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

A federal grand jury has indicted a second high-level Westinghouse nuclear officer in the $10-billion, 2017 collapse of the V.C. Summer nuclear construction project in South Carolina. Jeffrey Benjamin, former Westinghouse senior vice president for new plants and projects, is now among three other executives, two from the former SCANA Corp. owner of the project, … More Second high-level Westinghouse executive indicted in V.C. Summer fiasco

New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group, fulfilling a two-year old goal, is making a major bet on its nuclear power assets as fears of global warming rise. The multi-state utility company is selling all its coal and natural gas generating assets to a subsidiary of Boston-based ArcLight Capital Partners. PSEG’s deal with ArcLight’s Parkway Generation … More PSEG goes all in on nuclear

After U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions fell by 11% in the pandemic year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration predicts in its most recent short-term outlook a 7% increase for 2021 and a modest 1% in 2022. The EIA report, stealing from Mark Twain, also suggests that the U.S. death of coal has … More EIA: US CO2 energy-related emissions to climb 7% in 2021