Many energy supply commentators profess an outdated view of coal as a low cost fuel with rather steady and predicable prices. That description of the coal market, which had been reasonably accurate for more than a decade before about 2002, became obsolete because of a number of factors. China’s rapid growth Lengthy, maintenance related, shut…
BP, the oil gathering, refining and marketing conglomerate formerly known as British Petroleum, is continuing its efforts to convince people that it has moved “beyond petroleum”. In two large, 2/3 of a page advertisements on pages 16 and 17 of the November 7, 2005 issue of BusinessWeek, the company details its efforts to double its…
There is a lot of attention being paid to the incredible quantity of money that is flowing from oil consumers to oil gathering and refining companies. Here are some examples of interesting viewpoints on the issue: Gregg says oil company profits should be taxed Off topic: Record oil company profits and gas prices Backlash spreads…
Joshua Gilder, a visiting fellow at the Lexington Institute, published a terrific opinion piece in the October 25, 2005 issue of the Washington Times titled “Chernobyl exposed.” He correctly identifies that the biggest cause of health effects from the accident was the fear that was instilled into the population based on ignorance and misguided government…
The French government has announced that it will not be proceeding with its previously announced plans to partially privatize Areva. The organization is a completely government owned nuclear power conglomerate whose various units are involved in every phase of the nuclear power industry from uranium mining, through fuel fabrication, to plant construction, to fuel recycling…
Exxon-Mobil executives and stock holders will not be hurting this winter. On October 27, 2005 the company released its 3rd Quarter 2005 earnings report. For the first time ever, a publicly traded corporation reported top line revenue exceeding $100 BILLION dollars. A good portion of that top line fell to the bottom line – earnings…
Natural gas and oil prices began rising again this week as parts of the eastern United States received their first significant snowfall of the 2005-2006 winter season. As of yesterday’s market close, Bloomberg.com is reporting that heating oil is trading at $1.87 per gallon (compared to a gasoline price of $1.59) on the New York…
It has been a week where blogging had to fall off the priority list of things to do. However, I did want to follow up on the “Costs of Conservative Action” post from 18 October 2005 to report that Palo Verde did, indeed get back up to full power by the end of the day…
On October 11, 2005, units 2 and 3 of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station (PVNGS) were shutdown because the plant operators could not prove the validity of a calculation made in the 1970s when the plants were designed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the plant engineers to prove that the Emergency Core Cooling…
The Las Vegas Sun has published a column providing some local details about the effects of high electricity and natural gas bills on people in its territory. Several people quoted in the article, however, (including a member of the Public Utility Commission and the Energy Information Agency) incorrectly imply that electric utilities are mere victims…
Lefteri Tsoukalas, the head of Purdue University’s School of Nuclear Engineering wrote a guest column for the Lafayette Journal and Courier about ABC’s October 13, 2005 “Prime Time” investigation of university research reactors. His well written column is well worth a visit for “the rest of the story.”
My old friend Jeremy Whitlock, who has been publishing the Candian Nuclear FAQ since April 1996, published a very amusing article titled “Refurbish thyself” with slightly disguised references to some prominent anti-nuclear leaders and their groups. Worth visiting, especially if you are a nuke that likes recognizing allusions are not necessarily obvious to outsiders.