New Mexico Set To Require 100% Carbon-Free Energy Generation
Alyssa Danigelis, Energy Manager Today, March 14, 2019
New Mexico lawmakers passed Senate Bill 489, requiring the state to get 100% of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2045. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham praised the landmark legislation and is expected to sign the bill. The state is set to join California and Hawaii in approving ambitious renewable energy mandates. The proposal authorizes the use of bonds for electric utility Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) to pay for the costs associated with closing a coal-fired power plant located in the Four Corners area, the Albuquerque Journal’s Dan McKay explained. Requirements for investor-owned utilities in the state to shift to carbon-free generation would happen in phases: 50% from renewable sources by 2030 and 80% by 2040.
Our Take: News about SB 489 passing came around the same time as the state Oil Conservation Division published statistics showing that oil production in New Mexico hit a record high in 2018.
Related:
Had They Bet On Nuclear, Not Renewables, Germany & California Would Already Have 100% Clean Power
Going broke
Craig Medred, March 23, 2019
Alaska is Alice Rogoff, and if you watched the rise, the fall and the implosion of what was the Alaska Dispatch News, you know how that story ended. Alaska struggled and clawed for survival before oil was struck on the North Slope in 1968, but ever since the crude started flowing in 1977, Alaskans have been living easy on the money of oil industry’s labor. Forty-two years is a long time to live outside reality. People become conditioned to the idea life will always be easy and the money will always be there.
Our Take: We couldn’t agree more. This legislature will most likely kick the can down the road. “All politicians agree there is fat in the state budget right up until the time it comes time to go on a diet, and then a lot of the fat becomes muscle. Anyone who has ever gone on a diet can understand the problem. Dieting is difficult. You have to control your desires. And Alaskans have spent decades eating what they want.”
Here’s the one ‘big, looming’ threat facing the oil rally, commodity expert says
Lizzy Gurdus, CNBC, March 24, 2019
One oil bull sees a “big, looming” risk bubbling up in the energy market. RBC Capital Markets’ Helima Croft, the firm’s global head of commodity strategy, is generally bullish on oil prices. She sees OPEC’s commitment to productions cuts, the United States’ sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and overall demand for crude as healthy drivers of the oil rally, which has taken per-barrel prices up by nearly a third so far this year. But there’s one major risk that could threaten this recent surge, Croft told CNBC in an interview on “Futures Now.”
