The Quad Report

Executives from Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, owner and operator of the nation’s largest fleet of nuclear power plants, will face a grilling from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a serious, long-running coverup of a mishap at the two-unit, 1,819-MW Quad Cities nuclear plant in northwestern Illinois. An April inspection of the plant by the NRC’s … More NRC examines Constellation after 2023 Quad Cities coverup

By Henry Sokolski Among analysts, the military assault of nuclear facilities is generally viewed in one of two ways. The first is to assume meltdowns, massive radiation releases, and evacuation catastrophes will ensue. The second emphasizes how, despite repeated attacks on reactors, no radiological release has yet occurred and stresses how much safety engineers have … More Guest Commentary: When Nuclear Plants Become Military Targets

By Kennedy Maize In his 1841 essay “Self-Reliance,” American Trancendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” That seems to be the working credo of the current U.S. Supreme Court, at least when it comes to the National Environmental Policy … More Commentary: Chevron lives? “A foolish consistency…?”

By Kennedy Maize The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved NuScale Power’s evolutionary small modular reactor design, a 77-MW light water cooled and moderated pressurized water reactor in a six-reactor package. The “US460” SMR is a scaled-up design based on the NRC’s 2020 approval of NuScale’s original 50-MW machine. The NRC staff, in the … More NRC Oks NuScale’s 77-MW SMR design

“Future electricity needs for artificial intelligence (AI) are wildly uncertain—shaped by unproven concepts, disputed performance, limited trust, volatile markets, unpredictable adoption, and technical efficiency that quadruples roughly each year.” That warning comes from Amory Lovins, one of the legendary energy gurus of the 1970s and 1980s. In a May 10 paper from his firm, Lovins … More Amory Lovins on AI hype and electricity realism

By Kennedy Maize Offering an implausible rationale, the Trump administration has ordered a private-sector electric utility to delay plans to shut down a large coal-fired power plant in Michigan from the planned closure this Saturday (May 31) until at least August 21. The order last Friday (May 23) from the Department of Energy bigfoots Michigan-based … More Unbidden, DOE cancels long-planned coal plant shutdown

By Kennedy Maize The Trump administration is proposing to create a government-owned corporation to manage much of the civilian nuclear power fuel cycle, including previously banned atomic bomb fuel plutonium to be recovered from reprocessed spent nuclear fuel. This audacious proposal comes in another of Trump’s avalanche of executive orders. On Friday (May 23) he … More Trump EOs push nuclear reprocessing, slam the NRC

By Kennedy Maize The most mature technology for storing energy to generate electricity when power supply is limited is water: pumped storage. The concept is straight forward: use power when it is plentiful to pump water to an elevated reservoir, then run the water downhill through turbines to make power when needed. It’s simple, it … More Getting pumped: Hydro storage promises and problems

By Kennedy Maize The on-again, off-again, Trump-again administration has reversed course and told a large, halted offshore wind project to resume construction. The Interior Department has told Norway’s Equinor to get back to work on its multibillion-dollar, 800-MW Empire 1 wind project some 14 miles off the shore of Long Island just a month after … More Wind wars: The Empire comes back

By Kennedy Maize The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week (May 13) rejected a rate proposal by three major investor-owned utilities for a $3 billion, 417-mile high-voltage electric transmission line running through Virginia and West Virginia and into a small portion of Maryland. The transmission line would be in the footprint of the PJM regional … More FERC nixes $3 billion Mid-Atlantic transmission line