Today is the 40th anniversary of the nasty and iconic 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear plant outside Harrisburg, Pa., at the time the worst accident to occur at a light water reactor anywhere in the world. Ten years ago, at the 30th anniversary, I wrote a retrospective of my views … More Three Mile Island nuclear accident 40th anniversary
Two members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today warned that a recent federal appeals court ruling involving the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management has important implications for FERC’s handling of environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in natural gas pipeline and liquefied natural gas export cases. Citing a front page article in this … More FERC commissioners raise implications of Interior Department court ruling
“The time has come to sell Santee Cooper.” That statement by South Carolina Senate President Harvey Peeler, and a joint Senate-House resolution he introduced on Wednesday to give Gov. Henry McMaster authority to unload the 85-year-old state-owned generation and transmission system, presumably to a private investor, have revived what appeared to be dead a month … More Sale of S.C.’s Santee Cooper public power system resurfaces
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned all nuclear plant operators and managers to take more care in evaluating and documenting temporary alterations to plants “except those that have permanently ceased operations and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel.” In a five-page information notice dated March 12, the agency … More NRC flags problems with temporary plant alterations
“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well. Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone. Everything should be as simple as it can be, yet no simpler.” – -Albert Einstein Any journalist who has covered the … More NRC STEMwinder: acronyms, abbreviations, and plain language
Alabama Power, blaming federal regulations past and future, specifically coal ash and wastewater management (although poor company planning may have more to do with it), announced last month that it will close the final three units of its elderly Gorgas coal-fired station in Parrish, Ala., near Birmingham. But while the utility is blaming the feds, … More Money for nothing: Alabama Power to profit from closed coal plant
The late (1921-2004), great U.S. comedian Rodney Dangerfield had a stock catchphrase, “I don’t get no respect.” The same appears to be true of West Virginia. The latest evidence is a March 1 article in the Wall Street Journal, with the headline “Left Behind in Nationwide Jobs Recovery: Charleston, W.Va.” and a subhead, “Thanks to … More Is West Virginia the Rodney Dangerfield of states?
The once-giant, 1700-MW San Juan coal plant outside of Farmington, N.M., near the Colorado border, could have a new lease on life. But the details look problematic. POWER magazine reports that a rather unknown New York real estate hedge fund real estate investor, Acme Equities LLC, has offered a deal to the city to keep … More Unlikely plan to save New Mexico’s San Juan coal plant
Terrifying. That word comes unbidden reading “Midnight in Chernobyl: The World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster,” by Adam Higgenbotham. This splendid book is by far the most detailed and best account of the April 1986 disaster at the Soviet Union’s V.I. Lenin plant in the Ukraine. This is a story of the deep-seated rot in Communist socialism. … More Book review: “Midnight in Chernobyl”
In a short meeting today, postponed from the morning to the afternoon due to snow and some ice Wednesday in Washington, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued rules making some utility mergers easier and streamlining hydropower regulations. FERC also clarified in a draft order its rules on how new generators and technologies can connect to … More FERC issues two final rules, clarifies an existing order