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The two probable major-party U.S. presidential candidates hold very different views on energy and climate. One intends to focus on expanding and developing America’s fossil-fuel industries, while the other plans to grow renewable energy and promote efficiency. Can you guess who’s who? Fossil vs. Renewable Donald Trump, the presumed Republican nominee, presented his “America-First Energy […]

A new rule proposed by the Obama administration requires vendors and contractors selling goods and services to the federal government to disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate-related risk data. The rule proposed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council on May 25 seeks to drive greater disclosure of the federal government’s supply chain, which […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must halt its drive to help states supportive of the Clean Power Plan to comply with the rule because it defies the Supreme Court stay, the attorneys general for West Virginia and Texas have urged the agency. An April 28 request to the agency by 14 states seeking technical assistance […]

Talen Energy, which owns a portion of the Colstrip Power Plant in Montana and operates the plant for the five other utilities and holding companies that also own shares, told the other owners on May 23 that it plans to exit as operator by May 2018 because it is losing too much money. The huge […]

Exelon’s Quad Cities and Three Mile Island nuclear plants have failed to clear the PJM capacity auction for the 2019–2020 planning year, and the future looks grim for at least one of those plants. The Chicago-headquartered company on May 25 confirmed that the two plants would not receive capacity revenue for the period. It also […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) newest nuclear plant, Watts Bar Unit 2, achieved initial criticality on May 23 at 2:16 a.m. Although that may sound ominous to anyone untrained in nuclear terminology, initial criticality simply means that Watts Bar Unit 2 reached a state in which the reactor’s neutron population remained steady from one generation […]

Phibro—an independent commodity merchant company based in Stamford, Conn.—through its affiliate Philipp Brothers Fertilizer, recently announced that it is acquiring a clean coal gasification plant just outside of West Terre Haute, Ind., from SG Solutions. The plant had been used to produce synthetic gas and steam to fuel the adjacent Wabash River Combined Cycle Plant, […]

Misaligned mirrors at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California caused electrical cables to catch fire about two-thirds of the way up the Unit 3 tower on May 19, according to several media reports of statements attributed to fire department personnel. The San Bernardino County (Calif.) Fire Department (SBCFD) reported on its Facebook page […]

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said the time will come—perhaps 10 to 15 years from now—when “nuclear power is going to have to see a substantial resurgence.” Moniz was speaking on May 19 at the “Summit on Improving the Economics of America’s Nuclear Power Plants.” He provided opening remarks, framing the challenges facing the […]

Donald Trump, presumptive Republican nominee for president, has chosen a back-bench Republican congressman with a lot of experience in state energy regulation as his advisor on energy issues