Former Sempra exec takes aim at utility industry profits

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UTILITIES

• A former Sempra executive criticizes utilities’ ​“unsustainable” rate hikes and high profit margins, saying regulatory complexity is obscuring a vast wealth transfer from the public to corporate shareholders. (Inside Climate News)

• Industry experts say if investigators find Southern California Edison’s equipment sparked January’s Los Angeles-area Eaton Fire, damage claims could quickly exhaust the state’s $21 billion wildfire fund and lead to rising utility costs across California. (Los Angeles Times)

FOSSIL FUELS

• A federal court upholds the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow drilling project in Alaska and allows construction to continue, but orders the federal Bureau of Land Management to address a flaw in its environmental review. (Alaska Beacon, news release)

• The federal Government Accountability Office urges the multiagency Trans Alaska Pipeline System regulator to adapt to changing conditions, saying past scalebacks could lead to gaps in oversight. (Anchorage Daily News)

NUCLEAR

• Utah’s National Guard is poised to sign a deal to house a California startup’s proposed nuclear fuel enrichment hardware manufacturing facility. (Deseret News)

• U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, urges a utility to convert the retiring Coronado coal plant in the eastern part of the state to run on small modular nuclear reactors. (White Mountain Independent)

CLEAN ENERGY

• The Trump administration withdraws a $300,000 U.S. EPA grant aimed at helping an Indigenous Alaska fishing community develop clean energy to replace costly diesel generation. (Grist)

CARBON CAPTURE

• The Trump administration rescinds $49.2 million in federal funding for a large-scale carbon capture research project at a coal plant in Wyoming, and state lawmakers appear to be losing enthusiasm for the technology. (WyoFile, Wyoming Public Radio)

TRANSPORTATION

• An Oregon legislative analyst finds Democratic lawmakers’ proposed transportation funding bill would generate more than $2 billion annually by 2034 for highway maintenance and other projects. (OPB)

GRID

• Idaho National Laboratory plans to demonstrate its ​“self-healing” microgrid technology, which is designed to reroute power to critical public facilities during outages, in an Alaska city this summer. (news release)

CLIMATE

• The National Weather Service issues its first-ever heat advisories for Alaska after temperatures reach 89° Fahrenheit in some places. (Alaska Beacon)

GEOTHERMAL

• GreenFire Energy advances its effort to increase the Geysers geothermal complex’s power output using a closed-loop system. (North Bay Business Journal)

COMMENTARY

• The Republican owner of a Montana solar installation firm says the GOP’s proposed clean energy tax credit cuts would force him to lay off at least half of his staff. (Business Insider)

• An Alaska journalist questions Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s claim that a proposed liquefied natural gas pipeline and export terminal could be completed by 2029, saying it would be among the world’s largest and most complicated such project. (Anchorage Daily News)

NEW FROM CANARY

• Clean energy advocates and companies wrestle with the failure of an Illinois bill that would’ve incentivized energy storage and other power grid investments, Kari Lydersen reports.

• After years of delay, Ohio utility regulators are set to determine whether FirstEnergy will have to pay penalties exceeding half a billion dollars in response to the HB 6 power plant bailout scandal, Kathiann M. Kowalski reports.

• The EPA’s proposed rollback of power plant emissions rules threatens to have severe health and climate consequences, though a long legal road still lies ahead, Kathryn Krawczyk reports.