Author

Robert Zullo

Robert Zullo

Robert Zullo is the energy transition reporter for States Newsroom. He has spent 13 years as a reporter and editor at weekly and daily newspapers, beginning at Worrall Community Newspapers in Union, N.J., where he was a staff writer and managing editor. He spent five years in south Louisiana covering hurricanes, oil spills and Good Friday crawfish boils as a reporter and city editor for the The Courier and the Daily Comet newspapers in Houma and Thibodaux. He covered Richmond city hall for the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 2012 to 2013 and worked as a general assignment and city hall reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 2013 to 2016. He returned to Richmond to cover energy, environment and transportation for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He grew up in Miami, Fla., and central New Jersey. A former armored car guard and a graduate of the College of William and Mary, he has received numerous first-place awards for editorial, feature and column writing as well as breaking news coverage and investigative reporting.

AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station in Petersburg, Ind., has been burning coal since the 1960s but will shutter all of its coal firing units over the next few years. The plant is converting some generating units to natural gas and will also host an 800 megawatt-hour battery storage system expected to come online late next year. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

New life for old coal: Minelands and power plants are hot renewable development spots 

By: - November 27, 2023

PETERSBURG, Ind. — AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station, which towers over the White River here in southwest Indiana, has been burning coal to generate electricity since the late 1960s. That era, though, will come to an end soon. Two of the power plant’s four coal-burning units have already retired and the last is planning to […]

New rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year in its latest attempt to regulate the carbon from power plants have drawn fire from some congressional Republicans, grid operators and other regulators. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Reliability v. sustainability: Inside the debate over the EPA’s proposed carbon rules

By: - November 20, 2023

Electric reliability has been a hot topic lately — from congressional hearings to regulatory agencies and at the regional transmission organizations that run the electric grid in much of the country. The American electric grid is undergoing a major change, prodded by state and federal decarbonization policies, market forces pushing cheaper and cleaner forms of […]

A hydrogen hub is a a cluster of assets that produce and process hydrogen fuel as an alternative to fossil fuels. (Screenshot from Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy)

‘So many ways hydrogen can go wrong’: Hub announcements viewed with caution

By: - October 17, 2023

The Friday announcement that seven projects had been selected to receive $7 billion in seed money to kickstart the production of clean hydrogen across the country was billed by President Joe Biden’s administration as a major step toward slashing carbon emissions, creating thousands of domestic jobs and positioning the U.S. as a clean energy leader. […]

A coal-fired power plant in Romeoville, Illinois. The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new rule to regulate fossil fuel power plant carbon dioxide. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

EPA again proposes power plant carbon rules

By: - May 18, 2023

The Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Power Plan — intended to cut carbon emissions from power plants — was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Trump administration’s much-criticized replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy rule, derided as a “tortured series of misreadings” of the U.S. Clean Air Act, was also tossed by a federal court. […]

One analysis of Southern Company, which owns the dominant utilities in Alabama and Georgia, found that it could have saved its customers $1.5 billion between 2015 and 2020 if it was in a wholesale market that required it to operate its coal plants from lowest cost to highest and imported cheaper electricity from elsewhere. Georgia Power is aiming to shut down its coal-fired power plants by 2028, except for Plant Bowen, which won’t close until 2035. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

In the Southeast, where big utilities rule, calls for a real power market persist

By: - May 8, 2023

A report prepared for the South Carolina state legislature and released on April 28 determined that a range of electric market and transmission reforms — including creating a new independent organization to run the electric grid or joining an existing one — would bring  “substantial benefits” for customers, potentially as much as $362 million a […]

Despite a rash of shooting attacks against electric substations last year, regulators are not recommending new physical security requirements. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

After shootings, regulator doesn’t recommend additional substation security standards

By: - April 21, 2023

The organization in charge of setting and enforcing reliability standards for the U.S. electric grid isn’t recommending new physical security requirements for thousands of electric substations following a rash of shooting attacks that have knocked out power in parts of several states. Jim Robb, CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, told the Federal […]

A gas flare from a petroleum refinery in Norco, Louisiana. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

EPA sued over failure to set, update pollution limits 

By: - April 14, 2023

More than a dozen environmental groups are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency over its failure to set water pollution limits for some industrial contaminants as well as its reluctance to update decades-old standards for others, arguing that the agency’s inaction amounts to a “free pass to pollute” for hundreds of chemical and fertilizer plants, […]

Wind turbines in Schlewswig, Iowa. MISO, which manages the flow of electricity in all or part of 15 U.S. states, was able to export power to its southern neighbors in part because its wind turbines produced enough energy during the storm. (Photo by Christopher A. Jones/Getty Images)

How did renewables fare during Winter Storm Elliott

By: - January 31, 2023

A day after Christmas, as parts of the country were still digging out from Winter Storm Elliott, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, undeterred by the absence of much concrete data, already knew where to cast the blame for rolling blackouts implemented in parts of the South to keep the grid from collapsing.  “While there […]

With three hurricanes in 2020, Louisiana had the worst performance among states for getting the power back on after a major event, according to a new report that compared how utilities ranked in three areas: reliability, affordability and environmental responsibility. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Affordable, reliable and sustainable: report compares utility performance

By: - January 23, 2023

A nationwide comparison of electric utility performance by an Illinois consumer advocacy group found that customers in states that are heavily reliant on fuel oil and natural gas, as in the Northeast and South, tend to pay more than those with larger amounts of carbon-free generation, among other findings.  The report by the Illinois-based Citizens […]

DETROIT, MI - DECEMBER 23: Detroit residents brave the frigid temperatures and heavy gusts of wind in downtown Detroit on December 23, 2022 in Detroit, United States. A major winter storm swept over much of the midwest on Friday, dropping temperatures to single digits and windchills up to -35 degrees Fahrenheit. (Photo by Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)

As another winter storm strains the electric grid, it’s time to fix transmission, experts say

By: - January 3, 2023

The deadly winter storm, christened Elliott by the Weather Channel, that tore through much of the United States over the Christmas weekend placed a huge strain on the American electric grid, pushing it past the breaking point in some places. Frigid temperatures, in some places setting records, drove a surge in electric demand while also […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week called for a review of the physical security of the utility’s power systems. The order comes after attacks on substations in North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Washington state. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

After substation shooting, federal regulator orders review of security standards

By: - December 26, 2022

Less than three weeks after gunfire damaged two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, N.C., knocking out power to about 45,000 people, federal regulators ordered a review of security standards at electric transmission facilities and control centers. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on December 15 ordered the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which sets […]

The target chamber of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility, where 192 laser beams delivered more than 2 million joules of ultraviolet energy to a tiny fuel pellet to create fusion ignition on Dec. 5, 2022. (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

Scientists announce a fusion breakthrough with big implications for clean energy

By: - December 13, 2022

Scientists at a U.S. national laboratory announced Tuesday that they achieved fusion ignition, a breakthrough decades in the making that could have major implications for clean energy. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco said that on Dec. 5, for the first time anywhere in the world, they managed to produce more […]