On January 28, 2009, the Senate Foreign Relations committee invited former Vice President Al Gore in to testify about global climate change at its first major policy related hearing of the current Congress. Through the amazing tool of C-span video, I watched and listened carefully to the entire hearing yesterday morning before going to my…
While catching up on today’s UPI news feed, I realized that there were a number of articles about intense negotiations on various aspects of at least three different natural gas pipeline systems. Budapest is hosting a gathering that includes representatives from financial organizations, Caspian area gas suppliers and European host nations. There is an article…
I love people who evaluate issues based on hard nosed facts and critical thinking. The Fulton Sun apparently hires writers who feel the same way. On Monday, January 26, 2009, Don Norfleet wrote an article for that publication titled Nuclear plant foes shift from environmentalists to consumer groups that is full of terrific analysis of…
On Sunday January 25, 2009, I invited three of the most active pro-nuclear bloggers for a chat about the state of the nuclear industry, clean atomic energy versus “clean” coal, renewable portfolio standards, effects of the current economic crisis. Charles Barton blogs at Nuclear Green and Energy from Thorium John Wheeler produces This Week In…
I have recently become an active participant on TheEnergyCollective.com. It is an interesting site that is aggregating commentary and blog feeds from diverse source that include Dan Yurman’s Idaho Samizdat and Joe Romm’s Climate Progress. This morning I ran across a fascinating “inside baseball” post from Henry Gentenaar a managing partner at Reluminati, LLC. Henry…
There is a story in the Sunday, January 25, 2009 issue of the Washington Post that is contains one of the best illustrations of the Jevons Paradox that I have seen in a while. (From the Wikipedia entry – “In economics, the Jevons Paradox (sometimes called the Jevons effect) is the proposition that technological progress…
Joe Romm at Climate Progress has an interesting point to make about the frustrations of debating people who make stuff up on the fly. It can be quite challenging to be in a situation where you have done your homework, have all of the charts and graphs, and can speak with reasonable fluency about the…
On January 20, 2009 Rod Adams spoke with Alexandra Prokopenko to get a local view of the effects on Eastern Europe of the Ukraine/Russia natural gas supply dispute. Alexandra is a citizen of Belarus who currently lives and works in Sweden. Her husband is living in Kiev, Ukraine and she speaks to him each day….
Exelon is the largest electricity supplier in the country. It also owns and operates the largest fleet of nuclear power plants, with a total of 17 operational reactors that have an average capacity factor well in excess of 90%. Last week, it reported a 26% increase in its 4th quarter profit figures compared to the…
At the beginning of the gas supply interruption in Europe, I commented on the possibility that Russia, a nation of chess players, had made what might be a short sighted strategic move by cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine as part of a negotiation over sales prices to that former Soviet block country. My belief…
While browsing through this morning’s Wall Street Journal (20 January 2009) I could not help noticing the below full page ad from Peabody Coal which claims to be the world’s largest private sector coal company. It was in a prominent location for the the political junkie class – a special Inauguration section that might end…
Steven Chu is a well respected scientist, national laboratory manager and biofuels focused researcher. He has been nominated by President-elect Barack Obama to be the Secretary of Energy, a position that puts him in charge of approximately 30,000 people and an annual budget of approximately $25 billion. As Dr. Chu stated in his testimony, the…