Monthly Archives: August 2017
Nuclear Power
A recent article in The Economist (see here) discussed the idea of building floating nuclear power plants. (Maybe even submarines.) The idea of having mobile power plants is not new, and obviously have been nuclear powered military ships for years. This is certainly a way to deal with many of
National Electricity Generation
I discovered a new visualization on Tableau Public recently. It shows historic electricity generation by fuel type for all fifty states from 1990 to 2014. (The website says energy production, but after doing some digging I confirmed it is actually electricity production.) Below is a screenshot
US Electric Grid Passes the Eclipse Test
The big eclipse has come an gone, and the US power grid seemed to pass the test with flying colors. Lots of preparation by utilities took place before the event (see my earlier blogpost here.), and it seems to have paid off. All reports say there were no problems, though the weather was very coo
Calpine for Sale
Last week Calpine announced they reached a deal with Energy Capital Partners to sell the company for $15.25/share. For reference, here is a Tableau viz mapping out all of the power plants in Calpine's fleet. The viz can also be viewed directly in Tableau here.
Colstrip Operator to Stay
Power Magazine just reported that Talen, the operator of the Colstrip coal plant in Montana has decided to continue operating the plant. (see here) In 2016 management said they wanted to leave the plant by 2016 because they were going to lose millions of dollars. Now Talen has decided to stay.
Regional Demand Data added to Utility Stats Monthly
A new data set was added to the Utility Stats Monthly this month. This new set provides historic load and energy usage for six different regional transmission operators. The table below shows how demand and energy in July compared to last year. (Source SNL) As you can see, electricity us