General

By Kennedy Maize When Congress comes back to D.C. after Labor Day, it will face important strategic decisions, as will the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership. In particular, they will face the decision whether to focus on health care legislation or energy policy. I’m betting heavily on health care. I suspect that the administration’s […]

Assertions by renewable energy advocates that renewables have now exceed nuclear in the overall U.S. energy mix are dead wrong, the equivalent of mixing apples and hand grenades.

By Kennedy Maize USEC, the Bethesda, Md., uranium enrichment company that took over the Department of Energy’s enrichment program in 1992 is claiming that the Obama administration is reneging on promises to provide $2 billion in loan guarantees for the company’s “advanced” centrifuge enrichment plan, made during the 2008 presidential campaign. DOE’s decision to withhold […]

By Kennedy Maize Here’s a hoot. The recent global cooling we have seen would have been cooler without global warming. That’s the claim of Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists. In a letter to the Washington Post on July 27, Ekwurzel objected to a column by conservative George Will, who has taken […]

By Kennedy Maize One of funniest pieces of political satire that I have read in many years is in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine. Written by Ian Frazier, the article’s title is “The Temperatures of Hell: A Colloquium.” The premise is that temperatures in Hell have risen by 3.8 degrees since 1955 […]

By Kennedy Maize Since we first moved to rural America in 1972, I’ve wanted a bucket truck. What a useful tool. Tree trimming, gutter cleaning, roof repairs, high-altitude carpentry, painting. The list of uses is probably endless. But I’ve never actually plunked down the dollars necessary for a bucket truck, even a used model. Never […]

By Kennedy Maize The slim passage in late June of the House Democrats’ global warming bill – 219-212 – reminds old-timers of the Clinton administration’s passage of a Btu tax in 1993 by a 219-213 vote in the House, only to see it crater in the Senate. Is the same result likely for the Obama […]

By Kennedy Maize Here’s further evidence why I believe the current smart grid hoopla is bogus, and North America should be focusing on a strong grid instead. I live on a small farm in rural Maryland, some 60 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. My electric company is Allegheny Power, a distribution subsidiary of Allegheny Energy, […]

By Kennedy Maize After almost unrelenting hype, skepticism about plug-in hybrid cars is beginning to emerge in the mainstream media. It’s a good thing, as much about the much-ballyhooed vehicles, particularly the General Motors Chevy Volt, doesn’t withstand serious business or technical scrutiny. In early June, Jim Motavalli at the “Wheels” blog at the New […]

By Kennedy Maize Remember the nuclear power renaissance coming any day soon now? Fugetaboudit. While the stars seemed aligned for new nuclear power in the U.S. in 2005 when Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, it’s all turned brown and runny. The promise of some $15 billion in loan guarantees for new nukes in the […]