The seven-member South Carolina Public Service Commission today (Dec. 14) unanimously approved the sale of the state’s flagship investor-owned utility, SCANA Corp., to Virginia-based Dominion Energy for $14 billion. The SCANA takeover is the result of the disastrous decision of the South Carolina company to build two new nuclear power plants at its existing V.C. … More SC regulators approve Dominion buyout of SCANA
It’s time to face reality and move on. The U.S. nuclear waste program is a failure, and a new approach is needed. That’s the conclusion of a three-year study from Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The study – “Reset of America’s Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policy” – says it is time to … More Start over on U.S. nuclear waste?
The Senate confirmation Dec. 5 of Bernard McNamee to be aRepublican member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, by a partisan 50-49 vote, had barely happened when the first filing with FERC seeking McNamee’s recusal on coal-related votes hit the commission. Ari Pescoe, in a 22-page filing that surely was in the works as NcNamee’s … More Will FERC’s new commissioner recuse himself from coal issues?
With just over a week to go, the British Parliament is scheduled to vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal with the European Union that would see (Dec. 11) the United Kingdom eventually leave the EU. The outcome is in doubt. While steeped-in-duty May continues to say she will lead the UK out of the … More Continental Brexit, full English Brexit, or dog’s Brexit?
A runoff election to a seat on the Georgia Public Service Commission is turning on the role the PSC has played in the controversial Vogtle nuclear power project. The runoff for the District 3 seat on Tuesday, Dec. 4, pits incumbent Republican Chuck Eaton, a conservative Republican, and Democrat Lindy Miller, who founded a renewable … More Vogtle nuke costs key to Ga. PSC runoff
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?