Inside Energy

It’s election season, which means politicians are busy promising lots of things, including lots of new proposals when it comes to energy. Hillary Clinton has pledged to give $30 billion to coal communities if elected; Donald Trump has promised energy independence. We wondered, if these policies actually came to pass, what would the world look like? Are they good ideas or bad ideas?

So, we decided to ask the experts, at a live Inside Energy event in Laramie, Wyoming in April. We invited four energy economists to weigh in on the presidential candidates’ policy proposals as well as on proposals floated by Wyoming Governor Matt Mead.

Rob Godby and Chuck Mason joined us from the University of Wyoming, Ian Lange from the Colorado School of Mines and Tim Fitzgerald from Texas Tech.

America’s coal industry is hurting, facing layoffs and bankruptcies. The drop off in coal production over the past year is staggering. But what does it sound like? We've mapped the data to music so you can hear coal production fall off a cliff.

The Colorado Supreme Court has struck down limits on fracking in two Colorado cities.

Inside Energy's Dan Boyce tells us the rulings could have big implications for future drilling in the state.

The debate about whether or not humans are warming the planet is essentially over 97% of climate scientists agree that we are. But the debate over tactics, how to reduce our carbon emissions, is just starting to heat up. For Inside Energy, Amy Martin explains.

Wyoming’s powerful coal industry is starting to feel the full force of the market’s decline. Three of the state’s four largest producers are now in bankruptcy. Last month, two of the country’s largest coal mines, both in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, laid off 15% of their workers. And that’s on top of hard times in both oil and gas. As the state’s energy booms go bust, Wyoming is facing the colossal task of having to replace some- or live with less- of its main economic drivers. Inside Energy’s Leigh Paterson reports from Gillette, Wyoming’s coal capital.

The massive fall in the price of crude oil means hundreds of thousands of people are no longer working in the business...and many smaller energy companies are in a footrace against bankruptcy. Yet, up until now, oil production has NOT dropped in places like the Permian Basin of west Texas the nation's highest-producing oilfield. For Inside Energy, Lorne Matalon reports.

Solar energy is booming in California—so much so that on some days, there's too much. California would like to send that extra solar to its neighbors in the West, but other western states aren't sure they want California's power.

Picture the wind turbine technician, a worker with a hard hat and climbing harness perched atop a tall white tower, making sure those power-generating blades are spinning just right.

That job, maintaining wind turbines--that’s the fastest growing profession in the country right now.

Inside Energy reporter Dan Boyce puts that in context.

The cost of wind and solar power have fallen dramatically in recent years.

Still, renewables only account for a fraction of the energy produced in the United States.

One person confronting this issue sits in an office in Golden, Colorado.

His name is Martin Keller and he is the new boss at the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Keller, who hails from Germany, tells Inside Energy’s Dan Boyce the lab needs to spur more innovation to increase the amount of renewable energy available.

North Dakota Heritage Center's Director on Closing the Green Revolution Exhibit by Inside Energy