By Kennedy Maize The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week (Apr. 19) refused to reverse a November decision killing a plan for an Amazon data center to snuggle up next to Talen Energy’s 2500-MW Susquehanna nuclear plant. The Pennsylvania data center would have gobbled up 480-MW of the plant’s capacity. The original proposal came in… More Data center siting circus continues
By Kennedy Maize President Trump’s strange lust to acquire Greenland, the world’s largest island, sparsely populated and part of Denmark, is largely unaccompanied by any notion of just what America might do with this frozen land. According to Reuters, billionaire tech mogul and PayPal founder Peter Thiel and some of his tech cronies have a… More Trump’s Greenland: Micro nukes, high-speed rail, and anarcho-capitalism?
By Kennedy Maize President Trump last week issued four of his many, often meaningless, executive orders, these aimed at rejuvenating the declining U.S. coal industry. He said his goal is “reinvigorating America’s beautiful, clean coal industry.” Taken together, it seems that Trump drew his policy initiatives entirely from his Office of Management and Budget and… More Trump on coal: Dig, baby, dig; burn, baby, burn; die, miners, die
By Dan Yurman The Department of Energy (DOE) last week (Apr. 3) announced a plan to boost U.S. artificial intelligence efforts and lower energy costs by co-locating data centers and new energy infrastructure at up to 16 DOE sites. There are multiple problems with DOE’s plan. The first is that complex and lengthy federal site… More Guest Commentary: DOE data center plans, DOGE firings don’t mix
By Kennedy Maize On March 27, President Trump fired Michelle Moore from the board of directors of the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority. On April 1, he followed up by firing TVA board chairman Joe Rich, leaving the already-depleted nine-member TVA board with only four members, lacking a quorum. All the TVA current board members… More Trump tosses TVA into turmoil
By Kennedy Maize The Department of Defense, working through the U.S. Air Force, on Feb. 28 selected 11 companies that are eligible for contracts with military to pursue geothermal technologies for electric generation at military bases. In a solicitation issued last September, the Air Force said it is “seeking novel approaches to generate electricity at… More Drill, sergeant, drill: Pentagon promotes geothermal for military bases
By Kennedy Maize “‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn’t have a clear goal. We want more stability.” That comment comes from a purposely unnamed oil and gas executive commenting on the state of the industry come in the… More O&G execs blow raspberries at Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ meme
By Kennedy Maize President Trump has given an unconditional pardon to convicted fraudster Trevor Milton of Nikola electric truck notoriety. Milton, founder of the once high-flying electric truck company that is now bankrupt, was facing four years in prison following his 2022 federal jury conviction of one court of securities fraud and three counts of… More Nikola’s Trevor Milton: Pardon for sale or rent?
By Kennedy Maize Taiwan’s state-owned CPC Corp. has signed a letter of intent to buy liquefied natural gas from the nascent Alaska LNG project and invest in the project, according to a news release from the giant Taiwanese firm. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Taiwan’s Geu Zhihui, minister of economic affairs, witnessed the signing of… More Gas gatherings: Taiwan, ANWR, Trump’s EPA
By Kennedy Maize The Department of Energy Tuesday (Mar. 24) announced a $900 million pot of money for development of small modular nuclear reactors to, in the agency’s words, “de-risk the deployment of Generation III+ light-water small modular reactors (Gen III+ SMR).” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said (although it’s more likely someone wrote the words… More Commentary: DOE’s doofus SMR subsidy, whether Trump’s or Biden’s