As American Experiment’s Bill Glahn reported last week, Xcel Energy is proposing to double its battery storage at the Sherco coal plant in Becker, from 300 MW to 600 MW…
A recent letter to the editor in the Star Tribune — from a Minnesota Department of Commerce official, no less — argued that “wind and sunshine are free.” Minnesotans are…
Last week, we detailed how power outages at the Niwot Market in Colorado cost the small grocery store $35,000 over the course of 24 hours. By dividing the company’s monetary losses by…
Wind and solar advocates often cite a metric called the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) to claim that these energy sources are cheaper than coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants.1 However,…
Renewable energy advocates like to stick to their talking points about wind and solar, but they never seem to address the elephant — or elephants — in the room when…
Electricity prices in the United States are skyrocketing, with all-sectors electricity rates reaching new all-time highs in 2022 and 2023, but wind and solar advocates like to pretend that these…
Wind and solar advocates frequently misquote Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis to make two incorrect statements. The first incorrect claim is that wind and solar facilities generate electricity…
Lazard’s LCOE analysis is frequently used by wind and solar advocates to claim that new wind and solar facilities are cheaper than new coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants. However,…
It helps to start our series on the Lazard LCOE analysis at the beginning of Lazard’s LCOE analysis. You can click here to access the table of contents for these articles. Wind…
Before we discuss how wind and solar special interest groups routinely misrepresent Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) Analysis, we have to describe what the LCOE is and how it…
Wind and solar special interest groups frequently claim that these technologies are the lowest-cost sources of electricity. Almost invariably, the citation used to support these claims is Lazard’s Levelized Cost…
Mississippi residents are consistently told that renewable energy sources, like solar panels, are now the lowest-cost ways to generate electricity, but these claims are based on creative accounting gimmicks that…
Center of the American Experiment analyzed Virginia’s compliance with the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) legislation passed in 2020. This analysis models the cost of meeting the renewable energy mandates…
Wind turbines and solar panels are often thought of as energy sources that have zero environmental impacts, but this perception is simplistic and incorrect. All energy sources have an impact…
After the Texas blackouts, American Experiment launched a campaign to educate Minnesotans about the importance of reliable energy and share that message with elected officials. In total, we’ve sent more…
Wind turbines are supposed to last 20 years, but research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs shows many turbines only last 11 years before they undergo the expensive process of…
On January 21, 2021, Governor Walz announced his administration would require 100 percent of Minnesota's electricity to come from "clean energy" by 2040. The plan also seeks to increase mandates for…
Last week, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved Xcel Energy’s $750 million plan to decommission and rebuild, or “repower” five wind facilities before the end of their useful 20-year…
Last session, the Minnesota legislature considered passing legislation called Clean Energy First (CEF). This bill, as the name suggests, would mandate utility companies in Minnesota to prioritize renewable and carbon-free energy…
Yesterday, we wrote about a newly-released, peer-reviewed study conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that found a steep drop off in wind turbine production over the course of a…
A newly-released study in the International Journal of Sustainable Energy confirms what we at Center of the American Experiment have been saying for a long time, the metric that is…
Xcel Energy's preferred plan to go 50% renewable will cost ratepayers an additional $46 billion through 2050.
During the Democrat debate between Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice-President Joe Biden on Sunday, March 15, 2020, Vice-President Biden stated that he would allow “no new fracking.” However,…
Earlier this year, I wrote about how the Nobles Wind project, which is the third-largest wind facility in Minnesota, is already losing steam. The most recent data from the Energy…