of extreme weather.

Grid planners would have to evaluate the benefits of new transmission lines, such as whether they would lower electricity costs or reduce the risk of blackouts, and develop methods for splitting the costs of those lines among customers and businesses.

The commission approved the rule by a 2-1 vote, with the two Democratic commissioners in favor and the lone Republican, Mark Christie, opposed. Mr. Christie said the rule would allow states that want more renewable energy to unfairly pass on the costs of the necessary grid upgrades to their neighbors.

Nationwide, energy companies have proposed more than 11,000 wind, solar and battery projects, but many are in limbo because there’s not enough capacity on the grid to accommodate them. What’s more, individual developers are currently required to pay for grid upgrades to accommodate their projects in a process that is piecemeal and slow.

Some critics say that’s like asking a trucking company to pay for an additional lane on a highway that all motorists ultimately use. A better approach, they say, would be to plan ahead for broad upgrades with the costs shared by a wide set of energy providers and users.

But the question of who pays for those grid expansions has sparked furious debate.

[rjzimmerman]

FERC Says it Will Consider Greenhouse Gas Emissions and ‘Environmental Justice’ Impacts in Approving New Natural Gas Pipelines - Inside Climate News

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued new policy statements saying its approval process for natural gas pipelines and liquified natural gas facilities will take greenhouse gas emissions and “environmental justice” impacts into consideration in determining whether the infrastructure projects are in the public interest. Although non-binding, the policy statements, issued last month, could significantly […]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued new policy statements saying its approval process for natural gas pipelines and liquified natural gas facilities will take greenhouse gas emissions and “environmental justice” impacts into consideration in determining whether the infrastructure projects are in the public interest.

Although non-binding, the policy statements, issued last month, could significantly change how natural gas pipelines are approved by the commission going forward. Under its new approach, the commission would  be required to determine whether a project is actually needed to meet the energy demands of a given region and whether it is in the public interest, with its benefits outweighing its potential adverse impacts, such as air pollution or threats to groundwater.

Interim guidelines, which have gone into effect but remain open for public comment through April 4 before being finalized, require environmental impact statements for all projects emitting more than 100,000 metric tons of gases every year.

Pipelines and liquified natural gas facilities often release into the atmosphere vast quantities of methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, because of accidents, or during repairs and routine maintenance. Methane is a climate super-pollutant 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.  

While climate advocacy groups have welcomed FERC’s policy statements, opponents argue that they may have damaging impacts on industry’s ability to transport natural gas and export liquified natural gas, which is produced through an energy-intensive process that requires cooling natural gas to -259 degrees Fahrenheit.