By Henry Sokolski If growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific weren’t alarming enough, a recent round of nuclear provocations has only salted the wound. On Oct. 29, U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to resume nuclear-weapons testing, taking leaders in the region by surprise. Then, on Nov. 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow will follow Trump’s … More Guest Commentary: Japan should resist the temptation to go nuclear

By Kennedy Maize The nation’s largest offshore wind project, two-thirds complete off the Virginia shore with $8.2 billion spent, is facing new challenges, political and financial. In both cases, one source of the new risks is Donald Trump. The political risks are that the president may turn his irrational hatred of offshore wind to the … More Will Trump’s gale force sink the nation’s largest offshore wind project?

By Kennedy Maize Another disappointing earnings report from NuScale Power’s (NYSE:SMR) last week (Nov. 6) led to a sharp decline in the company’s stock. At the same time, another shift in the status of Fluor Corp.’s (NYSE:FLR) shares in NuScale hiked the price of the Texas engineering and construction giant’s shares.   NuScale’s third quarter … More NuScale Power’s stock shocked after bad 3rd quarter

By Kennedy Maize There’s one word that best describes what happened to the Republican Party in Tuesday’s elections across the country: “wipeout.” “From the great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific shore. From the queen of flowing mountains to the southbelt by the shore,” the GOP’s electoral cannon balls rolled feebly out of the end … More GOP’s election debacle and energy implications

By Kennedy Maize Li-ion, LFP, Na-ion, graphene, lead acid, solid state, flow. Welcome to the Advanced Battery Warehouse. What started 200 years ago, using primitive electric batteries to power wooden-wheeled vehicles, now appears to be a far more mature technology that can transform how the worldwide energy system works, from cars to household electric service. … More The battery revolution in energy and electricity

By Kennedy Maize Delegates, staff, academics, activists, journalists, and miscellaneous hangers on have begun arriving in Belem, Brazil, a city of 1.4 million on the northeast coast, situated on the edge of Amazonia, the metaphorical “lungs” of the planet. They are gathering, tens of thousands, for the 30th annual gabfest of the parties to the … More COP30: fandango of feckless fantasy or significant turn of direction?

By Kennedy Maize With seed money from Wyoming, Basin Electric Power Cooperative, North Dakota’s multistate generation and transmission cooperative, is pondering a new coal-fired power plant in the Cowboy State. Under consideration is a second unit at the 483-MW Dry Fork unit near Gillette, 93% owned by Basin, with the Wyoming Municipal Power Agency owning … More Is it back to the future for Wyoming coal power?

By Kennedy Maize Last week (Oct. 24), the state-owned South Carolina Public Service Authority, universally known as Santee Cooper, picked New York’s Brookfield Asset Management (BAM:NYSE) for negotiations over buying the remains of the public power system’s massively failed V.C. Summer nuclear project to bring it back to life. Santee Cooper and investor-owned Scana Corp. … More Will South Carolina host the night of the nuclear living dead?

By Kennedy Maize The Department of Energy has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to federalize and streamline the connection of large data centers to the interstate transmission grid. DOE last week (Oct. 23) sent FERC a 16-page draft notice of proposed rule making, asking the commission to enact the new, unprecedented rule by the … More DOE wants FERC to take over large data center grid connections

By Kennedy Maize “Plethora, noun, pleth·​o·​ra ˈple-thə-rə: an ample amount or number: abundance, profusion … Grand Cayman offers a plethora of bustling restaurants, ritzy resorts and comfortable condos …—Susanne Cummings … a world whose credibility is threatened by the meaningless plethora of material goods it goes on producing.” That definition from the venerable Merriam-Webster fits the circumstances behind what has been occurring for … More How to track the rise and possible fall of the SMR empire