Of all of the secretaries of energy since the cabinet-level agency came to life in 1977, James R. Schlesinger is the only one likely to be remembered by historians. Jim Schlesinger, the first energy secretary, died of pneumonia in a Baltimore hospital March 27. He was 85. I knew Schlesinger slightly, covering him as Jimmy […]

Washington, D.C., March 23, 2014 – Legendary 20th Century baseball executive Branch Rickey famously said, “Luck is the residue of design.” It’s a wise observation. But sometimes luck is just that. Science Daily reports this month that on July 23, 2102, an enormous solar storm – resulting from two nearly simultaneous explosions on the sun, […]

Washington, D.C., March 17, 2014 — What is the most poorly managed federal agency in Washington? There are plenty of contenders. But based on recent evidence, the clear winner in my mind has to be the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. First, there is the laughably sad tale of John Beale, long a fixture in EPA’s […]

Washington, D.C., March 14, 2014 – Renewable portfolio standards, mandating specific percentages of the generating mix be met with renewable generating technologies, are popular among many U.S. state governments. But does it make sense to impose a nationwide renewable standard? Absolutely not, said the principals at Carnegie Mellon University’s Electricity Industry Center six years ago […]

Washington, D.C., March 5, 2014 – The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, which the White House rolled out yesterday, would stop funding for the project at the Savannah River weapons site to combined weapons-grade plutonium with uranium to produce a mixed-oxide (MOX) civilian reactor fuel. As I reported late last month, the administration […]

Washington, D.C., March 2, 2024 –Is there life off the electric grid? Roscoe Bartlett, 87, a Republican who represented my western Maryland congressional district in Congress for 20 years before losing a reelection campaign to a Democrat in 2012, has long been preaching about the limits of the electric grid. He’s been an outspoken advocate […]

Washington, D.C., February 28, 2104 – In 1946, George Orwell wrote a brilliant essay about how language and politics intersect, which has relevance today. In this essay, “Politics and the English Language,” published in Horizon, Orwell makes the essential point: bad thinking begets bad writing and bad writing begets bad thinking. He says succinctly, “But […]

Washington, D.C., February 27, 2014 – The Department of Energy’s behind-schedule, over-budget project at the Savannah River weapons plant in South Carolina to blend weapons-grade plutonium with uranium to make civilian nuclear fuel appears to have the blind staggers. Don’t be surprised if the project, which enjoys enormous support in South Carolina and Georgia, is […]

Washington, D.C., February 26, 2014 – As a journalist for some 40 years, I have learned to be skeptical about almost everything around me. The credo of journalism, beaten into me by education and life lessons is, as the journalistic cliché has it: “Your mother loves you? Check it out.” So it’s time to reiterate […]

February 24, 2014 – Here’s an interesting conundrum, posed by UBS utility analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith in a recent report sent to his clients: If anti-nuclear and economic forces succeed in closing several nuclear plants in the New York in the near term, it could cripple the state’s plans for reducing greenhouse gas emission and devastate […]