In a surprise order last Friday (Nov. 1), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected a plan advanced by the PJM Interconnection for an Amazon data center to co-locate next to Talen Energy’s 2,500-MW two-unit Susquehanna nuclear plant near Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Under the failed proposal, Amazon would take up to 480-MW of power directly from the… More FERC dumps PJM data center-nuclear plant co-location plan

Is financial trading of carbon dioxide offsets a smart way to reduce major greenhouse gas emissions or an opportunity for fraud and abuse? For years, many interests have seen carbon trading, also known as “carbon offsets” – conceptually similar to the U.S. emissions cap and trade projects that accompanied the reduction in sulfur dioxide power… More Carbon offsets, once trendy, now in big trouble

Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H., New England’s last coal-fired power plant, lives. The two-unit plant finally passed a particulates emissions test that will keep the plant running. The plant owner operators, Granite Shore Power, had been trying for over a year to pass the test. Nor was the event a complete success. According to New… More Around the world, coal still sits atop a wobbly throne

With the COP29 global climate conference opening in Baku, Azerbaijan in less than two weeks (Nov. 11), it’s worthwhile looking at some of the recent and sometimes confounding science that will confront the delegates. Whether that science will directly influence the proceedings is doubtful. It is worth noting that the affair, the 29th meeting of… More Commentary: COP29 looms, where science will take a back seat to performance politics

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management last week (Oct. 24) gave a green light to a major new lithium mine on federal land, the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron mining project in southern Nevada’s Silver Peak Range in the Great Basin region between Reno and Las Vegas. The decision is the first Biden administration approval of… More Nevada lithium mine gets federal approval, faces legal challenge

The Department of Energy this month (Oct. 17) announced it had picked four firms for a gateway to some $2.7 billion in taxpayer funding to produce “high assay low enriched uranium” (HALEU) fuel for the potential advanced reactor technologies now seeking government approval and private and public financial support. Under the DOE program, run by… More Mystery firm wins access to $2.7 billion in DOE HALEU funds

The technology that revolutionized oil and gas production 15 years ago could be on the verge of turning hot rocks into a major source of green electricity. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management this month gave a green light to Houston-based Fervo Energy for its advanced geothermal project using modern oil and gas drilling tech… More Fervo’s geothermal revolution gets BLM blessing

As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission celebrated its 50th anniversary Oct. 11, a word and a concept – “efficiency” – was on the minds of the staff, the commission, and the distinguished panel of former, iconic commissioners who addressed the celebration. The prominence of the term came in the new fundamental legal framework for the… More NRC at 50: Will nuclear regulation ADVANCE?

In somewhat of a surprise, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (Oct. 16) refused a power and coal industry emergency petition to stay a Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency rule to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions. The 2023 EPA rule, now under challenge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, would have… More SCOTUS sidesteps political traps in environmental rules

2023 was hot, really hot. The global temperature was almost 0.3°C above 2022 levels, so much higher that even conventional analyses of global warming didn’t appear to explain it. As a recent article in Science magazine notes, iconic climate scientist James Hansen was suggesting that a new, air pollution driven warming mechanism might be at… More Hot 2023: Manmade or natural?