Demand for Electricity Grows in 2002

Brain Stimulation is transforming neuromodulation, from TMS and DBS to closed loop devices, targeting neural circuits for addiction, depression, Parkinsons, epilepsy, and chronic pain, powered by advanced imaging, AI analytics, and the NIH BRAIN Initiative.

Key Points

Brain stimulation uses pulses to modulate neural circuits, easing symptoms in depression, Parkinsons, and epilepsy.

✅ Noninvasive TMS and invasive DBS modulate specific brain circuits

✅ Closed loop systems adapt stimulation via real time biomarker detection

✅ Emerging uses: addiction, depression, Parkinsons, epilepsy, chronic pain

In June 2015, biology professor Colleen Hanlon went to a conference on drug dependence. As she met other researchers and wandered around a glitzy Phoenix resort’s conference rooms to learn about the latest work on therapies for drug and alcohol use disorders, she realized that out of the 730 posters, there were only two on brain stimulation as a potential treatment for addiction — both from her own lab at Wake Forest School of Medicine.

Just four years later, she would lead 76 researchers on four continents in writing a consensus article about brain stimulation as an innovative tool for addiction. And in 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved a transcranial magnetic stimulation device to help patients quit smoking, a milestone for substance use disorders.

Brain stimulation is booming. Hanlon can attend entire conferences devoted to the study of what electrical currents do—including how targeted stimulation can improve short-term memory in older adults—to the intricate networks of highways and backroads that make up the brain’s circuitry. This expanding field of research is slowly revealing truths of the brain: how it works, how it malfunctions, and how electrical impulses, precisely targeted and controlled, might be used to treat psychiatric and neurological disorders.

In the last half-dozen years, researchers have launched investigations into how different forms of neuromodulation affect addiction, depression, loss-of-control eating, tremor, chronic pain, obsessive compulsive disorder, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and more. Early studies have shown subtle electrical jolts to certain brain regions could disrupt circuit abnormalities — the miscommunications — that are thought to underlie many brain diseases, and help ease symptoms that persist despite conventional treatments.

The National Institute of Health’s massive BRAIN Initiative put circuits front and center, distributing $2.4 billion to researchers since 2013 to devise and use new tools to observe interactions between brain cells and circuits. That, in turn, has kindled interest from the private sector. Among the advances that have enhanced our understanding of how distant parts of the brain talk with one another are new imaging technology and the use of machine learning, much as utilities use AI to adapt to shifting electricity demand, to interpret complex brain signals and analyze what happens when circuits go haywire.

Still, the field is in its infancy, and even therapies that have been approved for use in patients with, for example, Parkinson’s disease or epilepsy, help only a minority of patients, and in a world where electricity drives pandemic readiness expectations can outpace evidence. “If it was the Bible, it would be the first chapter of Genesis,” said Michael Okun, executive director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at University of Florida Health.

As brain stimulation evolves, researchers face daunting hurdles, and not just scientific ones. How will brain stimulation become accessible to all the patients who need it, given how expensive and invasive some treatments are? Proving to the FDA that brain stimulation works, and does so safely, is complicated and expensive. Even with a swell of scientific momentum and an influx of funding, the agency has so far cleared brain stimulation for only a handful of limited conditions. Persuading insurers to cover the treatments is another challenge altogether. And outside the lab, researchers are debating nascent issues, such as the ethics of mind control, the privacy of a person’s brain data—concerns that echo efforts to develop algorithms to prevent blackouts during rising ransomware threats—and how to best involve patients in the study of the human brain’s far-flung regions.

Neurologist Martha Morrell is optimistic about the future of brain stimulation. She remembers the shocked reactions of her colleagues in 2004 when she left full-time teaching at Stanford (she still has a faculty appointment as a clinical professor of neurology) to direct clinical trials at NeuroPace, then a young company making neurostimulator systems to potentially treat epilepsy patients.

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“When I started working on this, everybody thought I was insane,” said Morrell. Nearly 20 years in, she sees a parallel between the story of jolting the brain’s circuitry and that of early implantable cardiac devices, such as pacemakers and defibrillators, which initially “were used as a last option, where all other medications have failed.” Now, “the field of cardiology is very comfortable incorporating electrical therapy, device therapy, into routine care. And I think that’s really where we’re going with neurology as well.”

Reaching a ‘slope of enlightenment’
Parkinson’s is, in some ways, an elder in the world of modern brain stimulation, and it shows the potential as well as the limitations of the technology. Surgeons have been implanting electrodes deep in the brains of Parkinson’s patients since the late 1990s, and in people with more advanced disease since the early 2000s.

In that time, it’s gone through the “hype cycle,” said Okun, the national medical adviser to the Parkinson’s Foundation since 2006. Feverish excitement and overinflated expectations have given way to reality, bringing scientists to a “slope of enlightenment,” he said. They have found deep brain stimulation to be very helpful for some patients with Parkinson’s, rendering them almost symptom-free by calming the shaking and tremors that medications couldn’t. But it doesn’t stop the progression of the disease, or resolve some of the problems patients with advanced Parkinson’s have walking, talking, and thinking.

In 2015, the same year Hanlon found only her lab’s research on brain stimulation at the addiction conference, Kevin O’Neill watched one finger on his left hand start doing something “funky.” One finger twitched, then two, then his left arm started tingling and a feeling appeared in his right leg, like it was about to shake but wouldn’t — a tremor.

“I was assuming it was anxiety,” O’Neill, 62, told STAT. He had struggled with anxiety before, and he had endured a stressful year: a separation, selling his home, starting a new job at a law firm in California’s Bay Area. But a year after his symptoms first began, O’Neill was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

In the broader energy context, California has increasingly turned to battery storage to stabilize its strained grid.

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Doctors prescribed him pills that promote the release of dopamine, to offset the death of brain cells that produce this messenger molecule in circuits that control movement. But he took them infrequently because he worried about insomnia as a side effect. Walking became difficult — “I had to kind of think my left leg into moving” — and the labor lawyer found it hard to give presentations and travel to clients’ offices.

A former actor with an outgoing personality, he developed social anxiety and didn’t tell his bosses about his diagnosis for three years, and wouldn’t have, if not for two workdays in summer 2018 when his tremors were severe and obvious.

O’Neill’s tremors are all but gone since he began deep brain stimulation last May, though his left arm shakes when he feels tense.

It was during that period that he learned about deep brain stimulation, at a support group for Parkinson’s patients. “I thought, ‘I will never let anybody fuss with my brain. I’m not going to be a candidate for that,’” he recalled. “It felt like mad scientist science fiction. Like, are you kidding me?”

But over time, the idea became less radical, as O’Neill spoke to DBS patients and doctors and did his own research, and as his symptoms worsened. He decided to go for it. Last May, doctors at the University of California, San Francisco surgically placed three metal leads into his brain, connected by thin cords to two implants in his chest, just near the clavicles. A month later, he went into the lab and researchers turned the device on.

“That was a revelation that day,” he said. “You immediately — literally, immediately — feel the efficacy of these things. … You go from fully symptomatic to non-symptomatic in seconds.”

When his nephew pulled up to the curb to pick him up, O’Neill started dancing, and his nephew teared up. The following day, O’Neill couldn’t wait to get out of bed and go out, even if it was just to pick up his car from the repair shop.

In the year since, O’Neill’s walking has gone from “awkward and painful” to much improved, and his tremors are all but gone. When he is extra frazzled, like while renovating and moving into his new house overlooking the hills of Marin County, he feels tense and his left arm shakes and he worries the DBS is “failing,” but generally he returns to a comfortable, tremor-free baseline.

O’Neill worried about the effects of DBS wearing off but, for now, he can think “in terms of decades, instead of years or months,” he recalled his neurologist telling him. “The fact that I can put away that worry was the big thing.”

He’s just one patient, though. The brain has regions that are mostly uniform across all people. The functions of those regions also tend to be the same. But researchers suspect that how brain regions interact with one another — who mingles with whom, and what conversation they have — and how those mixes and matches cause complex diseases varies from person to person. So brain stimulation looks different for each patient.

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Each case of Parkinson’s manifests slightly differently, and that’s a bit of knowledge that applies to many other diseases, said Okun, who organized the nine-year-old Deep Brain Stimulation Think Tank, where leading researchers convene, review papers, and publish reports on the field’s progress each year.

“I think we’re all collectively coming to the realization that these diseases are not one-size-fits-all,” he said. “We have to really begin to rethink the entire infrastructure, the schema, the framework we start with.”

Brain stimulation is also used frequently to treat people with common forms of epilepsy, and has reduced the number of seizures or improved other symptoms in many patients. Researchers have also been able to collect high-quality data about what happens in the brain during a seizure — including identifying differences between epilepsy types. Still, only about 15% of patients are symptom-free after treatment, according to Robert Gross, a neurosurgery professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

“And that’s a critical difference for people with epilepsy. Because people who are symptom-free can drive,” which means they can get to a job in a place like Georgia, where there is little public transit, he said. So taking neuromodulation “from good to great,” is imperative, Gross said.

Renaissance for an ancient idea
Recent advances are bringing about what Gross sees as “almost a renaissance period” for brain stimulation, though the ideas that undergird the technology are millenia old. Neuromodulation goes back to at least ancient Egypt and Greece, when electrical shocks from a ray, called the “torpedo fish,” were recommended as a treatment for headache and gout. Over centuries, the fish zaps led to doctors burning holes into the brains of patients. Those “lesions” worked, somehow, but nobody could explain why they alleviated some patients’ symptoms, Okun said.

Perhaps the clearest predecessor to today’s technology is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which in a rudimentary and dangerous way began being used on patients with depression roughly 100 years ago, said Nolan Williams, director of the Brain Stimulation Lab at Stanford University.

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More modern forms of brain stimulation came about in the United States in the mid-20th century. A common, noninvasive approach is transcranial magnetic stimulation, which involves placing an electromagnetic coil on the scalp to transmit a current into the outermost layer of the brain. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), used to treat epilepsy, zaps a nerve that contributes to some seizures.

The most invasive option, deep brain stimulation, involves implanting in the skull a device attached to electrodes embedded in deep brain regions, such as the amygdala, that can’t be reached with other stimulation devices. In 1997, the FDA gave its first green light to deep brain stimulation as a treatment for tremor, and then for Parkinson’s in 2002 and the movement disorder dystonia in 2003.

Even as these treatments were cleared for patients, though, what was happening in the brain remained elusive. But advanced imaging tools now let researchers peer into the brain and map out networks — a recent breakthrough that researchers say has propelled the field of brain stimulation forward as much as increased funding has, paralleling broader efforts to digitize analog electrical systems across industry. Imaging of both human brains and animal models has helped researchers identify the neuroanatomy of diseases, target brain regions with more specificity, and watch what was happening after electrical stimulation.

Another key step has been the shift from open-loop stimulation — a constant stream of electricity — to closed-loop stimulation that delivers targeted, brief jolts in response to a symptom trigger. To make use of the futuristic technology, labs need people to develop artificial intelligence tools, informed by advances in machine learning for the energy transition, to interpret large data sets a brain implant is generating, and to tailor devices based on that information.

“We’ve needed to learn how to be data scientists,” Morrell said.

Affinity groups, like the NIH-funded Open Mind Consortium, have formed to fill that gap. Philip Starr, a neurosurgeon and developer of implantable brain devices at the University of California at San Francisco Health system, leads the effort to teach physicians how to program closed-loop devices, and works to create ethical standards for their use. “There’s been extraordinary innovation after 20 years of no innovation,” he said.

The BRAIN Initiative has been critical, several researchers told STAT. “It’s been a godsend to us,” Gross said. The NIH’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative was launched in 2013 during the Obama administration with a $50 million budget. BRAIN now spends over $500 million per year. Since its creation, BRAIN has given over 1,100 awards, according to NIH data. Part of the initiative’s purpose is to pair up researchers with medical technology companies that provide human-grade stimulation devices to the investigators. Nearly three dozen projects have been funded through the investigator-devicemaker partnership program and through one focused on new implantable devices for first-in-human use, according to Nick Langhals, who leads work on neurological disorders at the initiative.

The more BRAIN invests, the more research is spawned. “We learn more about what circuits are involved … which then feeds back into new and more innovative projects,” he said.

Many BRAIN projects are still in early stages, finishing enrollment or small feasibility studies, Langhals said. Over the next couple of years, scientists will begin to see some of the fruits of their labor, which could lead to larger clinical trials, or to companies developing more refined brain stimulation implants, Langhals said.

Money from the National Institutes of Mental Health, as well as the NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL), has similarly sweetened the appeal of brain stimulation, both for researchers and industry. “A critical mass” of companies interested in neuromodulation technology has mushroomed where, for two decades, just a handful of companies stood, Starr said.

More and more, pharmaceutical and digital health companies are looking at brain stimulation devices “as possible products for their future,” said Linda Carpenter, director of the Butler Hospital TMS Clinic and Neuromodulation Research Facility.

‘Psychiatry 3.0’
The experience with using brain stimulation to stop tremors and seizures inspired psychiatrists to begin exploring its use as a potentially powerful therapy for healing, or even getting ahead of, mental illness.

In 2008, the FDA approved TMS for patients with major depression who had tried, and not gotten relief from, drug therapy. “That kind of opened the door for all of us,” said Hanlon, a professor and researcher at the Center for Research on Substance Use and Addiction at Wake Forest School of Medicine. The last decade saw a surge of research into how TMS could be used to reset malfunctioning brain circuits involved in anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other conditions.

“We’re certainly entering into what a lot of people are calling psychiatry 3.0,” Stanford’s Williams said. “Whereas the first iteration was Freud and all that business, the second one was the psychopharmacology boom, and this third one is this bit around circuits and stimulation.”

Drugs alleviate some patients’ symptoms while simultaneously failing to help many others, but psychopharmacology clearly showed “there’s definitely a biology to this problem,” Williams said — a biology that in some cases may be more amenable to a brain stimulation.

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The exact mechanics of what happens between cells when brain circuits … well, short-circuit, is unclear. Researchers are getting closer to finding biomarkers that warn of an incoming depressive episode, or wave of anxiety, or loss of impulse control. Those brain signatures could be different for every patient. If researchers can find molecular biomarkers for psychiatric disorders — and find ways to preempt those symptoms by shocking particular brain regions — that would reshape the field, Williams said.

Not only would disease-specific markers help clinicians diagnose people, but they could help chip away at the stigma that paints mental illness as a personal or moral failing instead of a disease. That’s what happened for epilepsy in the 1960s, when scientific findings nudged the general public toward a deeper understanding of why seizures happen, and it’s “the same trajectory” Williams said he sees for depression.

His research at the Stanford lab also includes work on suicide, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which the FDA said in 2018 could be treated using noninvasive TMS. Williams considers brain stimulation, with its instantaneity, to be a potential breakthrough for urgent psychiatric situations. Doctors know what to do when a patient is rushed into the emergency room with a heart attack or a stroke, but there is no immediate treatment for psychiatric emergencies, he said. Williams wonders: What if, in the future, a suicidal patient could receive TMS in the emergency room and be quickly pulled out of their depressive mental spiral?

Researchers are also actively investigating the brain biology of addiction. In August 2020, the FDA approved TMS for smoking cessation, the first such OK for a substance use disorder, which is “really exciting,” Hanlon said. Although there is some nuance when comparing substance use disorders, a primal mechanism generally defines addiction: the eternal competition between “top-down” executive control functions and “bottom-up” cravings. It’s the same process that is at work when one is deciding whether to eat another cookie or abstain — just exacerbated.

Hanlon is trying to figure out if the stop and go circuits are in the same place for all people, and whether neuromodulation should be used to strengthen top-down control or weaken bottom-up cravings. Just as brain stimulation can be used to disrupt cellular misfiring, it could also be a tool for reinforcing helpful brain functions, or for giving the addicted brain what it wants in order to curb substance use.

Evidence suggests many people with schizophrenia smoke cigarettes (a leading cause of early death for this population) because nicotine reduces the “hyperconnectivity” that characterizes the brains of people with the disease, said Heather Ward, a research fellow at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She suspects TMS could mimic that effect, and therefore reduce cravings and some symptoms of the disease, and she hopes to prove that in a pilot study that is now enrolling patients.

If the scientific evidence proves out, clinicians say brain stimulation could be used alongside behavioral therapy and drug-based therapy to treat substance use disorders. “In the end, we’re going to need all three to help people stay sober,” Hanlon said. “We’re adding another tool to the physician’s toolbox.”

Decoding the mysteries of pain
Afavorable outcome to the ongoing research, one that would fling the doors to brain stimulation wide open for patients with myriad disorders, is far from guaranteed. Chronic pain researchers know that firsthand.

Chronic pain, among the most mysterious and hard-to-study medical phenomena, was the first use for which the FDA approved deep brain stimulation, said Prasad Shirvalkar, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at UCSF. But when studies didn’t pan out after a year, the FDA retracted its approval.

Shirvalkar is working with Starr and neurosurgeon Edward Chang on a profoundly complex problem: “decoding pain in the brain states, which has never been done,” as Starr told STAT.

Part of the difficulty of studying pain is that there is no objective way to measure it. Much of what we know about pain is from rudimentary surveys that ask patients to rate how much they’re hurting, on a scale from zero to 10.

Using implantable brain stimulation devices, the researchers ask patients for a 0-to-10 rating of their pain while recording up-and-down cycles of activity in the brain. They then use machine learning to compare the two streams of information and see what brain activity correlates with a patient’s subjective pain experience. Implantable devices let researchers collect data over weeks and months, instead of basing findings on small snippets of information, allowing for a much richer analysis.

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Alberta Electricity Market faces energy-only vs capacity debate as transmission, distribution, and administration fees surge; rural rates rise amid a regulated duopoly of investor-owned utilities, prompting calls for competition, innovation, and lower bills.

Key Points

Alberta's electricity market is an energy-only system with rising delivery charges and limited rural competition.

✅ Energy-only design; capacity market scrapped

✅ Delivery charges outpace energy on monthly bills

✅ Rural duopoly limits competition and raises rates

Last week, Alberta’s new Energy Minister Sonya Savage announced the government, through its new electricity rules, would be scrapping plans to shift Alberta’s electricity to a capacity market and would instead be “restoring certainty in the electricity system.”

The proposed transition from energy only to a capacity market is a contentious subject as a market reshuffle unfolds across the province that many Albertans probably don’t know much about. Our electricity market is not a particularly glamorous subject. It’s complicated and confusing and what matters most to ordinary Albertans is how it affects their monthly bills.

What they may not realize is that the cost of their actual electricity used is often just a small fraction of their bill amid rising electricity prices across the province. The majority on an average electricity bill is actually the cost of delivering that electricity from the generator to your house. Charges for transmission, distribution and franchise and administration fees are quickly pushing many Alberta households to the limit with soaring bills.

According to data from Alberta’s Utilities Consumer Advocate (UCA), and alongside policy changes, in 2004 the average monthly transmission costs for residential regulated-rate customers was below $2. In 2018 that cost was averaging nearly $27 a month. The increase is equally dramatic in distribution rates which have more than doubled across the province and range wildly, averaging from as low as $10 a month in 2004 to over $80 a month for some residential regulated-rate customers in 2018.

Where you live determines who delivers your electricity. In Alberta’s biggest cities and a handful of others the distribution systems are municipally owned and operated. Outside those select municipalities most of Alberta’s electricity is delivered by two private companies which operate as a regulated duopoly. In fact, two investor-owned utilities deliver power to over 95 per cent of rural Alberta and they continue to increase their share by purchasing the few rural electricity co-ops that remained their only competition in the market. The cost of buying out their competition is then passed on to the customers, driving rates even higher.

As the CEO of Alberta’s largest remaining electricity co-op, I know very well that as the price of materials, equipment and skilled labour increase, the cost of operating follows. If it costs more to build and maintain an electricity distribution system there will inevitably be a cost increase passed on to the consumer. The question Albertans should be asking is how much is too much and where is all that money going with these private- investor-owned utilities, as the sector faces profound change under provincial leadership?

The reforms to Alberta’s electricity system brought in by Premier Klein in the late 1900s and early 2000s contributed to a surge in investment in the sector and led to an explosion of competition in both electricity generation and retail. 

More players entered the field which put downward pressure on electricity rates, encouraged innovation and gave consumers a competitive choice, even as a Calgary electricity retailer urged the government to scrap the overhaul. But the legislation and regulations that govern rural electricity distribution in Alberta continue to facilitate and even encourage the concentration of ownership among two players which is certainly not in the interests of rural Albertans.

It is also not in the spirit of the United Conservative Party platform commitment to a “market-based” system. A market-based system suggests more competition. Instead, what we have is something approaching a monopoly for many Albertans. The UCP promised a review of the transition to a capacity market that would determine which market would be best for Alberta, and through proposed electricity market changes has decided that we will remain an energy-only market.
Consumers in rural Alberta need electricity to produce the goods that power our biggest industries. Instead of regulating and approving continued rate increases from private multinational corporations, we need to drive competition and innovation that can push rates down and encourage growth and investment in rural-based industries and communities.

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ACCC energy underwriting guarantee proposes government-backed certainty for new generation, cutting electricity prices and supporting gas, pumped hydro, renewables, batteries, and potentially coal-fired power, addressing market failure without direct subsidies.

Key Points

A tech-neutral, government-backed plan underwriting new generation revenue to increase certainty and cut power prices.

✅ Government guarantee provides a revenue floor for new generators.

✅ Technology neutral: coal, gas, renewables, pumped hydro, batteries.

✅ Intended to reduce bills by up to $400 and address market failure.

Australian Taxpayers won't directly fund any new power plants despite some Coalition MPs seizing on a new report to call for a coal-fired power station.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recommended the government give financial certainty to new power plants, guaranteeing energy will be bought at a cheap price if it can't be sold, as part of an electricity market plan to avoid threats to supply.

It's part of a bid to cut up to $400 a year from average household power prices.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the finance proposal had merit, but he ruled out directly funding specific types of power generation.

"We are not in the business of subsidising one technology or another," he told reporters in Queensland today.

"We've done enough of that. Frankly, there's been too much of that."

Renewable subsidies, designed in the 1990s to make solar and wind technology more affordable, have worked and will end in 2020.

Some Coalition MPs claim the ACCC's recommendation to underwrite power generation is vindication for their push to build new coal-fired power plants.

But ACCC chair Rod Sims said no companies had proposed building new coal plants - instead they're trying to build new gas projects, pumped hydro or renewable projects.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Mr Turnbull was offering solutions years away, having overseen a rise in power prices over the past year.

"You don't just go down to K-Mart and get a coal-fired power station off the shelf," Mr Shorten told reporters, admitting he had not read the ACCC report.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the recommendation to underwrite new power generators had a lot of merit, as it would address a market failure highlighted by AEMO warnings about reduced reserves.

"What they're saying is the government needs to step in here to provide some sort of assurance," Mr Frydenberg told 9NEWS today.

He said that could include coal, gas, renewable energy or battery storage.

Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie said science should determine which technology would get the best outcomes for power bills, with a scrapping coal report suggesting it can be costly.

Mr Turnbull said there was strong support for the vast majority of the ACCC's 56 recommendations, but the government would carefully consider the report, which sets out a blueprint to cut electricity bills by 25 percent.

Acting Greens leader Adam Bandt said Australia should exit coal-fired power in favour of renewable energy to cut pollution.

In contrast, Canada has seen the Stop the Shock campaign advocate a return to coal power in some provinces.

The Australian Energy Council, which represents 21 major energy companies, said the government should consult on changes to avoid "unintended consequences".

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Kentucky Tornado Recovery details Mayfield damage, death toll, power outages, boil-water advisories, shelter operations, and emergency response across five states, as crews restore infrastructure, locate missing persons, and support displaced families in frigid temperatures.

Key Points

Overview of restoring utilities, repairing infrastructure, and sheltering survivors after Kentucky's tornado disaster.

✅ Power, water, and gas outages persist; boil-water advisories in effect.

✅ Mayfield hardest hit; factory casualties lower than first feared.

✅ Shelter provided in state park lodges; long-term recovery expected.

Residents of Kentucky counties where tornadoes killed several dozen people could be without heat, water or electricity in frigid temperatures for weeks or longer, state officials warned Monday, and experiences abroad like Kyiv's difficult winter underscore the risks as the toll of damage and deaths came into clearer focus in five states slammed by the swarm of twisters.

Authorities are still tallying the devastation from Friday's storms, though they believe the death toll will be lower than initially feared since it appeared many more people escaped a candle factory in Mayfield, Ky., than first thought.

At least 88 people — including 74 in Kentucky — were killed by the tornados which also destroyed a nursing home in Arkansas, heavily damaged an Amazon distribution centre in Illinois and spread their deadly effects into Tennessee and Missouri, while ongoing nuclear worker safety concerns highlighted vulnerabilities across critical facilities. Another 105 people were still unaccounted for in Kentucky as of Monday afternoon, Gov. Andy Beshear said.

As searches continued for those still missing, efforts also turned to repairing the power grid, downed line safety education, sheltering those whose homes were destroyed and delivering drinking water and other supplies.

"We're not going to let any of our families go homeless," Beshear said in announcing that lodges in state parks were being used to provide shelter.

In Bowling Green, Ky., 11 people died on the same street, including two infants found among the bodies of five relatives near a residence, Warren County coroner Kevin Kirby said. 

In Mayfield, one of the hardest hit towns, those who survived faced a high around 10 C and a low below freezing Monday without any utilities, and awareness of power strip fire risks is critical as residents turn to makeshift heating and power.

"Our infrastructure is so damaged. We have no running water. Our water tower was lost. Our waste water management was lost, and there's no natural gas to the city. So we have nothing to rely on there," Mayfield Mayor Kathy Stewart O'Nan said on CBS Mornings. "So that is purely survival at this point for so many of our people."

Across the state, about 26,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, including nearly all of those in Mayfield, and the U.S. grid warning during the pandemic underscored vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.

More than 10,000 homes and businesses have no water, and another 17,000 are under boil-water advisories, Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett told reporters.

Dossett warned that full recovery in the hardest-hit places could take not just months, but years, noting that utilities have at times contemplated on-site staffing to maintain operations during crises.

At least 74 people have been confirmed dead across Kentucky after tornadoes tore through the state, leaving some communities nearly totally destroyed and many residents wondering if they can afford to rebuild. 2:22
"This will go on for years to come," he said. 

Amid broader economic strain, recent debates over Kentucky miners' pay highlight ongoing financial vulnerabilities for workers affected by disasters as well.

Authorities are still trying to determine the total number of dead, and the storms made door-to-door searches impossible in some places. "There are no doors," said Beshear.

"We're going to have over 1,000 homes that are gone, just gone," he said.

Beshear had said Sunday morning that the state's toll could exceed 100. But he later said it might be as low as 50.

'Then he was gone'
Initially as many as 70 people were feared dead in the candle factory in Mayfield, but the company said Sunday that eight were confirmed dead and eight remained missing, while more than 90 others had been located.

"Many of the employees were gathered in the tornado shelter and after the storm was over they left the plant and went to their homes," said Bob Ferguson, a spokesman for the company. "With the power out and no landline they were hard to reach initially. We're hoping to find more of those eight unaccounted as we try their home residences."

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Courtyard by Marriott Lancaster Solar Array delivers 100% renewable electricity via photovoltaic panels at Greenfield Corporate Center, Pennsylvania, a High Hotels and Marriott sustainability initiative reducing grid demand and selling excess power for efficient operations.

Key Points

A $1.5M PV installation powering the 133-room hotel with 100% renewable electricity in Greenfield Center, Lancaster.

✅ 2,700 PV panels generate 1,239,000 kWh annually

✅ First Marriott in the US with 100% solar electricity

✅ $504,900 CFA grant; excess power sold to the utility

High Hotels Ltd., a hotel developer and operator, recently announced it is installing a $1.5 million solar array that will generate 100% of the electrical power required to operate one of its existing hotels in Greenfield Corporate Center. The completed installation will make the 133-room Courtyard by Marriott-Lancaster the first Marriott-branded hotel in the United States with 100% of its electricity needs generated from solar power. It is also believed to be the first solar array in the country installed for the sole purpose of generating 100% of the electricity needs of a hotel, mirroring how other firms are commissioning their first solar power plant to meet sustainability goals.

“This is an exciting approach to addressing our energy needs that aligns very well with High’s commitment to environmental stewardship,”

“We’ve been advancing many environmentally responsible practices across our hotel portfolio, including converting the interior and exterior lighting at the Lancaster Courtyard to LED, which will lower electricity demand by 15%,” said Russ Urban, president of High Hotels. “Installing solar is another important step in this progression, and we will look to apply lessons from this as we expand our portfolio of premium select-service hotels.”

The Lancaster-based hotel developer, owner and operator is working in partnership with Marriott International Inc. to realize this vision, in step with major brands announcing new clean energy projects across their portfolios.

The installation of more than 2,700 ballasted photovoltaic panels will fill an area more than two football fields in size. After evaluating several on-site and near-site alternatives, High Hotels decided to install the solar array on the roof of a nearby building in Greenfield Corporate Center. Using the existing roof saves more than three acres of open land and has additional aesthetic benefits, aligning with recommendations for solar farms under consideration by local planners. The solar array will produce 1,239,000 kWh of power for the hotel, which consumes 1,177,000 kWh. Any excess power will be sold to the utility, though affordable solar batteries are making on-site storage increasingly feasible.

High Hotels received a grant of $504,900 from the Commonwealth Financing Authority (CFA) through the Solar Energy Program to complete the project. An independent agency of the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), the CFA is responsible for evaluating projects and awarding funds for a variety of economic development programs, including the Solar Energy Program and statewide initiatives like solar-power subscriptions that broaden access. The project will receive a solar renewable energy credit which will be conveyed to the CFA to provide the agency with more funds to offer grants in the future.

“This is a cutting-edge project that is exactly the kind we are looking for to promote the generation and use of solar energy,” said DCED Secretary Dennis Davin. “I am very pleased that the first Marriott in the US to receive 100% of its electric needs through renewable solar energy is located right here in Central Pennsylvania.” Secretary Davin also serves as chairman of the CFA’s board.

Panels for the solar array will be Q Cells manufactured by Hanwha Cells Co., Ltd., headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Ephrata, Pa.-based Meadow Valley Electric Inc. will install the array in the second and third quarters of 2018 with commissioning targeted for September 2018.

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Enbridge Alberta CCS Project targets carbon capture and storage in Alberta, capturing emissions from industrial emitters to advance net-zero goals, leveraging carbon pricing, regulatory support, and a hub model despite a key partner's exit.

Key Points

A proposed Alberta carbon capture hub by Enbridge to store industrial emissions and support net-zero targets.

✅ Seeks emitters across power, oil and gas, and heavy industry

✅ Backed by carbon pricing, regulation, and net-zero mandates

✅ Faces high capex, storage risk, and anchor-tenant uncertainty

Enbridge Inc., a Canadian energy giant, is digging its heels in on its proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Alberta. This comes despite the recent withdrawal of Capital Power, a major potential emitter that was expected to utilize the CCS technology. Enbridge maintains the project remains viable, but questions linger about its future viability without a cornerstone anchor.

The CCS project, envisioned as a major carbon capture hub in Alberta, aimed to capture emissions from industrial facilities and permanently store them underground. This technology has the potential to play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change, alongside grid solutions like bridging the Alberta-B.C. electricity gap that can complement decarbonization efforts.

Capital Power's decision to shelve its $2.4 billion Genesee Generating Station project, which was designed to integrate with the CCS hub, threw a wrench into Enbridge's plans. The Genesee project was expected to be a key source of emissions for capture and storage, and its status is being weighed as Ottawa advances the federal coal plan to phase out unabated coal.

Enbridge, however, remains optimistic. The company cites ongoing discussions with other potential emitters interested in utilizing the CCS technology, amid new funding signals such as the U.S. DOE's $110M for CCUS that highlight momentum. They believe the project holds significant value despite Capital Power's departure.

"We are confident in the long-term viability of the project and continue to actively engage with potential customers," said Enbridge spokesperson Rachel Giroux. "Carbon capture and storage is a critical technology for achieving net-zero emissions, and we believe there is a strong business case for our CCS project."

Enbridge's confidence hinges on several factors. Firstly, they believe there is a growing appetite for CCS technology amongst industrial facilities facing increasing pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. Regulations and carbon pricing mechanisms, including new U.S. EPA power plant rules that test CCS readiness, could further incentivize companies to adopt CCS solutions.

Secondly, Enbridge highlights the potential for capturing emissions from not just power plants but also from other industrial sectors like oil and gas production and clean hydrogen projects in Canada, where reforming processes can generate CO2. This broader application could significantly increase the captured carbon volume and strengthen the project's economic viability.

However, skepticism remains. Critics point to the high upfront costs associated with CCS development and the nascent stage of the technology. They argue that without a guaranteed stream of captured emissions, the project might not be financially sound. Additionally, the long-term safety and effectiveness of large-scale carbon storage solutions remain under scrutiny.

The success of Enbridge's CCS project hinges on attracting new emitters. Replacing Capital Power's contribution will be a significant challenge. Enbridge will need to demonstrate the project's economic viability and navigate the complex regulatory landscape surrounding CCS technology.

The Alberta government's position on CCS is crucial. While the government has expressed support for the technology, the level of financial and regulatory incentives offered will significantly impact investor confidence, especially as the IEA net-zero outlook underscores Canada's need for much more electricity. A clear and stable policy framework will be essential for attracting emitters to the project.

The future of Enbridge's CCS project remains uncertain. Capital Power's withdrawal is a setback, but Enbridge's continued commitment suggests they believe the technology holds promise. Whether they can find enough emitters to justify the project's development will be a critical test. The outcome will have significant implications for the future of CCS technology in Alberta and Canada's broader efforts to achieve net-zero emissions, including Canada-Germany clean energy cooperation that seeks to scale low-carbon fuels.

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