In 1957, legendary Calypso singer and civil rights activist Harry Bellefonte recorded “Jamaica Farewell,” which became a major hit in the U.S. The song’s chorus: “Sad to say, I’m on my way, won’t be back for many a day.” That looks like the theme song for nuclear power in the U.S. (and perhaps Western Europe […]

Fuel diversity is a topic that comes up often in discussions of electricity policy, generally thought to be a worthwhile, even indispensable, attribute in an energy system. A new analysis by R Street, a Washington free-market think tank, questions the conventional fealty toward fuel diversity, arguing that “a diverse fuel supply is not, in and […]

An old saw among Washington’s large class of political cynics, reflecting decades of gridlock, goes, “Democrats can’t be trusted to govern. Republicans are incapable of governing.” The Trump administration so far is proving the cynics right. Exhibit 1 is the obscure but powerful Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, nominally part of the Department of Energy but […]

The Trump administration has still not nominated candidates to fill three vacancies at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. While hardly the stuff of Washington Post A-section attention, the inability of Trump to unlock FERC, which currently has no quorum, holds up important U.S. infrastructure projects, including natural gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas export terminals. […]

A major dustup over national energy policies is brewing between state governments and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It’s about basic regulatory authorities, with the states emboldened by Trump administration rhetoric about states’ rights, and the feds handcuffed by the apparent unwillingness (or incompetence) of the White House in filling vacant FERC seats. If FERC […]

Could the software technology that is the backbone behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin provide a path for electric utilities to accommodate the swirling financial transactions that accompany distributed generation and micogrids? The software technology is “blockchain,” a transaction recording software that, according to its advocates, provides “an incorrubtible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be […]

While doing some research for a book I’m working on, I came across a June 5, 1953 memo by Hyman Rickover, head of the naval reactors branch of the Atomic Energy Commission. For those readers who don’t know, Rickover is the father of nuclear power for electricity in the U.S., both for the U.S. Navy […]

It was an astonishing event when two MIT nuclear engineering graduate students at the end of 2015 announced they had come up with a revolutionary design for a molten salt nuclear reactor that could solve many of the technological problems of conventional light-water reactors. Cofounders of the firm Transatomic – Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie […]

Harold Denton, a career federal civil servant who helped prevent panic during the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island March 28, 1979 and days after, died February 13 at his home in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 80. The cause of death was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease coupled with complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Denton was an […]

The threat of a catastrophe at California’s Oroville Dam appears to be over. California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) lifted the evacuation order that last week moved some 180,000 residents out of the area that could be flooded if the water level topped the 770-foot dam. But the dam’s troubles have also temporarily brought down […]

Did a top federal government climate scientist hide data in order to refute a record of nearly two recent decades when global warming didn’t appear to occur? Did that scientist then refuse to archive the data, preventing independent analysis? That’s the claim of John Bates, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist in charge […]

With the Trump administration’s elevation of Democrat Cheryl LaFleur to acting chairman of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the demotion of Norman Bay (and his subsequent resignation) the agency now lacks a quorum as of Friday, Feb. 3. What are the practical consequences? This is not a unique situation at FERC. In early 1993, as […]

The incoming Trump administration will see its selection of an energy and environment management team at the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency in place soon. A series of confirmation hearings this week for Trump nominees Rep. Ryan Zinke, Montana Republican, for Interior; Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for EPA; […]

The U.S. government – the Department of Energy, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the White House – has again shown how ham-handed and stereotyped it is when it comes to Asian-American nuclear scientists and fears of espionage related to China. The government appears to be profiling scientists and engineers with Chinese backgrounds. The […]

Regardless of one’s views of the social values of nuclear power — compelling cases can be made all around — as a business proposition nuclear stinks. The latest evidence comes from the giant Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, which saw a third of its market value vanish in two days of trading (20% in one day, a […]

The Obama administration has fired two parting shots at the coal industry that are more about public relations than environmental protection. They could be early and easy targets for the incoming Trump administration to show its resolve to “rescue” coal. Just about a year ago, in January, the administration announced a moratorium on new coal […]

What to make of the Trump picks for top administration jobs so far? Chuck Todd of NBC News (and moderator of Meet the Press) had an analysis on a podcast Wednesday (Dec. 14), which struck me as insightful. Todd said he sees two sets of appointees, one made up of genuine Trump picks, and the […]

When a new administration arrives in Washington, business lobbying groups routinely assert that their interests mesh with those of the new political team in town. So it is with the nuclear power industry, where the Nuclear Energy Institute shortly after Donald Trump sealed his victory in the presidential race proclaimed their common interests. Maria Korsnick, […]

It was a remarkably ugly exercise of boardroom behavior, and now will cost Duke Energy $27 million (covered by insurance and paid to Duke itself ). In 2012, Duke Energy and Progress Energy, large investor-owned utilities in the Carolinas, agreed to a merger, largely brokered by Duke’s then-CEO Jim Rogers (not the legendary investor Jim […]

A dozen prominent federal administrative law experts have criticized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s procedures in the now four-years-old dispute over whether FERC overstepped its authority in the case of the small Pennsylvania-based energy trader Powhattan Energy Fund. FERC contends that Powhatan trades in 2010 manipulated the PJM wholesale market. The issue is before a […]

Thoughts of electric generating plants don’t usually conjure images of impressive architecture. Modern power plants (with a few exceptions such as the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on California’s gorgeous coast) are mostly uninteresting industrial facilities, hardly worth a second glance. That wasn’t always the case, as a new book from Princeton Architectural Press, “Palazzos of […]

Call me a climate “lukewarmist.” I’ve long been a fan of Matt Ridley, a member of the British House of Lord and a veteran journalist with The Economist for years. I highlight his latest blog posting, which is his Oct. 19 lecture at Britain’s Royal Society. The title of Ridley’s lecture — “Global greening versus […]

Ohio utility regulators this week (Oct. 12, 2016) adopted a plan to rescue Akron-based FirstEnergy from its inability to compete in wholesale generation markets. The utility has threatened to close the generating company’s 2,210-MW Sammis coal-fired plant and the 908-MW Davis-Besse nuclear unit. The rather opaque order by the Public Utility Commission of Ohio, gives […]

Say goodnight, Tesla. You’re about to be strangled with a bowtie…a Bolt out of the blue. Sexy Tesla, losing money on every trendy $70,000 electric car it produces, and promising that its still-in-development battery electric Model 3 will come in at $35,000 and offer a range of 200 miles on a charge, is about to […]

Many advocates of a renewable revolution and the end of fossil fuels (and, for some in that cohort, the end of nuclear as well) are engaged in magical thinking. Wikipedia defines the phrase as “the attribution of causal or synchronistic relationships between actions and events which seemingly cannot be justified by reason and observation.” Topping the list […]

When Exelon earlier this year shocked the nuclear industry by declaring it would close its money-losing Clinton and Quad Cities plants in Illinois, the Chicago-based generating giant said it could change its mind if the state legislature would come up with a financial rescue package. That may happen, but the odds are against it. The […]

Apache Corp. has announced a major oil-and-gas discovery in an area of Texas that geologists previously dismissed as not likely to have recoverable hydrocarbons. That’s good news for energy consumers, including electric generators, although not particularly welcome for energy producers, where it could contribute to continuing soft prices. The Wall Street Journal reported that the […]

Two reading recommendations for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. One is non-fiction, the other is fiction. Both are relevant to those of us who seek to understand the U.S. electrical system. Both are excellent reads. Gretchen Bakke, The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future, is my nonfiction choice. Bakke gets it. […]

Golly. Gosh. Gee whiz. Did you know you can’t just plug in wind and solar capacity to replace coal and nukes? Clean in, dirty out? Of course, readers of this blog and POWER magazine understand the problem of renewable intermittency. Solar and wind MWs don’t equal coal, nuclear, or gas MWs. It’s been a topic […]

Ohio’s Thomas Alva Edison will take his well-deserved place in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington September 21, joining luminaries from the other states in the building’s rotunda, also known as the “Old Hall.” A rare bipartisan group from Congress announced the honor for arguably the greatest inventor in world history. The life-size […]