At 5:30 a.m. on November 20, 1968, Consolidation Coal Company’s No. 9 mine near Farmington, W.Va., erupted with an explosion felt 12 miles away and a plume of flame and smoke that obscured vision. Ninety-nine miners were underground when the mine exploded. Twenty-one escaped; 78 died. Rescue attempts failed and Consol soon sealed the mine … More A federal success: 50 years of coal mine safety regulation
“Small, modular, coal-fired power plants?” Come on, DOE. This doesn’t even pass the laugh test. Secy. Rick Perry may not know much about coal, but surely there are people who work for him, who are not Trump apparatchiks, who know something about coal. Clearly Angelos Kokkinos, head of DOE’s fossil energy division, knows coal. He … More DOE coal sidehow: Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny coal plants
The Trump administration’s controversial nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, energy lawyer Bernard McNamee, took a conventional, mainline approach to his potential role at FERC during his Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing today. McNamee took care to distance himself from the administration’s failed proposal at FERC to upset competitive markets in … More FERC nominee walks a careful, middle path at Senate confirmation hearing
The never-ending end game for South Carolina’s abandoned V.C. Summer nuclear project is getting more complicated. Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper reports that troubled SCANA Corp., one of the two corporate parents of the failed $9 billion, two-unit, 2,000-MW construction project is drawing attention from federal law enforcement. The newspaper says that when SCANA CEO … More The convoluted V.C. Summer nuclear fiasco twists and turns
When it comes to claims of electrification in India, there appears to be a classic case of governmental smoke and mirrors, aimed at political goals. The government’s pronouncements consist of heavy doses of hyperbole and back-slapping, while many millions of Indians in the country of 1.3 billion people have no access to electricity or only … More India electrification: Far less than government claims?
I’ve just returned from two weeks in Madagascar, focused mostly on flora and fauna (including the many endemic bird species and, of course, lemurs). It’s a beautiful country, and little known to the rest of the world. But what struck me the most about this vast island nation (the fourth largest island in the world, … More Madagascar’s extreme energy poverty
With Chairman Kevin McIntyre still ill, absent, and not voting, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today adopted a new reliability standards to get a handle on cyber security risks associated with supply chains that supply the U.S. bulk electric system. The new FERC final rule largely follows a notice of proposed rulemaking issued in January. … More FERC adopts supply chain cyber security rule
What do the large, experienced, and sophisticated nuclear power programs of the U.S. and France have in common? Answer: they can’t seem to be able to build new generations of nuclear plants. At least that’s the case for new units in western democratic countries. Two U.S. utilities have been unable to complete four Westinghouse AP1000 … More France echoes U.S. on nuclear woes
The White House Wednesday said President Trump intends to nominate conservative energy lawyer Bernard L. McNamee to the vacant Republican seat at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He replaces Republican Robert Powelson. McNamee is currently head of the Department of Energy’s policy shop. McNamee is expected to push FERC toward administration efforts to boost the … More Trump to name Bernard McNamee to FERC
Born of great promise, an advanced nuclear power effort, severely damaged by initial overpromises, has crashed and burned. Transatomic Power has shut down operations, after MIT’s Technology Review reported that the principals, two recent MIT PhD nuclear engineering graduates, decided they did not “see a viable path to bringing its molten salt reactor to scale.” … More Transatomic Power, once a high-flyer, crash lands