Is solar thermal electric generation dead? The Department of Energy last week settled with bankrupt Tonopah Solar Energy in Nevada in a deal that has to be blessed by bankruptcy court to recover $200 million of a $1 billion project that got a $737 million loan from the agency in 2011. The Crescent Dunes plant, … More Crescent Dunes: An epitaph for solar thermal?
The Ohio House of Representatives Thursday unanimously ousted 61-year-old Republican Speaker Larry Householder, charged by federal authorities as a racketeer in a $61 million bribery scandal involving a $1.3 billion state bailout of two FirstEnergy nuclear plants (and several coal-fired plants in Ohio and Indiana). The legislators then elected veteran Republican Rep. Bob Cupp to … More Householder removed as Ohio speaker, Murray Energy revealed as a contributor to the scheme
The White House announced today that it intends to nominate Virginia State Corporation Commission chair Mark Christie, and clean energy advocate Allison Clements to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Christie, who is a non-partisan SCC chairman, would fill the Republican seat being vacated by Bernard McNamee, whose term expired June 30. He has remained on … More Trump to name Christie, Clements to FERC
Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine, reversing course, has called on the Ohio legislature to repeal House Bill 6, the bribery-tainted measure that provides a $1.3 billion subsidy to two failing FirstEnergy nuclear power plants. DeWine, who signed the measure a year ago, said he continues to support the goal of the nuclear bailout. DeWine said, … More Ohio’s DeWine reverses course on nuclear bailout
The unfolding tale of widespread utility corruption has expanded again. The Justice Department announced yesterday that former SCANA Corp. executive vice president, Stephen A. Byrne, 60, “pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.” U.S. Attorney Peter McCoy, Jr. said the charges come from SCANA’s (now Dominion Energy) failed attempt … More Utility corruption cascade continues
The $60 million bribery and racketeering enterprise that preserved two Ohio nuclear plants was a complex, convoluted, and totally corrupt endeavor, according to the criminal complaint the FBI filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio July 16. While the FBI arrested four Ohio politicos, including Republican House Speaker Larry Householder, … More Generation Now, the fulcrum of the Ohio racketeering scandal
The FBI this morning arrested the Republican speaker of the Ohio House and four prominent GOP lobbyists in a $60 million federal racketeering conspiracy centered on the 2019 Ohio legislation to bail out economically failing Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio is charging longtime House Speaker … More Ohio House speaker charged with racketeering, bribery in nuke bailout
A burgeoning utility bribery scandal in Chicago has tainted Exelon subsidiary Commonwealth Edison and threatens to topple the most powerful Democratic politician in Illinois, House Speaker Michael Madigan. Exelon has agreed to pay a $200 million fine as part of a plea deal filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, … More ComEd admits bribing Ill. House speaker
A ploy by a surreptitious group of New England utilities to undercut solar net metering blew up and crashed at today’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission like the Hindenburg explosion in New Jersey in May 1937. The commission unanimously dismissed a petition by New England Ratepayers Association that would have given FERC exclusive jurisdiction over state … More FERC dismisses net metering petition, adopts new PURPA rules
When Dominion Energy announced that it, along with Duke Energy, was killing the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline project, and the Richmond, Va., company was selling its midstream natural gas business to Berkshire Hathaway, Dominion also made a pitch that it would invest heavily in “renewable natural gas” (RNG) going forward. Dominion CEO Tom Farrell … More Renewable natural gas. What is it and what are the prospects?