The United States appears to be on the verge of fully abandoning deep geologic storage of high-level nuclear waste in favor of above-ground facilities. Such a move would represent a…
Supply Chains
While the Obama administration in Washington is lauding solar energy as a major part of an alleged transition to renewable energy, the U.S. companies that make solar modules to turn…
Most original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have had decades to come to terms with the intricacies of the wind industry. As they slowly ramped up from small sub-100-kW machines to the…
The Energy Department's failure to recognize an impending supply squeeze for helium-3—a nonradioactive gas produced in the agency's nuclear weapons complex—has created a national crisis requiring White House intervention and…
Despite the political kerfuffle over Obama administration loan guarantees for new nuclear generating plants, the ubiquitous hand-wringing about fossil fuels and climate change, and the hype about wind and solar…
Is the little-known, resource-rich Eastern European nation of Kazakhstan a key to the long-awaited worldwide renaissance in nuclear power? According to articles in the Washington Post and other publications, the…
Rare earths—some 17 elements (some scarce and some abundant) found in Earth’s crust by themselves or combined with other chemicals—may be a major hurdle in the renewable energy supply chain.…
In what may be the U.S. construction industry’s largest-ever liquidated damages award, in late 2009 a unanimous three-member arbitration panel awarded $26.95 million against engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) giant…
Tax incentives and other federal aid helped the U.S. wind industry increase new installed capacity to a record 9,922 megawatts in 2009, but the boom did not extend to the…
After years of decline amid rising prices and fears of scarcity, natural gas as a power-generating fuel is on a rebound in the U.S., driven by new finds in Texas…