Commentary

What does science teach us about how to test our ideas about the world around us? How do hypotheses differ from theory, and what does that distinction mean?

Does the House Republicans’ alternative to the Democratic energy plan—with the GOP’s proposal for 100 new nuclear plants in the next 20 years—pass the straight-faced test? Not even close, and the GOP knows it.

Since 1882, when Thomas Edison installed the world’s first central generating plant in New York City, utility business models have varied little from the basic one: cover costs and generate profit by selling more electricity. But today, unprecedented challenges are sweeping through the industry. Soon utilities will face yet another new challenge: the large-scale implementation of distributed solar power, which can result in lower electricity sales. As solar implementation further challenges business-as-usual models, what’s a forward-thinking utility to do?

It’s not easy writing energy legislation, as the experience of the past demonstrates. Nor are the results always in the public interest.

I was one of the scientists counted as supporting the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1996 report. It turns out that effort was bogus and intellectually dishonest.

A [state utility regulatory] commissioner asked recently, “By what metrics can I assess my commission’s performance?” That’s a tough question.

It’s not that the U.S. doesn’t have any energy policy, says this veteran of energy politics and head of a major Washington energy and environmental think tank. It’s that we have too many, and they aren’t coordinated and coherent.

The U.S. may have created the roadmap for the next generation of nuclear reactors, but other countries are farther down the road to development. The U.S. Department of Energy initiated the Generation IV Roadmap development project in January 2000. Soon, nine other countries joined, including some of the largest commercial nuclear powers, such as France, […]

Demonstrating sound knowledge, having profound passion, and being consistent with your message are essential when trying to persuade someone to adopt your point of view. A recent press briefing hosted by a well-known pro-coal industry group failed on all counts.

Utilities generally support a cap-and-trade approach to reducing carbon emissions—but only when the objective of any legislation is to promote cost-effective reductions. The least-cost alternative for consumers requires free distribution of all carbon allowances.

The Obama administration is giving mixed signals on global warming: claiming the right to regulate greenhouse gases but also expecting Congress to rewrite climate change regulations.

Bad bosses. We’ve all had them, we’ve all coped with them. They are a chronic management problem. But what can we do about them? A management guru offers some advice on how to deal with them and how to avoid becoming one.

Climate change legislation, despite its environmental focus, will raise vast sums of money. The Washington turf wars over how to spend the money will dwarf the skirmishes we’ve seen so far.

Did a recent Supreme Court decision give a license to firms to use “best practices” concepts to gut effective environmental standards?

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in early April granted Entergy Nuclear an extended license for the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey, the oldest operating nuke in the U.S. The plant will now be able to operate until 2029, unless the NRC at some point in the future grants a further license extension. Nuclear power advocate William Tucker, with tongue in cheek, advocated closing the plant and other elderly units in the Northeast, in a commentary in the National Review. Tucker’s comments are reprinted with permission.

As a democrat (that’s with a small “d” and a large “D”), I have a great deal of faith in the wisdom of the American people. That’s why I’m not surprised that the hysteria over alleged man-made global warming is in rapid decline in public opinion polls. It’s no longer in the top 10, or event the top 15, of issues that Americans care about.

When the housing bubble burst, it exposed an unseemly alliance between special interests and the financial sector. Activists wanted homes for all at any cost, and lenders were happy to oblige despite the inherent risk.

The 30-year anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident passed with little fanfare because our nuclear plant fleet today operates with high reliability and struts an excellent safety record. That wasn’t always the case.

The most lasting effect the Three Mile Island nuclear accident had on me was what it taught me about crisis communications—lessons that served me well over the 25-plus years that followed and especially after the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

Opponents of locating new energy facilities near where they work and live are often painted with a broad brush as activists or called some other pejorative term. How do you differentiate the professional opponents of any new development from those who have valid reasons to stand up and be heard?

Investors are continuing to bail out of alternative energy stocks—good, promising companies such as ABB, American Superconductor, Evergreen Solar, and Itron. These companies and many like them were Wall Street darlings not that long ago. Not anymore.

Al Gore, in his recent New York Times op-ed titled "The Climate for Change," calls for a "$400 billion investment over ten years to construct a national smart grid to distribute renewable energy." Echelon supports these proposed investments. We also believe the answer is not just in constructing something new but in transforming the existing […]

President Obama’s recent comments to the Business Roundtable included two blunders that showed his misunderstanding of the fundamentals of the cap-and-trade approach to reducing carbon emissions that is the centerpiece of his 2010 budget request.

Can clean energy investments carry their important share of the U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act load? Here’s a contrarian answer: It’s up to the utility industry and its regulators.

The Obama administration’s energy secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, has quickly become Dr. Who. As a recent New York Times article noted, Chu has repeatedly stumbled politically, demonstrating that being a Nobelist in physics is no qualification for the bumps-and-grinds of energy politics in Washington.

For decades, it’s been well-known in the country and western (C&W) music industry that "if you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band." The guitars, drums, harmonicas, and piano — they’re all expected on stage. But as the legendary C&W group Alabama recognized, a fiddle is a must when performing […]

As the Obama administration takes office, energy resource allocation is both the most critical national security issue and the most critical economic issue facing us. It will be difficult to sustain and improve economic growth unless we implement policies that result in the more rational use of energy resources, especially those for which there is a finite supply.

The new U.S. president will have a new set of priorities and regulatory policies that will affect the production and generation of electricity. The specifics of the new administration’s energy policy priorities were scant when this article was written, pre-inauguration, but the industry’s challenges are fairly well defined.

By Roger Feldman
Public-private partnerships are a key to preventing a chill from settling over the green ambitions of the newly capital-strapped state and municipal public sectors.

Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
One of the key campaign promises made by our new president was that his administration would create five million new “green” jobs by spending $150 billion dollars over the next 10 years. There are serious and substantial reasons that this level of job creation won’t happen in the near future.