Commentary

Regulators are asked to balance a societal need with the cost burden placed on those who pay for the service. Sometimes they forget that it’s other people’s money at stake.

The electric power generation landscape in both America and the rest of the world is poised to undergo a fundamental transformation in the next several decades. Global energy consumption is projected to rise dramatically by 2035, and the methods by which we generate electricity and the fuels we choose to use will begin to change as well.

It’s not just hard finding good help these days. It’s hard finding honest help, too.

I recently outlined the top four regulatory obstacles facing existing U.S. coal-fired power plants in the coming years. That list, although not comprehensive, covered issues that owners of coal plants should be concerned about in the near term. However, in the long term, there is one regulatory development that dwarfs all others.

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard invited Jill Duggan, of the European Commission Directorate General of Climate Action and the UK government’s head of international emissions trading, to help bolster Gillard’s push for support of a carbon tax early in March. However, when interviewed on a morning show, Duggan was unable to estimate either the cost or the benefits of the UK’s program. In fact, the interview was a complete disaster.

The "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny" Act could put the kibosh on the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulatory surge.

The recent tensions in the Middle East and their impact on oil and gasoline prices remind us that the U.S. remains heavily dependent on foreign nations—some of them unstable—to meet many of our energy needs. Of course, oil will continue to have an important place in our energy mix, and expanding our domestic reserves makes sense.

A new article in Bioscience looks again at the connection between economic growth and energy demand, shedding little light on the subject and further demonstrating the limits of neo-Malthusianism. Of course there is a relationship between energy and economic growth, but what is it? No answers here; only a doomsday prediction.

Those aren’t my words—it’s the title of a 2005 article, brought to my attention by Cal Beisner, which uses probability theory to "prove" that "…most claimed research findings are false." While the article comes from the medical research field, it is sufficiently general that some of what it discusses can be applied to global warming research as well.

National Labor Relations Board Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon is continuing his focus on remedies in unfair labor practice cases involving union organizing campaigns. On September 30, 2010, he issued a memorandum on Section 10(j) injunctions for discriminatory discharges during such campaigns. Now he has released another memorandum, this one targeting remedies regional offices should seek when they issue complaints in ULP cases involving campaign activity.

Chill out, relax, enjoy the ride, and take the real road to success. It’s the journey that counts and you can’t get to the end of the road without traveling along it.

Prior to the crash, the renewable energy industry—including wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources—was on a roll. In 2007 and 2008, the U.S. wind power sector alone added over 13,500 MW of new projects, enough to power almost 4 million homes.

On December 23, 2010, one day before the Yuletide season, when members of Congress, the media, and Tea Party activists are least likely to watchdog the federal bureaucracy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced rulemakings to establish New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power plants and refineries. Or maybe "whispered" would be more accurate.

Arizona Public Service’s (APS) plan to close three older coal-fueled units at the Four Corners Power Plant in New Mexico and buy out Southern California Edison’s 48% share of the two remaining units is a creative means of surviving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) committed action against coal-fueled generation.

President Obama’s Jan. 25th State of the Union address proposed that the nation commit itself to developing "clean energy" sources of electricity over the next two decades. A critical assessment of his proposal finds that it’s just a rehash of previously rejected legislative proposals. In fact, to me, it sounds like Waxman-Markey all over again. I have a better idea.

Coal mining, and related industries that consume coal, have attracted quite a bit of attention from the federal government as of late. Most of that attention has focused on how to further, or "better," regulate the industry. The EPA is now moving to regulate downstream conductivity of surface mining runoff.

A million possibilities and distractions are in the business environment. Tom Hall and Wally Bock, authors of the new book Ruthless Focus, say the companies that win in the long term are the ones that can drown out the background noise and keep dancing with the strategy that brought them to the party.

With climate legislation dead in the U.S., it is worthwhile to take a look at how discussions of energy and environmental policy ebb and flow in the country, generally without reaching serious resolution.

A key challenge for new leaders is to make a transition from actually doing the work to making sure that the work gets done. That takes a mind shift.

Whatever happened to the venerable military institution of KP? It’s been outsourced, along with a lot of other tasks in the work environment. Outsourcing often makes sense, but it isn’t a panacea.

It’s been almost three years since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued its decision vacating the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Revision Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule. Since then, the utility industry has been in a holding pattern with respect to the control of hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions.

Energy is the most regulated sector of the American economy, making public-private partnerships essential to scaling the solar industry. Such partnerships have helped other energy sectors to reach scale over the past hundred years.

As the United States grapples with how best to address climate change and conservation—whether by taxing carbon, cap and trade, or setting higher renewable portfolio standards—an effective approach exists at the state level to reduce electricity producers’ carbon emissions: restructuring.

On November 8, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, et al. v. Huffman. It’s an opinion that should be of great interest to government agencies and others who find themselves in a position of seeking to remediate water quality problems left by third parties.

Republicans picked up more than enough seats during the mid-term elections to assume control of the House, but don’t expect any relief from the administration’s war on coal-fired power plants.

Biomass energy has been an up-and-down industry for decades. As public awareness grows, it inevitably influences new tax legislation and environmental regulations. Two recent events have made the climate for development of this renewable resource even more volatile.

Fannie Flagg’s fictional Aunt Elner Shimfissle reminds us of the power and the glory of electricity, a lesson we shall not forget.

The smart grid, a truly disruptive business force, will require a new regulatory paradigm and new approaches to the electric utility business model.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns had it right. Using the power to see ourselves as we really are, and as others see us, is a key to leadership in business.

Sometimes we do things for the wrong reason . . . that turns out to be exactly right.