Advanced nuclear power reactors could make a major contribution to decarbonizing the U.S. power sector, according to a new report from the National Academy of Engineering. But getting advanced reactors from drawing boards and board rooms to reality could take decades and will require heavy, regulatory, technical, economical, and societal lifting. The head of the … More Meserve and the Path to Advanced Nuclear

A day after a federal jury May 1 found four former Commonwealth Edison officials, including the CEO, guilty of bribery, Chicago-based parent Exelon said the scandal could end up costing the holding company more than $400 million. The company, parent of Chicago-based ComEd, has already forked out $200 million as a result of the criminal … More “ComEd Four” Guilty of Nine Bribery Charges

The once dominant U.S. coal industry appears to be in the end-of-life stage. But digging up the dusky diamonds* is still significant in the U.S. Coal’s problem is a vanishing electric generation market. According to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, “The amount of coal received by power plants in the United States has … More An Unpleasant Coal Retirement

The much-hyped impending resurrection of nuclear power, driven by concerns about a warming climate, often seems to be repeating the past, but with a refrain of “smaller is better.” The latest downsized reprise from the early nuclear repertoire is floating nukes. In the U.S. in the 1970s, New Jersey utility Public Service Electric and Gas, … More Floating Nuclear: Blips, Not Blasts, From the Past

By Henry Sokolski Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner recently described how over-classification of national security-related information is a key and neglected factor behind the latest, disturbing intelligence leak. “We need frankly a system that limits classification to really important documents and then have a process to declassify when appropriate.” His argument: fewer secrets shared with fewer … More Guest Commentary: Protect Secrets? Have Fewer

Chile’s left-wing government has nationalized its important lithium mining operations, casting doubts about the supply from the world’s second largest lithium producer behind China. Reuters reported Tuesday (Apr. 25), “Chile’s leftist President Gabriel Boric last week announced that control of the country’s vast lithium operations would over time be transferred from Albemarle and SQM (SQMA.SN) to a separate state-owned … More Light Metal Miscellany: Chile, Tesla, China, GM

Germany has closed its last three nuclear power plants, leaving the country without any nuclear generation after 60 years of a nuclear past. The storied French nuclear program continues to be a tale of woe, with continued outages driving up its prices and leading to predictions that the world’s most nuclear nation, once a major … More European Energy Crisis Survived…End of Baseload?

A new, peer-reviewed April scientific article demolishes an earlier claim, largely written by activist opponents of natural gas at the Rocky Mountain Institute, that home stoves burning natural gas cause childhood asthma. That January 2023 article said, “We found that 12.7% … of current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use.” … More Restoring the Reputation of Gas Stoves

For natural gas advocates, methane-fueled power plants are ideal: economical, safe, versatile, and reliable. For these advocates, renewables–particularly wind machines — are noisy, intrusive, and – gasp — intermittent and unreliable. The gas case, as stated by its chief Washington lobbying group, the American Gas Association: “Through natural disasters and extreme weather events, the industry’s … More Commentary: Overstating Natural Gas Reliability

California electric customers could be seeing a radical new approach to electricity rates by 2025, if state regulators adopt a plan by the states three large investor-owned utilities. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) have jointly filed a plan to comply with a state law … More California Utilities Propose Customer Income Tax