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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 […]