Moira Cyphers

Solar restrictions threaten farmer property rights and rural economic growth trib.al/TlGX8QT

Policy, grassroots, lobbying

2025 was a record-breaking year for American clean power and more is on the way! @USCleanPower predicts that > 80% of new power installations through 2030 will be clean energy. Market trends on Powerline: cleanpower.org/blog/powering-…

Wow - renewables are like >5% of PJM's generation mix today. New queue is open...watching for the clean energy market in PJM expand to compete with other RTOs.

PJM Interconnection today announced that 811 new generation projects, capable of generating 220 gigawatts of electricity, have applied to connect to the grid through the first Cycle of PJM’s reformed interconnection process. This marks the first major intake under a redesigned approach focused on improving the certainty, speed and discipline of project review. More at insidelines.pjm.com/over-800-new-g…

And on subsidies: coal got $700 million last year. For one year. And that’s just direct support, that’s not counting the cost of keeping coal plants online past their economic usefulness. Are we protecting taxpayers? Or picking winners and losers?

Offshore wind is clean firm. Same capacity factor as combined cycle gas. Taking proven resources off the table at the very moment we need more energy just makes it ALL more expensive.

It doesn’t matter if he was a Republican or a Democrat. The world is filled with radicalized, disgruntled men. Only America gives them unfettered access to arsenals and ammunition. Until we regulate guns, this will keep happening.

This album is for anyone who waits for folks to exit the elevator before trying to barge in. If you barge in this album is not for you and only my song hurt somebody is yours to listen to

@fredstaffordcs Agree it’s an imperfect system. Just true a lot of those projects don’t pencil - due to factors outside the control of New York, unfortunately. I think in 2023 the developers did offer to open their books. Could look @ NYSERDA what RFPs required this round but it’s Saturday

@MoiraRose Yeah, supply chain costs go up. But if these projects were IOU developed then there's already a public process, where the state opens books and sees finances, for how any cost increases will be recovered. Then there's certainty instead of full pause. IOUs get lower ROE too.

As in 2023, New York is looking at a mass cancellation of state-supported competitive renewables projects, this time 3 GW instead of 8 GW. Still huge. Why? Because the various independent power producers behind the projects say their costs have gone up too much to make the projects profitable given their state contracts for subsidies (ie state REC purchases) on top of power market revenues. In other words, "state, if you want your renewables goals met, you need to give us HIGHER subsidies, or else we're cancelling. At best, we'll rebid the same projects in your next annual auction for the subsidies and this time we and our competitors will all bid higher, driving prices up. Then the grid is jammed up another year and consumers pay more, but we get better returns to our shareholders." What's worse, because these IPPs are just closed-door unregulated companies and not public utilities, there's no state entity that gets access to their books, to their financing, and affirms any particular profit rate. The IPPs want higher subsidies because they say it won't be profitable enough, but unlike with public utilities, the state has no way to verify this. Plus the IPPs want higher returns on equity investment than public utilities do! Can we start declaring that the state-supported, auction-based, *competitive* deployment pathway for renewables is a failure?

@fredstaffordcs This is 3 GW of projects which qualify for the IRA tax credits. They won’t next year. Lots of additional nuance - lack of fed permitting/consultations etc is expensive. Costs millions to redesign to avoid ACOE wetlands permits, for example.

@nytimes @TheAthletic YES YES YES

From @TheAthletic: A’ja Wilson has signed the richest contract in WNBA history, starting at $1.4 million in 2026 and potentially reaching more than $4.7 million, a team source said. The deal comes after Wilson made $200,000 in the 2025 season. nyti.ms/4vxkz9T

Two cities, two vibes… Baltimore just hits different, respectfully 🤷🏾‍♂️😂

@SimonMahan Really making $150 MWh prices for offshore wind look reasonable 👀maybe not in TVA…but you know what I mean!

TVA, nuke experts, out with an updated set of power plant cost estimates. Nuclear units: $14 billion for one AP1000, 1,110 MW, maybe in 12 yrs. $4.9b for one new 285 MW SMR. Wind/solar/batteries: all available by 2031. Everything else: more expensive, waiting longer.

One of the largest spills of untreated wastewater in American history happened while an environmental review process held up sewer line repairs because they were studying risks to a flower and a bat.

When @astro_reid was a senior at Dulaney High School, the caption under his yearbook photo began with the words “FUTURE PLANS: Fly high.” Tonight, he’s commanding NASA’s Artemis II—the first crewed mission to fly around the moon in over 50 years. We’re so proud to be cheering him and his crew on from Baltimore County. We know @BaltCoPS is especially proud! 🚀🌓

Wind and solar energy generated a record 17% of electricity in the United States in 2025, up from less than 1% in 2005, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration. abcnews.link/SJuBxEW

Great news! The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project — the largest in the country — is delivering reliable energy to Virginia!⚡️

High utility bills are many families’ top concern. This project will power hundreds of thousands of homes and help provide more affordable energy.

@jonlovett We also did $625 million for coal in late 2025: energy.gov/articles/energ…

Just this one subsidy to a foreign company to kill wind projects purely out of spite by Trump costs TWICE as much as the loan guarantees to the dreaded Solyndra. Solyndra was a rightwing talking point about waste for YEARS. And that loan program - which always assumed that some projects would fail - not only made up for those losses, but ended up being profitable for taxpayers. But doubt we hear a word about this latest boondoggle from the same people who were horrified by the supposed waste and told us government shouldn't choose winners and losers. Makes you wonder!