Recent Ohio events have added details on how Akron-based utility giant FirstEnergy has owned Ohio’s utility regulators, the legislature, and, perhaps the state house. The utility has been accused of major bribery of the Republican Ohio House speaker, Larry Householder, in a scheme to promote and defend a $1 billion legislative bailout. More generally, critics … More Ohio events further detail depths of FirstEnergy’s intrusion into state government

The Southern Co. has begun demolishing its failed attempt to create a path to “clean coal technology” at the multi-billion-dollar Kemper County integrated gasification, combined cycle project (IGCC) in Mississippi. The Georgia-based power giant set off two explosions at the site on October 9. Here’s a video of the results of the demolition. Southern began … More Demolition at failed Southern Co. coal gasification project

The Tennessee Valley’s long nuclear nightmare at the Bellefonte plant in Hollywood, Ala., is over. The giant federally-owned regional power system says it will relinquish its Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction license after a 47-year failure to complete even one of its four originally-planned reactors. Engineering News Record reported that TVA “won’t renew permits requiring it … More TVA finally pulls the plug on Bellefonte nuke

With the Illinois bailout of two Exelon nuclear power plants this week as background, U.S. hard-core anti-nuclear groups are raising doubts about the details of the Biden administration’s massive infrastructure legislation. In a recent press release, the groups – Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Beyond Nuclear, Indigenous Environmental Network (INEN), and Nuclear Energy Information … More In Illinois aftermath, anti-nukes target Biden’s massive infrastructure plan

The White House today (Sept. 9) said President Biden intends to nominate Willie L. Phillips, the Democratic chairman of the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, replacing Republic Neil Chatterjee. That would the Democrats a 3-2 majority on the commission. FERC has traditionally not been particularly partisan, but that … More White House names DC regulator to FERC

Entergy’s elderly Palisades nuclear plant in southern Michigan on the Lake Michigan shore will shut down in May 2022, the New Orleans-based utility said early this month. The giant, multi-state utility, recently hammered by Hurricane Ida, said, before the storm, “It’s a business decision to shut down the plant, we plan to do so in … More Nuclear digest: Palisades gone, Vogtle’s increased scrutiny, Japan’s incoming PM

The Tennessee Valley Authority just can’t seem to get rid of its long mothballed Bellefonte construction project in Alabama. It’s a convoluted story, with deep roots in the collapse of the boom for nuclear power, particularly at TVA in the 1970s, which came home in the 1980s. At the end of August, as the AP … More Further twists in the tale of TVA’s abandoned Bellefonte nuke

In what some publications have hailed as a “breakthrough” in fusion energy research, the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) was able to use its focused laser technology to hit a tiny fuel target and generate some 1.3 megajoules of energy. A Livermore press release proclaimed, “This advancement puts researchers at … More Fusion breakthrough or less than meets the casual eye?

Can nuclear power plants provide a clean, low-cost way to produce copious amounts of hydrogen? And can hydrogen production offer a path to keep existing nuclear plants operating and provide an incentive to build new units? Troubled nuclear giant Exelon, facing economic pressures on many of its nuclear fleet, and Norway-based Nel Hydrogen, with U.S. … More Are nukes a path to a hydrogen energy economy?

Finland’s long troubled Olkiluoto unit 3 nuclear construction project has hit another snag, related to what appears to be increasing problems with the steam turbine generators in the delayed, 1,600-MW unit. Reuters reported this week that the Finnish utility TVO in a statement said “it has received additional information from the plant supplier Areva-Siemens consortium … More Olkiluoto 3 nuke faces new delays