On March 12, Nathan Myhrvold, idea man for Bill Gates and a principal in Gates’s Terra Power breeder reactor project, spoke to an audience of thousands at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual regulatory information conference. Basing his talk on a November Scientific American article, Myhrvold pushed for a new generation of advanced, innovative nuclear … More Commentary: The fallacy of industry self-regulation

State renewable energy mandates are an inefficient way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electric generation, according to a new working paper from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). The paper – “Do Renewable Portfolio Standards Deliver?” – argues that state-level renewable electricity mandates in 29 states and the District of … More Are state renewable targets too expensive?

While U.S. natural gas prices rose slightly in 2018, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s latest State of the Markets Report, lack of pipeline capacity in the Permian Basin in west Texas and eastern New Mexico led to substantially lower prices. During a presentation at the FERC’s April 18 public meeting, Staff noted that … More FERC scopes out 2018 energy market forces

A busy Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today approved two new liquefied natural gas export projects: Driftwood LNG in Louisiana and Port Arthur LNG in Texas. The approval also continued the squabble at FERC over assessing the environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from LNG projects. Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur concurred with Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioner … More FERC approves two new LNG export terminals

Energy economist Severin Borenstein in a new post at his Energy Institute Blog argues that the favorite of most economists, pricing greenhouse gases, won’t be enough to harness global warming. Borenstein, faculty director at the Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business, writes, “I’m as big an advocate of pricing GHGs as other economists … More Borenstein: Carbon pricing not a panacea

President Trump’s two executive orders yesterday, aimed at streamlining permitting of oil and gas pipelines, are winning industry support. But they will likely face legal pushback from affected states and environmental groups. The New York Times wrote, “The actions are unlikely to have much of an immediate impact, but they will probably attract legal challenges … More Trump’s pipeline orders: Less than meets the eye?

While Pacific Gas & Electric is drawing most of the attention – and fire – for its role in devastating wildfires in 2017 and 2018, it’s clear that this is a statewide problem, not just sloppy practices by an uncaring monopoly utility. The state’s other two investor-owned utilities – Southern California Edison and San Diego … More All Calif. utilities face fire liabilities

Westinghouse, the lead contractor in the collapsed V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina, has sued the statewide public power system Santee Cooper in Westinghouse’s bankruptcy proceeding, charging last week that Santee Cooper has been balking at selling millions of dollars of unused equipment at the failed, two-unit Westinghouse reactor construction.   The State newspaper … More The weird world of the V.C. Summer collapse

PG&E, in the midst of a nasty bankruptcy reorganization and major legal and political turmoil, has made a clean sweep of its top leadership. On Wednesday, the San Francisco electric and gas utility named Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Bill Johnson as the new CEO and president, while also unveiling a new board of directors. The … More PG&E picks Bill Johnson as CEO, names new board

Is the Trump administration secretly moving to allow Saudi Arabia to avoid U.S. nuclear non-proliferation law and policy in order to combine a civilian nuclear power program with a surreptitious nuclear weapons effort? Thanks to some intrepid reporting from the online news service the Daily Beast, we now know that the Department of Energy and … More US firms held secret nuclear meetings with Saudi Arabia