Originally posted in Energy Central 9 February 2016 | By Steve Heins, The Word Merchant “The EPA and The Clean Power Plan: The Climate Science is Far from Settled,” (…and the EPA hasn’t yet addressed any of the important issues surrounding the energy, technology and telecommunication convergence.) While many of us actively try to follow the broad-based scientific discussions [...]
Originally posted in Fortnightly's SPARK 29 Sept 2015 | By Stephen Heins, The Word Merchant Let’s have full disclosure on Harvard’s new health study (And why it so closely defends the EPA that helped to fund it.) As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. That’s the lesson one might well draw from [...]
13 Jun 2015 | by Stephen Heins State utility commissioners in all 50 states are under a lot of stress. First, they must formulate and plan for the future of their states’ electrical grids and at the same time, keep their eyes on the developments in Washington and on the EPA whose Clean Power Plan (CPP) [...]
Originally posted in Forbes/Opinion 4 Mar 2015 | By Stephen Heins The idea of “cooperative federalism” began with the New Deal in the 1930s when it came to include a division of responsibilities among the states and the federal government agencies of electric power and distribution. By the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, the EPA set [...]
Embed from Getty Images 14 Oct 2008 | by Stephen Heins In an October report by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the state of Wisconsin moved into the top 10 on the "2008 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard." In addition, Wisconsin should further improve its ranking now that the Citizens Utility Board and Wisconsin [...]
26 May 2008 | by Steve Heins, Orion Energy Systems ABSTRACT Properly designing a greenhouse gas commodity market to trade allowances or offsets presents a serious challenge to policy makers, commodity brokers and sectors that are affected by the cost and profit potential that a market brings. In order for any commodity market to be successful, [...]
Originally published © 2007 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Industry 27 May 2007 | by Stephen Heins and Joel Sandersen, Orion Energy Systems ABSTRACT Current regulatory mechanisms have created incentive structures that discourage utilities from implementing energy efficiency, demand side management and other load reducing programs for their customers. These disincentives are driven by [...]
Originally posted by Energy Central March 22, 2006 | By Stephen Heins We applaud the leadership of Senator Rob Cowles and Assemblyperson Phil Montgomery as they have marshaled the recommendations of Gov. Doyle's Task Force on Energy Efficiency and Renewables into a very robust energy bill, with a portfolio of short-term, mid-term and long-term solutions designed [...]
1 Feb 2006 | by Stephen Heins Applying a "best practices" analysis to the sacred cow of "free-ridership" as it relates to public benefits and utility energy-efficiency programs yields some important results. This analysis is all the more important, because energy efficiency with a measurement, verification, and sustainability protocol is emerging as the single best investment [...]
Originally posted by Energy Central December 20, 2005 | By Stephen Heins Why does Wisconsin continue to reward electrical consumption, generation and marginally competitive solutions in an era when we are in a major construction phase for new power plants and transmission infrastructure? Yes, construction of new power plants and transmission lines may be inevitable, but [...]
