Blog

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 […]