Tesla’s Model 3 production problems, and rumors about the company’s travail, continued this week, led by a report Thursday from CNBC, citing unidentified Tesla employees, that previously reported delays are getting worse as the electric car company continues to be unable to automate battery production. CNBC said, “Tesla’s problems with battery production at the company’s … More More tales of Tesla woes

Dominion’s $14.6 proposed buy of South Carolina’s troubled SCANA Corp., with the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project hanging around its neck, appears to have the blind staggers. Smart money is betting that the deal falls through. The merger (or distress sale) is foundering because South Carolina’s politicians are facing buyers regret. They are reconsidering the … More Dominion-SCANA deal doomed?

The decision by the Trump administration to impose 30% tariffs on all imported solar photovoltaic panels is typical administration grandstanding, with the likely impact to kill U.S. solar industry jobs. It’s Trump’s bluster with little chance of positive results. The administration ostensibly said it was moving against China, which has been a leading importer of … More Will Trump’s solar tariffs hurt U.S. workers?

Fuel diversity, or, as some prefer, fuel security, occupied the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this morning, with all witnesses professing fealty to having a diverse electric generating system in the U.S., but without full agreement on how to do that, or even how to define it. There was one element of complete agreement. … More Senate committee looks at U.S. cold snap and electricity

Despite the government shutdown and budgetary stalemate in Washington, most federal energy work goes on. It’s business as usual. At the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency issued a statement, saying, “If Congress has not passed a new funding resolution by Sunday, January 21, 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will utilize its prior year … More Energy agency shutdowns less than meets the eye

Just days after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected the Trump administration’s assault on competitive, wholesale electric markets, two of those markets announced major steps toward addressing how to improve their approaches to electric capacity. The timing was coincidental. The PJM Interconnection and ISO-New England unveiled new details of plans they have been working on … More ISOs act on state subsidies, fuel resilience

Supply chain security and football dominated Thursday’s (Jan.18) Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meeting. The commission unanimously approved a notice of proposed rulemaking to establish new mandatory reliability standards offered by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) to boost security in the supply chain for the nation’s bulk electric system. NERC proposed the standards in … More Supply chain security and football at FERC

Here’s another blow to the nuclear energy industry, facing economic, policy and political headwinds in Washington and in competitive electric markets for years. Florida’s NextEra Energy and New Orleans-based Entergy, important utility owners of multiple nuclear power plants, have dropped their membership in the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s Washington lobbying group. Maria Korsnick, NEI … More NextEra, Entergy exit Washington nuclear energy lobby

On Jan. 11, Luminant Generation shut down the 1,100-MW Sandow coal-fired power plant near Austin, Texas. On Jan. 12, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission turned down a request from Ohio’s FirstEnergy to transfer the 1,300-MW Pleasants Power Station from the company’s merchant generating arm to its regulated utilities Monm Power and Potomac Edison. Both actions … More Trump’s year in coal, not so good

South Carolina faces a chaotic financial and political environment as a result of the entirely predictable collapse of the V.C. Summer nuclear project. The latest turn in the tangled tale is that a new vulture has appeared circling the carcass of the two failed 1000-MW Westinghouse AP 1000 units, and the operating 966-MW Westinghouse PWR, … More Utility vultures circle the V.C. Summer nuclear carcass