FINANCING THE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY

This volume has two parts. Book One, “Nuclear Power, Neoliberalism, Deregulation and Decarbonization,” consists of blogs, articles and papers written as events took place from 2016 to 2022, for OIlPrice, Public Utilities Fortnightly and other venues. In Book Two, “Notes on the Future of Electricity,” we take a more systematic look at the issues in order to draw conclusions.   When we began to write these analyses of current events in Book One, late in 2015, the energy sector was a dull place, featuring slow growth and flat prices. Since then, the price of oil quadrupled, that of natural gas tripled and temperatures during the eight year period hit record highs. Coal fueled 33% of U.S. electric power in 2015 and only 20% in 2022 while the renewable share of generation rose from 13% to 22%, and it will go even higher because power companies, today, build almost nothing but renewable generators. Big changes and more to come.  To narrate this story, more or less on a real time basis, we s