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Washington, D.C., January 3, 2014 – Senate Energy Committee Chairman Mary Landrieu? That’s likely in the second session of the 113th Congress, with the Louisiana Democrat moving up to take over a committee vitally important to U.S. energy interests (and to her home state of Louisiana, which is an important component of this story). It […]

December 3, 2013 – The World Bank and the United Nations last month held a news conference to tout their plan to raise big bucks — $600 billion or so — for electrification in developing countries (and energy efficiency in the developed world, although that’s a dubious proposition). When the bank’s Jim Yong Kim and […]

Cows get little respect these days. Except, of course, when cow is in the form of a two-inch-thick steak cooked medium-well and served still sizzling from the grill. Others prefer their beef served in a sack passed through a window. Either way, your favorite serving of beef is under attack. First came the revelation that […]

Do you remember the many predictions in past years that oil production has peaked world-wide and we will soon deplete this natural resource? M. King Hubbert, a petroleum engineer with the Shell Research Lab, developed his theory of Peak Oil  in 1956, predicting U.S. production of oil would peak between 1965 and 1970 and thereafter […]

Washington, D.C., 15 November 2013 — The literature about the development of the atomic bomb, its use against Japan, and subsequent developments, is extensive and rich (including my own book, “Too Dumb to Meter”). But a new book by Graham Farmelo — “Churchill’s Bomb: A Hidden Story of Science, War, and Politics” — provides new […]

Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2013 — Attempting to deflect continuing charges that its upcoming policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions don’t have popular support in the country, the Environmental Protection Agency this week wrapped up a series of 11 meetings around the country, which the agency has billed as “listening sessions.” The Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has put forward three excuses to justify its increasing regulatory authority over the natural gas, an authority that was specifically given to the States in the 2008 Energy Policy Act. The first was the excuse that fracking has caused pollution of potable water wells. After years of searching, the […]

On August 9, 2013, President Obama signed into law the “Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013” (the “Act”).  This legislation, passed with overwhelming support in the House and Senate, streamlines the regulatory approval process for certain hydroelectric power (“hydropower”) projects.  Perhaps more importantly, the Act reflects bipartisan recognition of the benefits of hydropower. According to […]

Washington, D.C., October 30, 2013 — The evidence that the South American coast country of Chile is going heavily for wind power is evident at every major port, from Arica in the desert north to Puerto Montt in the Patagonian temperate rainforest in the south. That’s my observation from a three-week trip by sea down […]

In February 2013 I wrote an editorial entitled “Where’s the Warming?” My argument was that the IPCC was facing a significant problem in writing the then-upcoming AR5 because the most recent global temperature data was showing a drop in global average temperatures contrary to its computer model results. One of the reviewers of the draft […]

The cost of producing electricity by natural gas and coal finished 2012 in a dead heat and future cost trends are very difficult to predict. One can read the projections (not predictions) by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and find evidence that coal is disadvantaged based on the rising cost of environmental compliance but the […]

POWER Associate Editor Sonal Patel reported on Sept. 12 that “nearly 100 renewable energy and environmental groups and businesses have asked the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to reevaluate renewable energy forecasts, alleging the agency’s projections don’t reflect ‘the current status and recent, real-world growth rates of renewables.’” The EIA forecasts are presented in its Annual […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2013 – Within minutes of the White House announcement that Ron Binz was its choice to become chairman of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June, I got an email from a D.C. public relations firm, VennSquared, lauding Binz and larded with pre-cooked quotes from industry executives and others […]

What do editors and energy industry cybersecurity experts have in common? They both recognize the importance of language. Specifically, presenters and participants in workshops at the EnergySec Summit in Denver this week provided guidance and asked questions about terms, definitions, and interpretations of everything from generic concepts (“What is a framework?”) to specific words used […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., September 9, 2013 – As continuing revelations of lying and incompetence at Tokyo Electric Power Co. have piled up in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns of early 2011, an inescapable question arises: Can Japan’s largest utility survive. The educated guess here is that Tokyo Electric Power Co. is […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 29 August 2013 – The surprise decision by Entergy Corp. to shut down its 620-MW Vermont Yankee single-unit nuclear plant at the end of its current operating cycle (late next year) is further evidence of how difficult it has become to make money with merchant nuclear plants. The decision, which […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., August 19, 2013 — What will it take to finally debunk the idea that the U.S. is experiencing extreme weather events driven by man-made global warming? This notion is widespread — indeed, almost ubiquitous. President Obama referenced it in his summertime speech on climate policy. Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., August 17, 2013 — How fortunate that the U.S. does not have and has never had an energy policy. Policy, particularly big policy aimed at big issues and big events, is an enemy of progress, as policy seeks to forestall opportunities that are counter to policy. Social and government policy […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., August 16, 2013 – Will this week’s D.C. Circuit Court decision put Yucca Mountain on a final path toward becoming the nation’s dump for spent nuclear fuel? Unlikely. Here’s why, in two words: Harry Reid. The tenacious Senate majority leader from Nevada (yes, that’s right, Nevada, where Yucca Mountain is […]

By Kennedy Maize A divided federal appeals court today ordered the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume action on licensing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada. in a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said inaction by the commission at the direction of the Obama administration early in […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 3, 2013 – As a daily reporter for and an editor of energy publications, online and offline, I deal with a lot of industry and government websites. The typical bell curve applies in my experience. Some are really quite good. Some stink. Most are somewhere in the middle. But […]

By Gail Reitenbach Santa Fe, N.M., June 26, 2013 — If you’re looking for an example of just how complex—and critical—the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change can be, look west. Those involved in the power generation industry are understandably focused on a single element of President […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 25, 2013 – In many ways, what is not in the plan that President Obama rolled out at his (not open to the public) speech at Georgetown University today is as interesting as what is in it. Many have noted the absence of references to the pending decision on […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 10, 2013 – Working on a book involving, among lots of other stuff, electric vehicles, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching star-crossed Fisker Automotive. In the process, I’ve looked at a lot of images of the company’s iconic Karma sedan, designed by Henrik Fisker. It’s a stunning […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 7, 2013 – It comes as no surprise that Southern California Edison this morning announced it would permanently shut both of its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station nuclear reactors, a total of 2,350 MW of base load generating capacity. The signs of inevitable shutdown have been evident at least […]

By Robynn Andracsek, P.E., Burns & McDonnell Most power plant emission control efforts have focused on mercury, NOx and SO2 emissions, but in recent years PM2.5 has risen in importance for Clean Air Act compliance. PM2.5 is a complex and not well understood pollutant, even though it was first regulated via a National Ambient Air […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., April 29, 2013 – Last week, a bipartisan group of Senators, all of them mired in a failed paradigm, proposed a solution to the nation’s long-festering problem of what to do with what comes out of the back end of nuclear power plants. It’s nasty stuff, that’s for sure. But […]

By David Wagman Denver, April 25, 2013 — Southern Company said the 582-MW Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle power plant under construction for its Mississippi Power utility will cost as much as $333 million more than the $2.88-billion cost cap state regulators are allowing for the project. The company said during an April 24 […]

By David Wagman Denver, April 23, 2013 — Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) is expected to release this July regulations for restarting the nation’s fleet of nuclear generating stations. Much of that capacity shut down following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Those nuclear closures threw domestic Japanese and global energy markets into turmoil as […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., April 17, 2013 – One of my oldest friends in the energy business is Jerry Halvorsen, now semi-retired and spending as much time as he can fishing in Wisconsin. But Jerry, who lobbied for nuclear, coal, and gas pipeline interests during his long career (and was a Democrat among a […]