General

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Aug. 23, 2010 — It’s time to stop fretting about climate change and start worrying about space weather. In an opinion article in the Aug. 15, 2010 New York Times, journalist Lawrence E. Joseph raises the issue of the havoc a major solar storm could have on modern electric power […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., Aug. 9, 2010 –  Washington is abuzz with talk of a lame-duck session of Congress after the November mid-term elections. Many pundits seem to assume that the Democratic leadership will call the solons into session after the elections (with the Democrats having done very poorly, possibly losing their control of […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 29, 2010 — More hurdles have arisen for the nascent nuclear renaissance. It now appears that federal loan guarantees for new nukes could turn out to be a dead end, meaning that only two utilities, at most, will get Department of Energy support for new reactors. In passing the […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 28, 2010 — Will global warming overwhelm the U.S. with illegal Mexican immigrants? That’s the preposterous claim by three Princeton academicians in an online article for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and it has prompted guffaws from among sophisticated readers. In the article – “Linkages among […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 22, 2010 — Is anyone really surprised that Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has finally declared major energy legislation dead? For weeks, Reid has been singing words from a country classic that I’m sure he knew were false: “Mother’s not dead, she’s only sleeping.” Today, he recognized the […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 8, 2010 — It’s become a cliche that government should not try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. But cliches are useful by the circumstance that they are often correct. So now we come to government loan guarantees, a classic example of government picking winners and losers. […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 28, 2010 — Sen. Robert Byrd — the most important coal-state legislator in the country — had barely checked into the hospital last week before speculation began about who might succeed the 92-year-old Democratic legend if he were to die. When Byrd died on Sunday, the rumor mill kicked […]

[Editor’s note: This commentary first appeared in The Energy Daily, our sister publication on June 14. Llewellyn King was the founder and, for many years, publisher, of The Energy Daily and I worked for him for a decade as a reporter. We often disagreed on policy and politics, but I completely agree with this take […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 11. 2010 — Their lips say “yes”, but their eyes say “no”. That’s my take on the offer of “practical” energy legislation this week by Senate Republicans. Yes, I’m cynical about the strategy and tactics of the GOP embodied in this legislative proposal (as far as I know, it […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 6 June 2010 — I’m offering a challenge and opportunity to those of you who believe that the science of global warming is settled: take a look at an informed contrary view. Last month, I wrote in this blog about noted physicist Will Happer, and his proposal to create a […]