General

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, […]