ExxonMobil and its exploration and production partners have struck it rich in again in deep water off the shore of the South American country of Guyana. The oil giant, along with Hess and CNOOC, announced this week that it made its seventh oil find at the Pacora-1 exploration well in the massive Stabroek Block area … More Exxon strikes it rich, again, off Guyana
State electric utility regulators and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are facing a tough issue that they haven’t had to confront for over 30 years: How to adjust consumer rates to reflect the large tax cut Congress enacted this year, slashing nominal corporate federal income taxes from 35% to 21%. Greentech Media headlined a story, … More Electric regulators scramble over new tax law
A recent New York Times editorial asked, “Will the U.S. help the Saudis get a nuclear weapon?” It’s a reasonable question. On Friday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry will be in London, meeting with Saudi Arabian officials to discuss terms of a nuclear deal between the two countries to build U.S.-designed Westinghouse nuclear reactors in the … More Do the Saudis want to build a bomb?
Research physicist Daniel Jassby, writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently, said that commercial fusion energy, long a supposed holy grail to solve all of the problems associated with generating electricity, is a flawed fantasy. Jassby has standing. Now retired, he did major plasma physics research for 25 years at the Princeton Plasma … More Is fusion energy a fantasy?
FirstEnergy, the Akron-based electric utility holding company, is facing what looks like an existential challenge. The company is on the verge of losing all of its expensive nuclear and coal-fired generation and becoming an entirely regulated firm. The generating subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, is almost certain to file for bankruptcy by the end of March. CEO … More FirstEnergy: Into a gathering storm?
Georgia and the state’s electric utilities are laying down a big bet on the completion of the two-unit, 2,000-MW Vogtle nuclear plant. What’s going on in Georgia is similar to what’s going on in South Carolina, but with significant differences. Whether the Georgia approach to the same problems that have faced South Carolina will yield … More Ga. nuke plays on, with house money
The mess in South Carolina over the failed V.C. Summer nuclear plant just gets more convoluted and complicated, week-by-week. Last week, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted 108-1 to purge the South Carolina Public Service Commission. At the same time, the state Senate voted unanimously, 35-0, to give the PSC until the end of … More South Carolina nuclear mess gets messier
While the natural gas pipeline industry has some heartburn over the Trump administration’s new tax law, it is cheering the administration’s infrastructure plan released this week. While mostly focused on roads and bridges, and how to pay for improvements, the Trump plan includes proposals to streamline state environmental reviews of pipeline plans and cut Congress … More Trump infrastructure plan pushes gas pipelines
Recognizing the way technology is changing energy markets, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today took action to open the wholesale competitive markets it regulates to electric energy storage. By a unanimous vote, the five-member commission adopted a final rule to open the competitive energy, capacity and ancillary services markets to storage as both seller and … More FERC adapts rules to deal with electric storage
The Trump administration delivered a $4.4 billion fiscal year 2019 federal budget to Congress yesterday. A standard journalistic cliché about presidential budgets in recent years has been “dead on arrival.” As the Associated Press reported, Trump’s second budget plan was “dead even before arrival.” The current budget plan looks very much like what the president … More Trump’s FY 2019 budget: An administration flying blind