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President
Kadak Associates, Inc.
Given the slow and somewhat painful shutdowns of perfectly good operating nuclear plants due to competitive pressures from low priced natural gas and subsidized solar and wind generation, is there a future for new nuclear power plants? The recent experience of cost overruns and schedule delays associated with the 4 large (1200 Mwe) nuclear plants being built now in Georgia and South Carolina is not reassuring. Actually, the two in South Carolina have been essentially canceled by the owners due to these cost overruns and lack of electricity demand. While natural gas is cleaner than coal from an emissions standpoint,… [more]
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Associate Director
Berkeley Research Group
The National Capital Area Chapter for the U.S. Association for Energy Economics (NCAC-USAEE) held its annual energy policy conference on April 6th entitled “Energy Reset? Conflicting Forces in the Energy Space.” The event captured the economic implications of the announced and expected shift in energy policy between the Obama and Trump administrations. One reoccurring theme was the evolving role of government and market influences. It began with Thad Hill, CEO and President of Calpine Corp., emphasizing the need for free “markets, not mandates” and Tom Pyle, President of the American Energy Alliance, detailing President Trump’s energy deregulation agenda. A panel… [more]
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Editor / Researcher
OurFiniteWorld.com
Many people are hoping for wind and solar PV to transform grid electricity in a favorable way. Is this really possible? Is it really feasible for intermittent renewables to generate a large share of grid electricity? The answer increasingly looks as if it is, “No, the costs are too great, and the return on investment would be way too low.” We are already encountering major grid problems, even with low penetrations of intermittent renewable electricity, which in the U.S. was 5.4% of 2015 electricity consumption. In fact, I have come to the rather astounding conclusion that even if wind turbines… [more]
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