Nuclear

The NRC today has come to serve not just as policeman, but also judge and jury.

PJM appointed Andrew L. Ott president and CEO; Mississippi Power named Anthony L. Wilson president; PG&E appointed Jason P. Wells as senior v.p. and CFO; Chesapeake Energy appointed R. Brad Martin as non-executive chairman of the company’s board of directors; Rafael Flores was elected to the Ameren board of directors. And others ...

Of the top ten movers in this year’s Fortnightly 40, seven utilities rose in the rankings and three went down. But the utilities moving the most from 2013 to 2014 went down hard.

As the nation strives for cleaner air and less carbon emissions, nuclear – the most promising carbon-free power source – faces stiff competition from natural gas, which is cheap, abundant, and a lot easier to get permitted and built than a conventional reactor.

With respect to the Clean Power Plan, the question is whether EPA will address the major issues and reinforce its positions in advance of the anticipated legal challenges.

The question of the life span of these resources is highly pertinent, given efforts to subsidize nuclear units in New York and Illinois. Are these subsidies for five years or 30 years? There is little research on the life expectancy of the average commercial reactor.

Sonoma Clean Power will build the largest floating solar array in the U.S., scheduled to be completed in 2016 and will create enough energy to power 3,000 houses; GE announced the construction of two service centers focused on the operation and maintenance of wind turbines in Brazil; Open Systems International was awarded a contract by Seattle City Light to implement a new energy management system; FirstEnergy expects to invest about $225 million on distribution and transmission infrastructure projects in north-central West Virginia; APR Energy commissioned an expansion of its power plant in Myanmar; The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Westinghouse Electric’s testing approach for the Westinghouse small modular reactor design; FuelCell Energy agreed to sell a 1.4-MW fuel cell power plant project to NRG Energy; ABB and Samsung SDI signed a memorandum of understanding to promote microgrid solutions globally; And others ...

Technological progress can be function of productive public-private partnerships that help shoulder risks and raise capital.

As things stand today, even without the Clean Power Plan, we expect to see the retirement of more than 6 percent of North America’s generation capacity by 2030.