Skip to main content

On The California Blackouts

By Eric McErlain
In the wake of last week's blackout in Southern California, the San Francisco Chronicle says it's time for the state to develop a more comprehensive energy plan:
Northern California -- and most of the West -- has plenty of power on hand. Southern California, which has fewer access points to regional power plants, is closer to the tipping point between supply and demand, as the shutdown showed.

So things aren't really that bad? Hardly. The energy crisis definitely grabbed the state's attention, but it did launch a number of campaigns that had never before come together into a single plan. More power plants were built and prices stabilized, but the fight over energy issues continued.

A span of interests -- consumer groups, power firms and politicians -- continue to disagree on a needed energy blueprint . . .

These factors add up to an uncertain future. California can scrape by for now, but it needs a coherent and reliable energy plan. The easy path would be to wait for a crisis and jam through makeshift rules -- exactly what happened last time, and which left the state with costly power bills and a stumblebum image.

It would be far better to use the breathing space before the next emergency and map out a flexible energy future. That could keep the lights burning longer.
As we've said before, the situation California finds itself in didn't happen overnight, and it won't be solved overnight either. Here at NEI, we think nuclear energy can be part of the solution, which is one of the topics that our President and CEO, Skip Bowman, will be addressing when he speaks at Town Hall Los Angeles on September 13. Click here for the details and here to register.

Technorati tags:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more