Blog

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 31, 2011 — By the time you read this, the event may have already happened. The Washington rumor mill is rumbling loudly that President Obama will name John Bryson, former California electric company executive, to be commerce secretary, replacing Gary Locke, who will be named U.S. ambassador to China. […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 8, 2011 — Anyone who has followed energy politics in the U.S. for the past 15 years or so knows that Bill Richardson is a buffoon. Back in August 2003, following the mammoth Northeast blackout, Richardson famously said, “We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid.” Richardson […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 2, 2011 – The Obama administration’s response to current high gasoline prices is so 1970s…or 1980s…or 1990s…or 2000s. Been there, done that, dead end. Washington seems to be perfumed with a silliness pheromone that gets loosed in the Nation’s Capital whenever gasoline prices go up. As pump prices climb, […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., April 19, 2011 – An article in the Washington Post last week highlights why it is folly for government to try to pick winners in complex, technological markets. In this case, it is the market for cars, where the Obama administration is betting – with your money and mine – […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., April 11, 2011 – Now that the children of all ages have stopped holding their breath until the government turns blue, we can get back to more important subjects, such as what the federal government should look like, how it should relate to the states, how much should it spend, […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., March 14, 2011, 10:05 a.m. – Only France has been more resolute about relying on nuclear power than Japan. The reasons for both countries’ nuclear energy policies are generally the same: neither possesses much in the way of domestic energy resources. So nuclear power – including breeder reactors and a […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., March 12, 2011, 10:30 a.m. EST – For those who covered both the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear disasters, there is an eerie symmetry with what is happening in Japan. In the prior cases – much different from each other and, most likely, very different from what is happening […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., March 11, 2011 – At this writing, 7:45 p.m. EST, it is hard to be optimistic about what is happening at Japan’s Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant. Matt Wald of the New York Times reports, based on Japanese accounts, that radiation levels in the control room are “1,000 times above […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., February 24, 2011 – The most committed global warming alarmists are alarmed by the fact that – contrary to their claims that the science is settled – formidable scientists with worldwide reputations disagree. Credentialed experts such as Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer do not buy what Jim Hansen, Michael Mann, […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 22 February 2011 – NRG Energy’s South Texas two-unit nuclear project, which has been on life support for months, may soon win a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, according to several industry sources. But the money for the loan guarantee may get tangled up in Congress’s current […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., February 15, 2011 – Can Energy Secretary Steven Chu learn to lobby? The fate of the Obama administration’s budget for his department hangs in the answer to that question. So does the fate of the tattered remnants of the strategy the administration brought to Washington to deal with its apocalyptic […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., February 5, 2011 – We are all familiar, sometimes too much so, with utility regulation. As customers, we encounter the results regulation every day. Many of us, in our business lives, work with (or against), ponder, and praise (or damn) utility regulation. But none of us has given more thought, […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., January 28, 2011 – The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the 112th Congress won’t be your father’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (and certainly not Lisa Murkowski’s father’s committee). With a slew of newcomers – mostly Republican – and none of them particularly attuned to the way […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., January 24, 2011 — While many of us have fixated on electric approaches to vehicle propulsion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been working on another technology that may turn out to be a killer ap for conventional gasoline cars. Earlier this month, with little fanfare or hoopla, Chrysler announced […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., January 17, 2011 – With Hu Jintao, China’s president, in Washington this week, it is worth taking a look at that mammoth country’s energy future. More specifically, it is valuable to look at China’s announced ambitious nuclear power agenda and ask whether it can be realized. China at the end […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., January 11, 2011 — The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week engaged in a spitting match with the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. FERC won. At issue is the commission’s Dec. 16 order sorting out the incredibly complex issue of how to connect remote renewable generation into the […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., December 8, 2010 — Rebuffing the Tea Party contingent and right wing gas bags such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, House Republicans have picked Michigander Fred Upton to chair the all-important House Energy and Commerce Committee in the 112th Congress. Upton, who has represented the southwestern corner of Michigan […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., December 1, 2010 – At this point, probably only one person in America believes that Lisa Murkowski did not win Alaska’s November election to the U.S. Senate. Unfortunately, that one person is defeated Republican nominee Joe Miller, who refuses to drop what has become an entirely quixotic effort to stave […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D,C., November 23, 2010 — Republican blood is flowing in the halls of Congress as the GOP works to establish leadership and jurisdiction of its new House majority. The territory at stake involves energy and environment. In the House, where the gore is great, a gun fight is underway over who […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Nov. 11, 2010 — Pardon my cynicism, but I don’t for a minute believe that the Republican electoral sweep earlier this month will result in significant cuts in federal spending anytime soon. Am I charging that Republican electoral doctrine is a tissue of hypocrisy? Yes, I am, and we will […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Nov. 5, 2010 – It could be a sign of the times, or merely a temporal coincidence. Liza Heinzerling this week announced she is leaving the Environmental Protection Agency, where she has been a hard-charging policy chief, to return to teaching at the Georgetown University law school. The departure came […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Nov. 4, 2010 — Here’s another major blow to the increasingly problematic nuclear renaissance: France’s “European Pressurized Water” (EPR) reactor design is “in crisis,” according to a new analysis by a British economist  and nuclear energy policy analyst. The problems with the “Generation III+” reactor are so serious that they […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Oct. 25, 2010 – Over the years, presidents have appointed energy secretaries with a variety of backgrounds: policy wonk, business person, political apparatchik, former elected official, military officer, even dentist. None have exactly worked out. Scratch that. None have worked out at all. The latest incarnation at the fortress-like Forrestal […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Sept. 29, 2010 – I love Alaska. The beauty of the mountain ranges, rivers, islands, and glaciers is stunning. The diversity of habitat and wildlife inspires wonder. The summer days and winter nights are filled with mystery. The people, of all ethnicities and political persuasions, are endearing and quirky. My […]

By Kennedy Maize Let us hope that the false hope of fast breeder reactors fueled with plutonium reprocessed from spent light water reactor fuel is finally properly interred. A new report from the same MIT crew that examined the future of nuclear power in 2003 buries the pipe dream of breeder reactors, or, at least, […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Sept. 7, 2010 — The time has come for all of us to abandon the sterile, and now futile, brawl over massive federal legislation to deal with the alleged problem of global warming. For the advocates of measures such as carbon taxes, cap-and-trade (a second-best tax), or Environmental Protection Agency […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Sept. 3, 2010 – Look for significant changes in the way Congress addresses energy policy and legislation when the 112th Congress convenes in January 2011. By most expert accounts, Democrats are going to suffer major losses at the polls in November, with many pundits predicting a Republican takeover of the […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Aug. 23, 2010 — It’s time to stop fretting about climate change and start worrying about space weather. In an opinion article in the Aug. 15, 2010 New York Times, journalist Lawrence E. Joseph raises the issue of the havoc a major solar storm could have on modern electric power […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Aug. 9, 2010 –  Washington is abuzz with talk of a lame-duck session of Congress after the November mid-term elections. Many pundits seem to assume that the Democratic leadership will call the solons into session after the elections (with the Democrats having done very poorly, possibly losing their control of […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 29, 2010 — More hurdles have arisen for the nascent nuclear renaissance. It now appears that federal loan guarantees for new nukes could turn out to be a dead end, meaning that only two utilities, at most, will get Department of Energy support for new reactors. In passing the […]