Latest

  • Motivation: Reward Is in the Eye of the Beholder

    Motivating workers can be simple and low-cost: Make your employees feel valued and important.

  • Are Cap’n’Trade and a National RPS Dead?

    Data shenanigans and recent political developments in the U.S. suggest that the climate change frenzy is rapidly fading. Could the backlash also sink renewable energy portfolio standards?

  • Jackson Issues GHG Regulation Timeline, Defends Endangerment Finding

    Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson defended the science behind the agency’s so-called “endangerment finding” at a Senate hearing on Tuesday—the day after she told coal-state lawmakers that the agency could begin phasing in permit requirements controlling greenhouse gases emitted by large stationary sources beginning in 2011.

  • UK Nuclear Regulator Raises Issue Against AP1000

    The UK’s nuclear safety and security regulator last week raised a regulatory issue against Westinghouse’s AP1000 nuclear reactor design, saying it was not satisfied that the modular construction methodology could protect the third-generation pressurized water reactor from severe weather or physical impact. The finding comes on the heels of a similar issue raised by the […]

  • CPS Energy, NINA Reach $1B Settlement Over STP Project

    A $1 billion settlement negotiated by CPS Energy and Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) last week ended a bitter legal dispute between the companies and could allow the proposed nuclear expansion of the South Texas Project (STP) near Bay City, Texas, to proceed.

  • DOE Offers BrightSource Energy $1.37B in Loan Guarantees for Ivanpah

    The Department of Energy on Monday conditionally offered California solar company BrightSource Energy more than $1.37 billion in loan guarantees to support construction and start-up of three utility-scale concentrated solar power plants (CSP) in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California.

  • Graham Pushes for Federal “Clean” Electricity Standard

    A draft bill being circulated by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) seeks to create a federal clean electricity standard that could require utilities to supply 13% of electricity from “clean” sources by 2012, reach 25% in 2025, and 50% in 2050.

  • Obama Commits $8B in Loan Guarantees to Vogtle Expansion—With Conditions

    President Barack Obama on Tuesday offered to conditionally guarantee $8.33 billion in loans for Southern Co.’s project to build two AP1000 nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Burke, Ga. The pledge marks the first federal nuclear loan guarantee, and it could boost construction of the first U.S. nuclear plant in more than 30 years. More commitments are on the way, the Energy Department said.

  • Three Firms Quit USCAP

    BP America, Caterpillar, and ConocoPhillips have pulled out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), an alliance of business and environmental groups that has been pushing for cap-and-trade legislation.

  • Arizona Shuns Regional Initiative’s GHG Emissions Trading Rules

    An executive order issued by Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, directs the state’s Department of Environmental Quality not to adopt rules under the Western Climate Initiative’s (WCI’s) cap-and-trade program without legislative authorization—but it stops short of withdrawing the state from the coalition that plans to implement a regional emissions trading program by January 2012.