EnviroPolitics Blog

Opinion: NJ Power Companies Have A Meltdown At BPU Attempt To Reduce Profits

By Bill Wolfe, Wolfenotes, Nov 06, 2026

It’s very rare to see corporate representatives take off the mask in a public forum and openly and aggressively engage in a bare knuckle fight with regulators over limits on profits.

Public discussion of Corporate profits is taboo and almost always buried in all sorts of rhetoric and euphemism.

But that happened yesterday, at a NJ BPU meeting on implementing Gov. Sherrill’s Executive Order No. 1 on “utility business model” reforms.

In proposing the most important – but least reported by media – “reform” to truly freeze electric rates, EO 1 directed BPU to make recommendations about “reduction in utilities’ return on equity” (ROE).

ROE is a financial metric that measures a company’s profitability and how it generates profit from its shareholders’ equity.

Did you get that? Gov. Sherrill directed BPU to lower corporate PROFITS!

BPU met yesterday to discuss ways to do that.

Related: Candidate Sherrill said she’s freeze electric rates (New Jersey Monitor)

The most important issue discussed was in the morning metrics discussion when consultants discussed EO1, reduction in ROE, and the theory on CAPX.

As I understand things, CAPX is a reference to the Averch-Johnson Effect (often called the “CapEx bias”). It states that when a regulated utility’s authorized Return on Equity (ROE) exceeds its actual cost of capital, the utility is incentivized to maximize its capital expenditures (CapEx) because that is the only way it can grow its “Rate Base” and generate absolute profit for shareholders.

I was listening in on the phone so it is hard to be certain, but I’m pretty sure it was the PSEG lawyer who went ballistic and had a meltdown.

She harshly criticized the premise that utilities were over earning. She claimed that the premise of excess profits and the economic theory it was based on had been discredited. She objected to a lack of due process evidentiary hearings and issued a “warning” that “ radical” change in regulatory policy would risk grid reliability and she also managed to drag the unions into the opposition.

The reliability threat is basically a threat to turn off the lights if their profits are reduced.

Read the full column here

____________________________________________________
Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

Opinion: NJ Power Companies Have A Meltdown At BPU Attempt To Reduce Profits Read More »

Scientists teach a computer to “feel” a wind turbine’s stress before a single blade is built

Scientists taught a computer to feel a wind turbine s stress and strain before a single blade is ever built

By Daniel Garcia, Energies Media, November 4, 2026

A modern wind turbine is a machine under constant negotiation with the atmosphere. Its blades flex and twist through thousands of load cycles every hour, its controller adjusts pitch and torque in real time, and the forces rippling through its tower and drivetrain shift with every gust. Capturing all of that in a physics-based simulation is possible — but expensive, slow, and ill-suited to the rapid design exploration that the wind industry increasingly demands.

A new machine-learning framework may be starting to change that calculus.

The simulation bottleneck holding wind energy back

Aeroelastic simulations are the backbone of modern turbine engineering. They model how a rotor blade bends, twists, and vibrates under real wind loads — information that’s essential for structural certification, fatigue analysis, and control system design. Without them, engineers can’t know whether a turbine will survive 20 years of continuous operation.

Relevant inputs here include wind speed, turbulence intensity, pitch angle, and other operational parameters that define the turbine’s environment and state.

Speed is the problem. Each high-fidelity simulation run in tools like HAWC2 carries a significant computational cost, and design optimization doesn’t require one run — it requires thousands, sweeping across wind speeds, turbulence levels, and operating conditions to map out the full performance landscape. That kind of exhaustive search quickly becomes impractical.

The result is a familiar engineering tension: tools that capture physical reality most faithfully are too slow for rapid iteration, while faster methods sacrifice accuracy. The wind industry needs something in between — a lighter tool that still respects the physics.

Full post here

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

Scientists teach a computer to “feel” a wind turbine’s stress before a single blade is built Read More »

Democrats won. Oil money lost.

Fossil fuel money remains one of the biggest obstacles to climate action. But last night proved it can be beaten.

An activist dressed as a fossil fuel executive pours fake gas over fake money outside Shell’s headquarters in May 2026. During the 2026 midterm elections, the U.S. fossil fuel industry lit actual money on fire trying to elect Republicans. Photo by James Willoughby/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

The U.S. oil and gas industry spent at least $182 million trying to elect Republicans in last night’s midterm elections1.

By Emily Atkin, Heated

It didn’t buy them very much.

Voters rejected fossil fuel allies and priorities across the country, not only stripping Republicans of control of both the House and Senate, but delivering stunning defeats in fossil-fueled governors’ races, state legislatures, regulatory commissions, and ballot measures.

Here are some notable examples.

Republicans lost control of the House and Senate despite large oil industry donations. Chevron gave $8.2 million, Koch Inc. gave $6.8 million, and Energy Transfer gave $2 million to the Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund, according to a Public Citizen analysis. The American Petroleum Institute gave at least another $8 million to the two super PACs, which work to elect Republican majorities in Congress. Republicans still lost both chambers.
A Texas oil billionaire’s attempt to buy Michigan’s Senate race failed. Texas oil billionaire Tim Dunn gave $5 million to a super PAC backing Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race. It didn’t matter. Voters still elected Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, whose platform includes shutting down the Line 5 pipeline and transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy.
In fact, pretty much everything Tim Dunn tried to do failed. The ultra-Christian oil billionaire gave more than $11 million to Texas Republican PACs, with almost all of it going to Texans United for a Conservative Majority. And what happened in Texas was the polar opposite of a conservative majority. Speaking of which:
Chevron and fracking money couldn’t make Texans like Ken Paxton. Lone Star Liberty PAC, the group backing Republican Ken Paxton’s bid for U.S. Senate, received at least $2 million from oil and gas interests, including $200,000 from the Chevron Employees PAC and $250,000 from oil executive Russell Gordy. Fracking billionaire Farris Wilks gave another $250,000 to Paxton Victory. Voters still elected James Talarico, who campaigned on restoring federal support for renewable energy and strengthening clean air and water protections.
Chevron couldn’t save Susan Collins, either. The oil company gave $200,000 to Pine Tree Results PAC, the super PAC backing Maine’s Republican senator. Voters still elected Democrat Troy Jackson, ending Collins’s nearly three decades in the Senate.

Read the full post here

Democrats won. Oil money lost. Read More »

U.S. soybean oil gushes into biofuel market

The U.S. sector consumes 1.2 billion bushels of soybeans annually, but they are also being used in more than 1,000 other industrial applications

By Sean Pratt, Reporter/Analyst, The Western Producer

Hand with fuel nozzle with inscription BIO on a background of tank trailer with biofuel and large, round steel grain bins. — An estimated 54 per cent of the soybean oil produced by U.S. crushers will be consumed by the biofuel sector in 2026-27. Photo: Getty Images

SASKATOON — The U.S. soybean sector has reached an inflection point where more oil will be used for fuel than food in 2026-27.

Courtney Knupp, chief executive officer of the United Soybean Board (USB), said 54 per cent of the oil produced by crushers will be consumed by the biofuel sector, up from 48 per cent last year.

“Now that’s demand that farmers can count on,” she said during a recent webinar hosted by Agri-Pulse. Biodiesel and renewable diesel plants consume about 1.2 billion bushels of soybeans today, up from fewer than 100 million bu. 20 years ago.

“It’s a market that didn’t exist until soybean farmers invested their check-off dollars in it,” said Knupp.

“That’s what a calculated bet looks like when it pays off at the farmgate.”

____________________________________________________

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

U.S. soybean oil gushes into biofuel market Read More »

‘It is a crime!’: Upper West Side owl lovers outraged after rooftop work wrecks nest

By Carol Chen, Gothamist, Oct 30, 2026

Politicians, police and wildlife officers flocked to an Upper West Side apartment building Friday in an urgent effort to stop work on a rooftop water tower where a beloved family of seven barn owls had nested.

The two owl parents and five fledglings have turned heads since the family was first spotted on West 75th Street in early October. But on Thursday, some owl admirers noticed workers had disturbed the nest while removing the roof of the water tower for repairs. Video from onlookers showed a worker apparently using a torch, which sent smoke up into the nest.

Bird lovers were alarmed, contacted the authorities and believed the owls would get a reprieve from further disturbance. The owls are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

But on Friday, the owl lovers — including state Sen. Erik Bottcher and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal — were stunned to see a worker back up on the water tower.

“The first time in probably a century we have nesting barn owls,” said Rita McMahon, the director of the Wild Bird Fund. “How could you do that to them?”

Birders said the fledglings had returned to the rooftop last night and were being fed by their parents, though they were no longer hunkering down in their nest, which was mostly destroyed. They desperately tried to prevent any further disturbance to the owls’ abode.

Full story here

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

‘It is a crime!’: Upper West Side owl lovers outraged after rooftop work wrecks nest Read More »

With a shortage of young striped bass, Maine anglers fear for their sport’s future

A school of striped bass in Saco Bay on Aug. 9, 2026. Photo by Bob Wiegers.

banner that says by Delger Erdenesanaa, the environment reporter for the maine monitor

From May to October each year, hundreds of thousands of anglers fan out across the Maine coast, casting their lines from beaches, piers and boats. Most are fishing for Atlantic striped bass, affectionately called “stripers,” which make up the largest recreational saltwater fishery in the state.

For now, the fishing is good, with plenty of big stripers around to catch (and mostly, release). But a current of anxiety runs underneath the sport and the industry.

Captain Marco Lamothe, who runs Keeper Charters out of Saco, went on more than 100 fishing trips this year and caught plenty of larger, older striped bass, which can live to 30 years or more. But he worries about the fishery’s future because he’s not seeing as many smaller, younger fish.

Of the hundreds of striped bass he caught this year, only one measured less than 28 inches.

“The tourists were abundant, and the fish were cooperative, and we had a lot of really successful fishing trips,” Lamothe said. But, he added, “We’re just not seeing any small- to medium-sized fish. So it’s concerning.”

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

With a shortage of young striped bass, Maine anglers fear for their sport’s future Read More »