October, 2009

And day last. We’re going to focus today on John Rowe, Exelon CEO. As we said over the last two days, the focus of the hearings has been general in nature, alighting on nuclear energy and other energy generators only occasionally. But Rowe dove straight into provisions that should be considered if the...

As you might expect, the second of three days of the hearings on the climate change bill saw some themes emerge. First, the tenor more-or-less avoids talking about specific energy generators even when representatives of relevant companies are present. Natural gas probably picked up the most traction...

The industry’s release of the nuclear title has multiple goals. One, of course, is to provide information to Congress as it considers the Kerry-Boxer climate change legislation, to indicate how the industry can help government achieve its goals. But that information is fully public, so it has a role...

The first of three days of hearings about the Boxer-Kerry climate change bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)) went the way opening days often do. The Senators kicked things off with what were essentially position papers, with Sen. Boxer...

We gave you a heads up the other day with some fact sheets that outline what the industry - and NEI – has been doing as hearings on the energy bill get underway today (Look at the Twitter feed on your right for some quotes coming out of the hearings. We’ll see about fleshing them out later). Toward this...

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) released what called the chairman’s mark of the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill, called the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733). At least, this is an accurate title – bills are often called something benign despite repulsive contents, but this one hits the...

President Barack Obama’s energy speech at MIT could have focused a bit more on nuclear energy. But he intended to cover a lot of bases and clearly did that. He noted the green jobs created by the stimulus bill, he called for bipartisanship in crafting the climate change bill in the Senate, he paid appropriate...

The Thorium Energy Alliance had its first annual conference in Washington earlier this week, so The New York Times decided to take a look at the potential of Thorium as a fuel for nuclear energy plants. Rajendran Raja, a physicist at Fermilab — the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator...

If this article about the Czech Republic’s energy profile is correct, the number one goal of the country is to disentangle itself from Russia, with which it was of course deeply entangled for some fifty years. The number two goal, though, is to keep a fishy eye on President Vaclav Klaus, who appears...

We don’t normally point you to NEI’s content because we assume you know it’s there and will go there – as well as to the NRC, ANS and other such worthy organizations – for all your nuclear knowledge needs. However, with energy issues heating up (so to speak), NEI has been busily putting together some...

Tom Ashbrook from NPR's OnPoint got the two to cordially hash out their opposing views on nuclear . Though the conversation lasted for about 12 minutes, not much was actually debated. I guess a good debate is what the blogosphere is for. So far I haven't seen much praise for Lovins' latest...

The difficulties of identifying and exploiting a market – whether to provide nuclear energy or to market a new food product – is never easy and, for a start-up, notably difficult. To wit: A company called Alternate Energy Holdings has a pretty good idea : A small company that's pushing a billion...

Ken Edelstein over at Mother Nature News acknowledges that what we might call “classic” environmentalists, those raised on the Whole Earth Catalog and the No Nukes concerts, might have a bit of a problem . How much less politically radioactive nuclear power has become was underscored Oct. 11 in a Sunday...

The answers to this question from various experts should be fun to watch unfold over the week . Be sure to remember to check in occasionally to see how the discussion is going. It's up to five mixed responses so far... ...read more

Who [Else] is Advertising with the NHL? [Dasherboard ads, positions #40 - #21, tracked Oct. 17-31, 2009] Anaheim [ Honda Center ] Travel Alberta Del Taco Honda State Farm Mountain Dew NHL.com Citizens Business Bank Time Warner Cable Acura Pepsi 830 AM Radio AAA.com (Triple A) Miller Lite Orange County...

While President Obama pulled duty in New Orleans the other day, as we reported in the post below, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu is in Paris speaking to a meeting of the International Energy Agency. You can decide who pulled the better duty. Chu and the energy ministers are all jockeying for...

Interesting doings in Florida today: The Florida Public Service Commission rejected arguments from environmentalists and clean-energy advocates and voted 3-1 today to approve a request by Progress Energy, and Florida Power & Light, to charge customers for four new nuclear power plants that wouldn't...

For those who may be stuck inside all weekend due to bad weather (it's supposed to continue to be dreary around DC for the next couple days) there are quite a few excellent and fun readings I recommend. First is Dan Yurman's third-party perspective about the push for nuclear in Idaho. His frank...

Here are the words : "There's no reason why technologically we can't employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way. Japan does it and France doesn't [sic?] and it doesn't have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way."...

The bipartisan push for a nuclear title in the Senate’s climate change bill picked up considerably today: Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) is helping to negotiate a nuclear energy amendment that could help bring aboard swing votes who support the industry. Architects and backers of the nuclear effort include...

With a record of 2-2-2, the Caps' play so far this season has been inconsistent and somewhat disappointing. Media coverage of NEI's corporate sponsorship with the team, meanwhile, has been steady. Stories about the partnership have appeared on: the AP wire, the Wall Street Journal 's Environmental...

Carrington Dillon at Clean Energy Insight wrote a very informative piece on the answer . In the nuclear power industry, an “outage” does not primarily refer to a power outage or blackout. Every Spring and Fall, when power demand is at its lowest, the nuclear industry shuts down some of their plants for...

Nuclear power, based on existing technologies, still has all its original problems: proliferation of nuclear weapons, terrorism, lack of long-term waste management, rare but catastrophic accidents and huge economic costs. All except the risk of accidents are worse now than in the 1970s. In several decades...

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) co-wrote an op-ed for the New York Times demonstrating that distinguished gentlemen from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum can agree on a few things. Like what, for example? Second, while we invest in renewable energy sources like wind and...

At long last, Viking-Penguin releases tomorrow the much-anticipated Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by the illustrious and celebrated author, thinker, environmentalist, Merry Prankster, finder and founder, and all-around great American, Stewart Brand . In his “New Nukes” chapter, he...