North Carolina
The N.C. Utilities Commission is almost fully filled with Cooper appointees. What will that mean in 2020?
The regulatory body is expected to rule on key orders this year related to electric vehicles, rate hikes and other issues.
North Carolina
How Duke and its foes agreed to the largest coal ash cleanup in U.S. history
The utility will drop its legal fight with the state, dig up nearly 80 million tons of ash and move it to lined storage.
News
Pipelines, politics, and wood pellets: a look at our most-read stories of 2019
We published hundreds of stories this year on the nation’s clean energy transition. Thanks for reading!
biomass
Estonia is beginning to see the cost of wood pellets. Is North Carolina next?
Turning ancient forests into wood pellets is putting the country’s tourism and climate commitments at risk.
biomass
Wood pellets cause more climate pollution than coal when they’re burned. So why does Europe call them ‘carbon neutral’?
The panel I was moderating on the wood pellet trade was bombing. Precious minutes disappeared as we waited for a PowerPoint to load. All three speakers exceeded their time, detailing every facet of the biomass industry rather than focusing on its climate impact, as I had (so naively!) suggested. Worst of all, throughout the 45-minute session that stood between cocktail hour and the attendees of the annual energy conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, the opposing sides didn’t seem to agree on even a narrow set of facts. Jen Jenkins, vice president at Enviva, the world’s largest pellet producer, said her industry helped solve the climate crisis: The pellets displace coal, and even though their combustion releases carbon emissions, those would be sucked out of the atmosphere by replanted trees.