The controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada got what is likely a final green light from the Biden administration’s Interior Department this week, allowing full scale development to proceed in the face of protests by local environmentalists and native tribes. Local Indian groups have been protesting peacefully at the mine site as an … More Thacker Pass Lithium Passes Mining Law Hurdle

The Biden administration’s plan to make big cuts in powerplant CO2 emissions faces tough technical, legal, and political challenges. These are likely to interact, occur simultaneously, and maybe soon. Here’s what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing as the path to dramatically reduced CO2 emissions from the nation’s electric power plants in the next … More EPA Power Plant Rule: Wonder Where It’s Bound?

A bevy of energy dignitaries, including often-clueless Energy Secretary Energy Jennifer Granholm, assembled at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay area May 8 to celebrate the lab’s December success in achieving a highly-hyped fusion energy hurdle: achieving more energy output from the input required. “If you can … More Commentary: Fusion ‘Breakthrough’ Less than Meets the Hype

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week (May 9) licensed an “interim” monitored retrievable nuclear spent fuel storage facility proposed by New Jersey-based Holtec International for New Mexico. The multi-billion-dollar facility’s fate is in doubt. The state of New Mexico is adamantly opposed to the project near Carlsbad. Unlike the last battle over nuclear waste, … More Smoldering U.S. Nuke Waste War Rekindled in N.M.?

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