A huge seasonal mayfly hatch last week shut down offsite power to one of the two power lines serving DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 1200-MW nuclear plant in Michigan on Lake Erie. The event at a switchyard supplying power to the plant caused the plant’s backup diesel generators to kick in, keeping power to the plant. … More Mayfly meltdown?

In a major surprise on Sunday, Virginia-based Dominion Energy and North Carolina-based Duke Energy, faced with a setback in federal court and falling natural gas prices, cancelled their 600-mile, $8 billion Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline project. Shortly after that announcement, Richmond-based Dominion announced it was getting out of the competitive gas business, agreeing to … More Atlantic Coast gas project is dead, Dominion spins off mid-stream gas operations to Berkshire

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has given the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s use of tolling orders to delay action on cases before the regulators a mixed decision. Challenges to the long-established FERC practice came this spring, when local landowners said the FERC rules, which essentially allowed natural gas pipelines to become fait accompli while … More DC Circuit slams FERC tolling orders, critics comment on FERC transmission incentives

Should the world’s subway systems become free people movers, in order to help the environment and low-income folks, at essentially low costs? That’s the argument from economist Lucas Davis at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Based on his analysis of three large subway systems in Mexico for the Hass Energy … More Should subways be free?

How to deal with used nuclear fuel from reactors continues to confound the U.S. (and other nuclear power countries), a puzzle that has paralyzed policy makers and politicians for more than 70 years. Since the Trump administration pulled the financial plug on the over-40-year old, stalemated Yucca Mountain project in Nevada on political grounds, while … More Nuke waste disposal still in prolonged limbo

As economies start to reopen and the nation adjusts to the Covid-19 pandemic, how should electricity regulators respond? According to a white paper from the D.C. law firm of Wilkinson Barker Knauer, utility regulators should look to medium-term recovery steps, rate design rationalization, capital cost adjustments, decoupling sales and rates, and infrastructure and decarbonization. Written … More D.C. law firm offers utility regulatory advice on Covid-19 response

An attack on state net metering programs at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has drawn a blizzard of opposition and barely a few flakes of support as the comment period closed Monday (June 15). A group calling itself the New England Ratepayers Association (NERA) in April asked FERC to declare state solar net metering programs … More Solar net metering attack draws much opposition, little support

An investor-owned utility petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to essentially federalize traditional state authority over solar net metering is getting negative comments so far, The comment period closes next week (June 15). Even the Edison Electric Institute, which has long opposed various state net metering programs, has declined to comment on the petition … More State solar net metering under attack

An internal U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission working group has found some weaknesses in the agency’s practices on how nuclear power plants’ decommissioning is financed, a growing issue as more plants retire due to financial circumstances. It’s a multi-billion dollar issue. In an April 29 report, the working group says two new approaches to how to … More NRC staff group has some qualms about recent decommissioning financial models

While the nuclear industry and the Trump administration continue to hype the promise of small nuclear reactors as the key to revitalizing the moribund U.S. nuclear industry, an important federal regulator has waved a yellow flag. Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Jeff Baran, the only Democrat on the commission (the NRC has three Republican members and … More Optimism and pessimism surround small modular nuclear reactors