(WP) Renewables were supposed to take over the grid. Instead they’re falling short.
Andrés Gluski, President and Chief Executive Officer of AESWorld Economic Forum, Davos, Today.“Today's electricity landscape is not a one-size-fits-all market; the industry requires a variety of strategies tailored to different markets and circumstances. Key factors such as regional demands, regulatory environments, available technologies, and the mix of energy sources are essential in creating the most effective approaches for power generation, distribution, and consumption.
Workart by Germán & Co is fully owned.
Office of the President of Russia.
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Descending progressively into greater depths water ad infinitum in the reality of this mad world…
In a world already teetering on the edge of chaos, a fiery debate is igniting over the future of the electricity industry. Key players—government officials, energy companies, and eco-warriors—are locked in a passionate tug-of-war, each side fervently arguing whether the sector should tighten its reins with stricter regulations or revel in the freedom of its current, more laissez-faire structure.
This clash of perspectives raises vital questions about energy access, sustainability, and the long-term effects on consumers and our planet. As the dialogue unfolds, the urgency for a harmonious blend of innovation and responsible governance has never been more critical.
Once a hot topic, energy efficiency has slipped into the shadows of public conversation. Indeed, Energy efficiency has been overshadowed by energy sources and climate change debates. Yet, it remains a crucial component of a sustainable energy strategy. Improving energy efficiency can reduce consumption, lower emissions, and save costs across all sectors. It's essential to bring this topic back into the spotlight. Policies and incentives that promote energy-saving technologies and public awareness campaigns can reignite interest and action in this area.
In today's reality, about the significance the permitting process for new electricity production sites have become noticeably subdued. This retence stems a fear of regulatory scrutiny that looms over the industry. Establishing a new power plant is fraught with challenges, particularly the intricate and often drawn-out permitting process, which can feel like navigating a complex labyrinth. These obstacles deter open dialogue and highlight the significant struggles facing energy development in a highly regulated environment.
When it comes to climate change, there is considerable fatigue regarding the theme. People may feel overwhelmed by itsity and unsure of how to make a meaningful impact.
The reality is that the electricity sector is not a one-size-fits-all affair. It demands a patchwork of strategies, each finely tuned to various markets' unique needs and circumstances. Regional energy demands, regulatory landscapes, available technologies, and the energy source mix are pivotal in crafting the most effective power generation, distribution, and consumption methods. Thus, industrinry stakeholders must navigate these diverse factors to forge solutions that address their distinct challenges and aspirations, all while enhancing energy efficiency across every facet of electricity use. And let's not forget the necessity of a government framework that simplifies the approval maze.
When tackling the pressing issue of climate change, we must not overlook the recent calamity in Valencia, Spain, where relentless rains unleashed devastating floods that ravaged neighbourhoods and disrupted countless lives. Similarly, the wildfires in Los Angeles have reached catastrophic levels, consuming vast landscapes and threatening homes. Yet, while these events are alarming, they are not unprecedented; humanity has weathered similar storms throughout history, etched into our collective memory for centuries. (*)
And finally, additional concerns for Panamá arise as President Donald Trump’s allies on Hill working to translate his recent complaints about the Panama Canal into legislative action.
(*) https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-climate-change-paris-agreement-b1206121.html
The Owner of Non-Man and Other Tales… Second edition, revised and expanded…
Workart by Germán & Co is fully owned.Help us make a dream come true…
From a young age we listen to the instructions of the elderly in the sense that we must be able to choose our path in life. It's a nice metaphor.
There are those who, complying with this, prepare themselves to travel the highways of life, provide themselves with fast engines and soft seats. Others, simpler, choose secondary roads where the speed does not produce so much vertigo and the tolls are cheaper. Many have to join forces and travel the kilometers in collective buses that force the touches and strident music. And there are too many who have no other option than to walk along the humble paths crossing puddles or boulders and threatened by wild beasts or insects. This is the vineyard of the Lord, and everyone can make use of their free will. Say.
Reading the stories of Germán Toro Ghio one discovers that there are also those who chose all paths. And they also added the alternatives of lifts, elevators (and descenders), cliffs, flying devices and perhaps how many more.
With its eight stories, The Owners of No Man's Land takes us to a world so real that, unfortunately, we tend to forget it. From the first story, he (Germán) rides the maelstrom of a roller coaster in which he mixes the discomforts of a Moscow hotel with the adventures in the Nicaraguan jungle. He is a de facto witness to the invasion of the USA army in Panama and his cousin of millenary stubbornness at the same time, without us being able to deduce which of the two experiences was more dangerous. He celebrates supposed birthdays in the company of an aphonic Fidel Castro (what a contradiction!) in a city of Havana corroded by sea salt or political blunders. He walks through one of the most unusual borders in the world, the one that divides the island of Hispaniola. He witnesses the sun sheltering us with unusual loves, in this case, his friend "Pepe" who, on a streak of good fortune, attracts them to a stale gypsy princess and a one-eyed gypsy king in the nights of Madrid and prologues his luck in the world of love to an island called Grinda in the Stockholm archipelago where Alexander's honey captivates.
Germán also takes us to a café in Paris where Ernest Hemingway is in existential conversations about life, accompanied by the sweet notes of a Santa Teresa rum, which invades the soul with harmony and helps the journalist and writer try to persuade some young gang members to change the course of their lives, in this world of violence, organ trafficking, and arms. He evokes the spirit of the Nicaraguan poet and priest Ernesto Cardenal, particularly in his mesmerising "Ode to Marilyn Monroe". This remarkable work invites him to explore the labyrinth of the mind's afflictions, guided by the brushstrokes of legendary artists such as Sorolla, Munch, Botero, and Modigliani. Alongside this artistic journey, we encounter the candid whispers of Truman Capote in his poignant "Unanswered Prayers", which lays bare the frailties of our contemporary society, political systems, and monarchies. Ultimately, Germán leads us to a heartwarming conclusion with the charming figure of "il Nono", a grandfatherly character we all wish we could have known.
The book is magnified by experiences that have taken place outside the battlefields, far from palaces and ambitions. In other words, the principle of freedom of expression is paramount, even when individuals may endure defamation's repercussions. With these stories, Germán Toro Ghio allows us to taste something of everything he keeps in his cupboard, and I hope he will continue to cook and deliver in successive books.
*Juan Forch, Puerto Octay, Chile
*Film director, writer, and political scientist is renowned for the 1990 "NO" campaign. / https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/movies/oscar-nominated-no-stirring-debate-in-chile.htmlPayPal at gjmtoroghio@germantoroghio.com
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O gods, women, and men with the souls of gods and goodwill, we request your solidarity and support for launching the second revised and extended edition of "The Owner of Non-Man Lan and Other Tales" in November 2025. We have already contacted a senior editor at Penguin Random House in London to help us create a remarkable and distinctive book handcrafted to serve as an exceptional corporate gift.
Thanks in advance...
You can't possibly deny me...
Have a wonderful day filled with good health, happiness, and love…
In December 2023, Energy Central recognized outstanding contributors within the Energy & Sustainability Network during the 'Top Voices' event. The recipients of this honor were highlighted in six articles, showcasing the acknowledgment from the community. The platform facilitates professionals in disseminating their work, engaging with peers, and collaborating with industry influencers. Congratulations are extended to the 2023 Top Voices: David Hunt, Germán Toro Ghio, Schalk Cloete, and Dan Yurman for their exemplary demonstration of expertise. - Matt Chester, Energy Central
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Natural Gas Terminal AES ANDRES, located in the Dominican Republic. Image provided by AES Dominicana.
Andrés Gluski, President and CEO of AES, articulated this perspective during the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2023, stating, "I am confident we will need natural gas for the next 20 years." He further emphasized, "We can start blending it with green hydrogen today."
Not Angela, not...
Workart by Germán & Co is fully owned.
Workart by Germán & Co is fully owned.
Renewables were supposed to take over the grid. Instead they’re falling short.
Despite generous tax credits, red tape has slowed wind and solar.
WP By Shannon Osaka, January 22, 2025For years, renewable energy proponents have hoped to build a U.S. electric grid powered by wind, solar, geothermal and — to a lesser extent — nuclear power, with carbon-free energy surging into homes and businesses across the country. When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which slashed the cost of building renewables, that dream seemed likely to become a reality.
But now, renewable developers say that the new technologies are stymied by complicated local and federal regulations, a long wait to connect to the electricity grid, and community opposition. Experts once hoped that by the end of the decade the United States could generate up to 80 percent of its power with clean power, and Biden set it as a national goal. Now, some wonder if the country will be able to reach even 60 percent.
That means that even as renewables continue to break records, the Biden administration departs with the nation offtrack from its climate target of cutting emissions 50 to 52 percent by 2030. And as President Donald Trump takes the reins, threatening tariffs and halting new permitting for wind, the country is drifting further away from an all-renewable future.
Trump’s new executive order mandates a halt to all offshore wind leasing in federal waters, pauses federal permitting for both onshore and offshore wind projects and launches a “comprehensive assessment and review” of wind leasing and permitting.
“The U.S. offshore wind business is at a very nascent stage versus Europe or China,” Rob Barnett, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in an email. “With the new permitting pause, it’s doubtful much progress for this emerging industry will be made under the second Trump administration.”
The order compounds struggles that the renewable energy industry was already facing. In theory, a better-designed grid could lead to renewable penetration of 60 to 70 percent, said Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association. But that’s only with substantial changes to where wind and solar can be built and how it gets connected to the grid.
“Without progress, probably some places tap out at half that,” he said.
After the Inflation Reduction Act passed, Rhodium Group — an independent clean energy research firm — estimated that between 2023 and 2025, on average, the country would add between 36 and 46 gigawatts of clean electricity to the grid every year. Late last year, however, the group found that the country only installed around 27 gigawatts in 2023. The U.S.’s renewable growth is now expected to fall on the low end of that range — or miss it entirely.
“It actually is really hard to build a lot of this stuff fast,” said Trevor Houser, partner in climate and energy at Rhodium Group.
As a result, Rhodium found, the country only cut carbon emissions by 0.2 percent in 2024. To reach Biden’s climate goal, the country needs more than 7.6 percent every year from now until 2030. (The only example of such a steep drop in recent history was during covid-19, when emissions dropped about 10 percent in 2020.)
A significant amount of this lag has come from wind power, where problems with supply chains and getting permits and approval to build has put a damper on development. But solar construction is also on the low end of what experts were expecting.
“Immediately after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, there was a whole lot of enthusiasm,” said Brendan Pierpont, director of electricity modeling at Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan clean energy think tank. Models mostly use economics to make predictions — analyzing what the most cost-efficient actions will be and calculating the results accordingly. But the challenges that energy developers face today are not economic.
“The premise of these congressional clean energy tax credits was to stimulate remarkable acceleration,” said Grumet. “The technology is ready, and the financial services are ready — but the question nobody put thought into was, could the government keep up? And at the moment, the answer is no.”
Renewables have many great benefits — they don’t produce deadly air pollution or contribute to global warming. But the electricity grid was in large part built for fossil fuels, which can be placed close to the communities they serve. Wind and solar, on the other hand, sometimes need to be built hundreds or even thousands of miles away — which then requires large, long-distance transmission lines to move power. Renewables also take up more space, although in some places wind and solar can coexist with agriculture and animal grazing.
“The grid that we have was never designed to handle this kind of load,” said Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO of EDP Renewables North America.
Developers point to lags in the interconnection queue — a system that gives new solar, wind or fossil fuel projects permission to connect to the larger electricity grid. According to a report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, it can now take nearly 3 years for a project to get through the queue. The grid operator that covers the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, PJM, had over 3,300 projects in its queue at the end of 2023. The vast majority of these applications are for renewables — more than the entire number of active wind farms in the nation.
Not all areas of the United States are equal. According to data from the Energy Information Administration and analyzed by Energy Innovation, Texas installed more solar, wind and storage than any other grid area between 2022 and 2024.
A worker walks past solar panels at ENGIE's Sun Valley Solar project in Hill County, Texas. (Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)
Ganapathy said that while a state like Texas can approve projects faster, most of the rising energy demand from AI and data centers is coming from the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
“A project takes anywhere between six to eight years,” Ganapathy said. “All of the AI needs are coming — are they going to wait six to eight years until we have more power in the system? We need to streamline this.”
Then there are the high-voltage transmission lines that move that power across the country. According to one study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the country could require up to 10,000 new miles of transmission to switch to clean electricity by 2035. Last year, the country built just 255 miles of new transmission line, according to the American Clean Power Association. Some projects have gotten stalled for years; one such line in the Southwest, the SunZia line, just started construction after 18 years of development.
“If you have a weak transmission system, we will always be hesitant to build a project,” said Ganapathy. “Why are we taking a big risk of a massive investment if I will not be able to sell the electrons?”
Developers say that getting community support can also get more difficult as more and more wind and solar are added to the grid. “The low-hanging fruit has been developed,” said John Woody, senior vice president of development at Clearway Energy Group.
Anti-wind and anti-solar groups have also begun using more sophisticated methods and have more funding, he added. Some states and cities have even tried to ban development of renewables, often citing misleading information about environmental or health hazards.
There are possible solutions. Some developers hope to reuse old fossil fuel sites, like coal plants, that are already connected to the grid — bypassing the long queue entirely. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has instated new rules to make it easier to build transmission lines.
But those changes need to happen quickly. The United States is currently building 20 to 40 gigawatts of renewables every year — but that number will need to increase to 70 or 80 gigawatts to meet U.S. climate goals. “We’re building record amounts of wind and solar every year, but it seems like we’re kind of hitting a ceiling,” said Houser.
Developers also worry about the threat of Trump’s proposed tariffs, which could further destabilize an industry that relies on predicting prices and supply chains months or even years in advance. Without advance knowledge or planning of the tariffs, they warned, projects could grind to a halt.
Still the economics of clean energy are strong. Wind and solar, in many jurisdictions, are cheaper than fossil fuel plants. The challenge is building those wind and solar farms at a fast pace that will push aside existing coal and natural gas plants — before temperatures rise much higher.
“If you had told me 20 years ago when I started working on climate, that we would be having discussions about not the direction of change, but the pace — I would be dancing in the streets,” said Houser. “The challenge is just, can we build it fast enough?”