A group based in the western U.S. said that the growing use of renewable energy will require more effort to maintain reliability.

The group said it will require the western region to increase planning in the coming years, Reuters reported.

The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) said in the assessment on reliability that planning reserve margins for next year increased. The assessment also said they went from 16.9% in 2021 to 18.3% in 2022.

There is a need to keep a higher priority on grid reliability, according to experts.

WECC said, "If nothing is done to mitigate the long-term risks within the Western Interconnection, by 2025 we anticipate severe risks to the reliability and security of the interconnection."

Experts credit the issue to resources like solar and wind, which only produce power in certain conditions, like when sun shines or wind blows.

A Maryland researcher has close ties with colleagues who made a breakthrough scientific discovery that could change the world and the reliance on fossil fuels.

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Library in California produced a reaction replicating the same fusion that powers the sun. This signals the possibility of not only a carbon-free energy source but an infinite clean energy source. The Biden administration wants the U.S. to lead the world in this technology.

Researchers at the University of Maryland are working on their own magnetic confinement fusion project. Carlos Romero-Talamas is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and visiting professor with the University of Maryland who is actively involved with College Park's energy research facility.

"Just the fact that they achieved it is a very important milestone," Romero-Talamas said.

Romero-Talamas said he was very excited to hear that his colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were able to produce a net-energy gain through fusion.

"It is very exciting because they finally solved or demonstrated that they can compress a capsule with laser energy, which is something that wasn't out for many years," Romero-Talamas said.

Romero-Talamas has a special tie to the laboratory having studied there as a graduate student and scholar.

"We've been talking about that for years, and so it's gratifying to see my colleagues at Livermore finally achieved that milestone," Romero-Talamas said.

While the Livermore experiment used lasers to achieve its goal, Romero-Talamas has a similar project in the works in College Park that uses magnets.

Experts said real-world use of fusion is still decades away, but it's certainly a step in the right direction toward clean, carbon and virtually waste-free energy.

As an example, Romero-Talamas said powerplants could run on minimal amounts of lithium instead of coal.

"For a powerplant that produces, say, a megawatt of power, you will need something like 9,000 tons of coal to power the powerplant. With fusion energy, you will need about 2 kilogram of or 4 kilogram, more or less, of lithium," Romero-Talamas said.

Watch the video above for the full story.

Prices at the pump continue to skyrocket and break records in some cities across the country. Experts say several factors are to blame, including the rising tensions in Russia and Ukraine.

“I think these prices are ridiculous,” said Joel Gordillo while getting gas Tuesday, paying more than $5 a gallon for premium gas. “I mean, look at this, this is too much.”

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.53 on Tuesday.

At a gas station in San Diego, a gallon of regular was $4.99 Tuesday; all other options were more than $5.

“I’m just waiting for them to drop down, hopefully soon; the struggle is real, you know, a lot of people can’t pay these gas prices right now,” said Ernesto Tapia, who was gassing up his car.

Unfortunately, some experts don’t think the prices will be going down any time soon.

“February of last year, oil was at about $61 a barrel,” said Marie Montgomery, a spokesperson for AAA of Southern California. She said that number was $96 a barrel on Tuesday. She said since Friday, wholesale gas prices in Southern California have spiked.

Montgomery said three major factors have contributed to the increase in gas prices, one of the most significant- rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

“For California specifically, we don’t get any oil or gasoline from Russia, but of course, the tensions are rising oil prices worldwide, and we have to pay those oil prices, so that’s the main issue we’re seeing,” said Montgomery.

Russia is one of the world’s leading oil producers, and if leaders choose to withhold that oil, we’ll likely continue to feel it at the pump.

Montgomery says other reasons we’re seeing high prices are inflation on a national and state level and the state’s early switch to a summer blend of gasoline, which is more expensive to produce than the winter blend.

For now, there appears to be no end in sight, but Montgomery said there are things to consider when trying to save money at the pump.

“It’s more important now than ever to aggressively shop around for the cheapest prices. You can still find many stations out there that are competitive, not great prices, but well below the average,” said Montgomery.

Montgomery said the AAA mobile app will show users the lowest gas prices nearby. “Virtually shop around; make sure you’re not paying that average price,” she said.

This story was first reported by Mimi Elkalla at KGTV in San Diego, California.

SHELBY, Mt. — A veteran of the oil industry, Curtis Shuck is on a new path these days: cleaning up the mess left behind by orphaned wells.

"I was raised in a family where we had a principle of leave it better than the way you found it, and so I just, I couldn't just fathom that this was left behind and that people thought that it was okay," he said.

Orphaned wells are oil or natural gas wells that have been abandoned by companies for one reason or another. Like a straw stuck into a juice box, these wells have been left open, many for decades, and are leaking toxins, like methane gas, into the environment.

"Many of these have no control at the surface. You see it’s literally just an open hole at the surface," he said, showing an orphaned well from the 1920's in a field outside of Shelby, Montana.

This is why he started the Well Done foundation, a nonprofit that uses donations to find, measure, report and plug up orphaned wells. It's a process that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"It was always everybody's dirty little secret. Nobody wanted to talk about it because it was a black eye on the industry, a black eye on the regulatory agencies," said Shuck.

But now, the problem of orphaned wells is becoming too big to be ignored. It’s hard to get exact numbers because the previous owners of the wells are defunct, but the environmental protection agency estimates there are at least 2.1 million wells across the united states.

From California to New York, at least half of the states in America have clusters of abandoned wells.

"Orphan Wells themselves are somewhere between a 10th of a percent and a third of a percent of the U.S. climate footprint," said Adam Peltz, senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Funs.

He said that along with being a leaker of methane gas, orphaned wells are also tied to ground water contamination and air toxins.

"That potentially has public health ramifications impacts on property values, which have impacts downstream on like school funding and stuff like that," he said.

The infrastructure bill that’s been made law has set aside $250 million to plug wells. Peltz says the money will be able to plug 80-100,000 wells. It’s a dent but he believes more needs to be done.

"We need to figure out how to adjust policies so that those wells can be plugged in a timely fashion at the end of their lives," said Peltz.

Meanwhile, Curtis and Well Done have been in communication with different states about best practices to plug orphaned wells, hopefully inspiring others to join the effort to put a cap on this issue.

PARIS (AP) — Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose slightly in December compared with the same month of 2019, indicating the sharp drop seen due to the pandemic was short-lived.

Figures released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency show emissions from the production and use of oil, gas and coal were 2% higher in December 2020 than a year earlier.

The Paris-based agency said a resurgence in economic activity coupled with a lack of clean energy policies mean many countries are now seeing higher emissions than before the coronavirus outbreak.

Scientists have previously calculated that CO2 emissions fell by 7% during 2020 as people stayed home because of the pandemic. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.

The agency says the rebound in emissions is a stark warning that not enough is being done to accelerate clean energy transitions worldwide.

“If governments don’t move quickly with the right energy policies, this could put at risk the world’s historic opportunity to make 2019 the definitive peak in global emissions,” said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director. “In March 2020, the IEA urged governments to put clean energy at the heart of their economic stimulus plans to ensure a sustainable recovery. But our numbers show we are returning to carbon-intensive business-as-usual.”

Birol says this year is pivotal for international climate action, but the latest numbers are a sharp reminder of the immense challenge we face in rapidly transforming the global energy system.