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The European Commission announced last week that safety standards applied in Taiwanese nuclear power plants are generally high and comply with international state-of-the-art practices. The peer review—performed by the European Commission and the European Nuclear Safety Regulators’ Group (ENSREG)—did, however, strongly recommend further improvements in view of Taiwan’s vulnerability to natural hazards, such as earthquakes, […]

Dan Utech has replaced Heather Zichal as Director for Energy and Climate Change at the White House Domestic Policy Council. Zichal filled the role for more than five years and was a trusted advisor to President Obama. She crafted his energy and climate change agenda in 2008, and was a strong advocate for policies that […]

By 2035, renewables will hold a 30% share of the global power mix but just 1% of the world’s fossil fuel–fired power plants will be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS), reports the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its newly released World Energy Outlook (WEO-2013). The annual report presents a central scenario in which global […]

Knowing that safety is important is clearly not enough to create (or even put a dent in creating) a culture of safety and incident-free environments. We have heard the messages: “Safety First,” “Target Zero” and, as a very dedicated guy in rural Louisiana explained it, “We ain’t toleratin’ no more dead dudes!” As powerful and […]

Coal projects continue to be met with NIMBY [Not in My Back Yard]-type groups protesting coal companies’ efforts to start new projects. Although these projects can create plenty of jobs, they are met by opposition groups who cite environmental concerns. The coal seam Medicine Bow Project in Wyoming is estimated to create 6,000 jobs, but […]

In international trade, a gap between theory and practice has always existed. Theory stresses, as an underlying ideal, the economic benefits of trade based on comparative advantage. In practice, and for a variety of reasons—institutional constraints, political factors, ambiguity of legal doctrine, bilateral or multilateral treaty obligations—the ideal intermittently bows to reality, whether in the […]

How fast does your spam filter fill up? What about your personal message filter? We are absolutely overwhelmed with messaging. Digital ads pop up during Internet searches. Direct mail pieces fill our mailbox. Robo-calls interrupt our dinner. Traditional TV ads shout at us. Newspapers and magazines carry forgettable ads. While driving, we listen to CDs to avoid […]

The Obama administration recently changed its nomenclature on a topic of much interest to readers of this publication and those in the power industry. The administration has said it prefers to talk about its policies advancing a “resilient grid” as opposed to its previous emphasis on developing a “smart grid.” The new policy thrust, for […]

Employees are increasingly turning to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to share information about their jobs. To the chagrin of companies everywhere, employees are also using social media sites to complain about their jobs. More and more, employers are having to make tough decisions about when and how to discipline employees for negative […]

It seemed like a good idea at the time. About 10 years ago, large investment banks that had long traded in energy commodities and derivatives, including playing in the wholesale, organized electric markets regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), concluded that it made sense to combine physical assets—power plants, pipelines, and the like—with […]