Arc Light, Gramme Machine, The Great Train Robbery
April Birthdays
Charles Brush, Zenobe Gramme, Edwin Porter, Hydro-Quebec, Guglielmo Marconi
Law & Lawyers
Play Ball. Electrically.
May 24, 1935: FDR pressed a gold telegraph key, and Crosley Field’s eight light towers turned on night baseball.
General Electric and Cincinnati Gas & Electric (now Duke Energy) designed and installed the light towers for the first night baseball game. Engineers painstakingly determined the tower positions.
A Formula for Grid Modernization?
How is it going?
Ann McCabe is a commissioner at the Illinois Commerce Commission. The views expressed in this article are her own.
Five years have passed since Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois elected to participate in the Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act, which authorized $3.2 billion in grid hardening and smart meter investments. As a commissioner at the Illinois Commerce Commission, I am often asked: How is it going?
Consumers Want What?
Rather than accept the rhetoric, let’s find out.
What’s missing is asking consumers to consider realistic tradeoffs between two characteristics of electricity rather than the desirability of a single characteristic in isolation.
Response to Radford Re: EPSA Complaints at FERC on Ohio Contracts
A response to the ‘Following FERC’ column by Bruce Radford in our April 2016 issue.
The PUCO was not, and never will be, in a position to ensure terms of PPAs meet requirements of FPA.
Nuclear Debate: Hansen is Wrong about Nuclear Power
Nuclear, a drain on our ability to deal with climate solutions, energy needs.
Dr. James Hansen, the renowned climate change scientist, has said that nuclear power is essential to combat climate change. We disagree. Nuclear energy is a boondoggle.
How the Environmental Movement Changed its Mind on Nuclear Power
The anti-growth, anti-people extremists who started the anti-nuclear movement were wrong.
If nuclear were subsidized at the same levels as solar and wind, or allowed to contribute to state RPS, nuclear would continue to be highly economical.
FERC Chasing the Uncatchable
Trying to fix mandatory capacity markets like trying to win whack-a-mole, Part I
FERC’s efforts to get capacity markets “right” have led to endless – and futile – tinkering. The cure proposed – making capacity auction markets mandatory – has unfortunately proved far worse than the disease.
A Five-Point Plan For The Next Wave Of Electricity Restructuring
The monopoly utility model was once expansive and revolutionary. Now, it is contracting and preservationist.
A plan for restructuring: Delivery service pricing reform; devolution of generation and re-allocating risk; stranded cost recovery; distributed resources neutrality; optimization of service offerings.
FPA § 203(a)(1)(B): A Deal is a Deal, No Matter How Small?
With apologies to Dr. Seuss.
There are questions whether FERC and industry resources are being expended on matters once considered, and arguably should continue to be considered, de minimis.