Good morning all

Hope you had a great week. Take this read into the weekend and have a great one….

#1- I suppose one of the hot topics currently is that the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) and the IIJA (Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act) funding is now halted on the monies flowing into these acts. ‘Funding disbursement freeze’ they call it. Folks kinda saw this coming and with any new administration in the US, those new folks will have their own ‘energy agenda’. Is that the case though? Is the damage (meaning a lot of money spent) already done? The DOE announced recently that with the combination of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy investments in the US doubled from $111 billion in 2020 to $236 billion in 2023. To me, that’s a lot of money. But now, there’s no more money due to the new administrations executive order. Will the new administration ‘Keep Making America Green’? By the way, the Green New Deal is canceled also. The ‘make ya head tilt sideways’ moment is that this executive order also called for an ‘end to the electric vehicle mandate’. Isn’t Mr. Musk and Mr. President on the same team? If the IRA money is stopped, no EV tax credits? Ummm….guys? Finally, check out in the executive order about the ‘social cost of carbon’. Honestly, I didn’t know that existed and I cant make this stuff up.

#2- Been doing some TX research and finding the electric generation stack in the interconnection que for electric generation to come onto the grid (Electricity Reliability Council of TX). Here is a small break down as of 1/1/2025:

Total Capacity under study: 379,494 MW (Mega Watts)

    Coal = 0 MW

    Nuclear = 0 MW

    Total Gas types = 27,578 MW

    Wind = 34,450 MW

    Solar = 154,487 MW

    Batteries = 159,775 MW

    Other = 3,204

        other is hydroelectric, fuel oil, geothermal and other types

Interconnection agreements executed: 91,097 MW or ~24% of total capacity under study

Total Commission date in month of Dec 2024 = 2,310.37 MW

Summary of this: there is a lot on the wait list, most wont get to the party. But if there’s a list of ~380,000 and only 2,310.37 gets to dance at the party, is that just the way it is? Then read #1 again and say to yourself, well if that money for green development is stopped, does the wait list shrink significantly in total amount on the wait list? You decide. We need all forms of energy.

#3- On 1/16/2025 the DOE announced a loan for utilities serving ~14.78 million customers to move forward with 8 infrastructure projects in 12 states totaling a $22.92 billion dollar bill. The projects are sizeable and they include transmission projects, renewable energy development, updating natural gas pipelines and more. Take a wild guess where the money is coming from. These loans are funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and if you read #1, that money flow was stopped per an White House executive order on 1/20/2025. Talk about a rug pull. What’s wild is that we do need certain projects in order to maintain, upgrade and just simply have more infrastructure to serve folks to the long term.

Just FYI, There are links inside for some of these Info YO’s. If you see an word underlined, you can go down the rabbit hole with me.

Peace and Love to y’all,

Bass

*ALL views and opinions are my own. All data/research comprised can simply be looked up by any search engine.