By Kennedy Maize There’s a new leader in the nuclear power plant cost overrun derby, and it isn’t even in the clubhouse yet. Britain’s Hinkley Point C — being built in Somerset by France’s government-owned EDF — is now going to cost at least £49 billion ($65 billion) if it goes into service in 2030 … More Move over, Vogtle, and Olkiluoto too. Hinkley Point C is leading the nuclear news.
By Kennedy Maize In mid-February (Feb. 13) Texas giant engineering and construction company Fluor Corp. (NYSE:FLR) began implementing a financial plan it had long telegraphed: unloading its major investment in Oregon-based NuScale (NYSE:SMR), the most mature of the myriad wannabe developers of new, smaller U.S. nuclear power plants. As Nuscale’s largest shareholder, Fluor sold 71 … More A new start for NuScale?
By Kennedy Maize The Trump administration’s Department of the Interior faces serious challenges across its expansive jurisdiction, including federal lands in the west, offshore and onshore wind power, fire protection and firefighting, and the failing Colorado River system that serves some 40 million people with drinking and irrigation water and electric power in seven states … More Interior Department’s challenges in earth, wind, fire, and water
By Kennedy Maize While the Trump administration pursues rescuing the past of electric generation, solar and wind, with a big boost from batteries, are winning the future. The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration has released its prediction for new electric generation in 2026, headlined, “New U.S. electric generating capacity expected to reach a record … More Renewables winning the new generation sweepstakes
By Kennedy Maize The Trump administration’s push to support coal, despite the costs, is “running into reality,” according to a new analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. IEEFA analysts Dennis Wamsted and Seth Feaster conclude,”The administration’s political support for ‘clean, beautiful coal’ keeps running into economic reality. Coal-fired generation costs continue … More Trump, coal, and the bite of economic reality
By Kennedy Maize The North American Electric Reliability Council told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday (Feb. 19) that the high-voltage electric transmission system in major parts of the U.S. and Canada faces serious, long-term threats to reliability. Briefing FERC, NERC’s John Moura, director of reliability assessment, said the 2025 Long-Term Reliability Assessment report “is … More NERC calls for long-term reliability action now
By Kennedy Maize Michigan gas-and-electric utility Consumers Energy, a subsidiary of CMS Energy, is engaged in a complex and controversial dance as it attempts to spin off its entire fleet of 13 elderly hydroelectric projects to a private equity investor, which in turn might resell or shut the dams without state regulatory approval. The dams … More Michigan utility wants to unload its hydro
By Kennedy Maize President Trump last week (Feb. 11) ordered his government’s largest energy consumer — the Department of Defense, which he insistently and erroneously calls the “Department of War” — to look to domestic coal for its electricity needs in the future. At the same time, the nation’s largest public electric utility — the … More For Trump, TVA, it’s back to the future with coal
By Kennedy Maize In a little-noticed move last month (Jan. 5), the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in California to overturn functionally dead ordinances of two cities, Morgan Hill (population 45,483) and Petaluma (population 59,776), that forbade natural gas appliances in new buildings, effectively making them “all electric.” It’s an issue that goes back … More DOJ sues to overturn California cities’ bans on gas appliances
By Kennedy Maize A nine-year-old, massive utility bribery scandal in Ohio, which has so far sent a prominent Republican legislator to jail, indicted a former state utility regulator — now deceased — of accepting bribes, and sullied state politicians, utility officials, and industry lobbyists across the Buckeye State, may be coming to an end. The … More A long-running utility criminal scandal comes to an end?