Latest

  • Let’s Trash Employee Performance Reviews

    UCLA management guru Sam Culbert calls annual employee performance reviews “bogus” and not conducive to good company management. Get rid of them, he says.

  • The Supply Chain and the Carbon Footprint

    Few companies consider carbon in their supply chain decisions, says an Accenture study. Should purchasers require carbon reductions from suppliers as part of their business model?

  • Energy Earmarks in Spending Bill Hit $98M

    North Dakota garnered most of the Department of Energy’s earmarks in March’s omnibus appropriations bill.

  • Regulators Face Worst of Times

    It’s not easy being a regulator as the nation faces several daunting energy challenges—integrating renewables, carbon constraints, reliability, and security into an elderly grid that is barely able to keep up with its current mission of moving power from generator to load.

  • Is "Smart Grid" in the Eye of the Beholder?

    Congress looks at what “smart grid” means and comes up with mixed definitions. The one thing everyone agrees on: The smart grid is going to be expensive.

  • The Communications Failures Lessons of Three Mile Island

    The most lasting effect the Three Mile Island nuclear accident had on me was what it taught me about crisis communications—lessons that served me well over the 25-plus years that followed and especially after the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

  • NIMBY or Concerned Citizen?

    Opponents of locating new energy facilities near where they work and live are often painted with a broad brush as activists or called some other pejorative term. How do you differentiate the professional opponents of any new development from those who have valid reasons to stand up and be heard?

  • Let’s Stop Bailing Out on Alternative Energy

    Investors are continuing to bail out of alternative energy stocks—good, promising companies such as ABB, American Superconductor, Evergreen Solar, and Itron. These companies and many like them were Wall Street darlings not that long ago. Not anymore.

  • EPA Finds Greenhouse Gases Pose Threat to Public Health, Welfare

    After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed finding on Friday that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.

  • Constellation Nuclear Sale to EDF Approved

    The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday approved the $4.5 billion acquisition of nearly half of Constellation Nuclear, the indirect owner of three nuclear power plants in upstate New York, to a wholly owned subsidiary of Électricité de France S.A. (EDF), the world’s largest nuclear power plant owner.