The Quad Report

With the COP29 global climate conference opening in Baku, Azerbaijan in less than two weeks (Nov. 11), it’s worthwhile looking at some of the recent and sometimes confounding science that will confront the delegates. Whether that science will directly influence the proceedings is doubtful. It is worth noting that the affair, the 29th meeting of… More Commentary: COP29 looms, where science will take a back seat to performance politics

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is pushing back against a recent gas pipeline ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the D.C. Circuit. The court in July vacated FERC’s approval of a Transco project to move gas from the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania to New Jersey, ruling that the agency’s 2023 approval was… More FERC’s Phillips pushes back on pipeline decisions

Holtec International’s plan to resurrect the shuttered Pilgrim nuclear plant in Michigan is generating optimism. If successful, could nuclear grave robbing could come to life, decommissioning morphing into recommissioning? Speaking at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing last week (July 23), Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Christopher Hanson told U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich) that… More Holtec: Palisades restart progress, Pilgrim decommissioning setback, UK factory examined

As a sometimes historian of the U.S. infatuation with nuclear power, military and civilian, I thought I had come across most of the bizarre tales of nuclear things gone wrong: Idaho’s SL1 death machine; the atomic powered bomber to nowhere; the flightless Kiwi at Jackass Flats; Edward Teller’s atomic earth blaster project disingenuously named “Plowshare;”… More The cold sad tale of “Nukey Poo”

When it comes to overall U.S. energy trends, this year and next will look much like 2023, according to the Energy Information Agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook, released last week (April 9). According to the Department of Energy’s statistical arm, worldwide crude oil prices, which averaged $82 per barrel in 2023, will rise slightly to $89… More EIA’s ho-hum 2024-2025 energy forecast

Birth? Despite the desperate dreams of some for a tripling of worldwide nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a rebirth is drawing skepticism. In the aftermath of last year’s COP28 22 of the world’s nuclear power countries declared that goal. Following up on that aspirational event, the International Atomic Energy Agency organized the first-ever “Nuclear Energy… More Advanced nuclear life cycle: Birth? Death? Burial?

Tom Ervin, a member of the South Carolina Public Service Commission, resigned Wednesday (Mar. 13), protesting utility-friendly legislation moving forward in the state legislature. Ervin warned that the bill could set up a repeat of the catastrophically-failed V.C. Summer nuclear project in 2017. The bill in the state House would clear the regulatory path for… More S.C. utility regulator quits in protest over pending legislation

Holtec dodges N.J. criminal charges New Jersey-based Holtec International last Tuesday (Jan. 30)  agreed to pay its home state a $5 million fine in order to avoid criminal prosecution for falsifying documents related to a 2018 state-awarded tax break program. The development in New Jersey could scuttle widespread rumors, most likely spread by Holtec, that… More Nuclear Gatherings: Palisades, Vogtle 4, Hinkley Point, France

This is a variation of a column that I have been writing yearly for decades. I write to remind readers that skepticism has been a driving factor in my over 50 years in journalism, including small and large city dailies, the Associated Press, Congressional Quarterly, Energy Daily, Electricity Daily, POWER magazine, and The Quad Report.… More Skepticism is a virtue

The vulnerable Texas electric grid has survived Winter Storm Heather, which brought frigid weather to the Lone Star State and snow and equally frigid temperatures to the East and Middle Atlantic states. Texans, who have become familiar with cold winter weather and searing summer heat bringing statewide blackouts, responded to pleas from the high-voltage transmission… More Texas unharmed by Winter Storm Heather