Minnesota passed its 25 percent renewable energy mandate in 2007, but did you know this bill specifically prohibited counting electricity from large hydroelectric dams as a way to comply with…
A few weeks ago, I wrote an opinion editorial to the Star Tribune about how the Polar Vortex reemphasized the need for reliable forms of electricity in our state. My…
The Green New Deal (GND) has become the talk of the down despite the fact that Ernie Moniz, the head of the Department of Energy under the Obama administration, has…
On Tuesday, I was in St. Paul to testify on House File 700, which would increase Minnesota’s renewable energy mandate to 55 percent renewable by 2030, and 80 percent renewable…
The following article originally appeared in the Financial Times: Does it make any sense to build nuclear plants in Britain? Not obviously, unless you are an atomic evangelist. In recent…
The Star Tribune has published an opinion piece I wrote on how Minnesota's bitter cold should be a wake-up call for energy policy in our state. Instead of mandating the…
The short, 20-year lifespan of wind turbines is one of the most important, but least talked about facets, aspects of energy policy. American Experiment has written about this topic several…
Good morning, everyone! I hope you’re staying warm. If you are, it’s because of natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear power, or even wood, because the wind isn’t blowing right now.…
Renewable energy rent-seekers often tout Germany as a paradise of renewable energy integration, but Germany is no role model that Minnesota should follow. Unless of course, it's following Germany's lead…
The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently released its electricity data for Minnesota in 2017, and boy, were there some interesting findings. One of those interesting findings is that contrary to…
Renewable energy advocates in Minnesota claimed that mandating the use of wind for electricity generation would produce a boom in jobs and generate local tax revenue for rural Minnesota, but…
61 percent of the declines in CO2 emissions have been achieved by switching from burning coal (which emits about twice as much CO2 as burning natural gas) for far less…
Despite being the beneficiaries of billions of dollars in subsidies, wind and solar compose just a tiny fraction of overall energy use in the United States. The pie chart below…
Did you know that the Next Generation Energy Act (NGEA), Minnesota's law that requires the state to obtain 25 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030, explicitly prohibits counting…
We at American Experiment often write about how wind and solar energy cause nearly every aspect of the energy grid to be more expensive, but one aspect of this story…
Happy New Year, everyone! You may or may not be recuperating from last night’s events, but here is a short post on the upcoming, good, bad, and ugly happenings for…
The Star Tribune recently ran an article called “Complicated economics of community solar gardens subject of debate.” Seeing how the Strib did not seek our opinion on the topic for…
Happy Festivus, Everyone! In case you’re unfamiliar, Festivus is perhaps the holiest day of the year, where family members gather around an unadorned aluminum pole and air their grievances with…
Wind and solar simply aren’t working, and these inefficient and unreliable technologies are a key reason the Paris Climate Accord is a dismal failure. The article below is a sobering…
Lee Schafer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an article in the Sunday, December 9th edition of the newspaper stating that Xcel's pledge to generate 100 percent of its electricity…
Yesterday, Xcel Energy announced it is committing to go 100 percent "carbon free" by the year 2050 across the eight Western and Midwestern states where they operate. Unfortunately, Xcel's ratepayers…
Utility Dive, a website that covers the ongoings of the electric utility industry, has named Xcel Energy the Utility of the Year for 2018, commending the company for retiring coal-fired…
Japan has taken aggressive steps to restart their nuclear power program by restarting five nuclear reactors in 2018. According to the Energy Information Administration, these nuclear reactors have a capacity…
In its most recent annual securities and exchanges report to investors, Xcel admitted exactly what American Experiment has been saying for years – that renewable energy sources increase electricity rates, create energy grids with excess and idle capacity, and…