March 25, 2009

If not Yucca Mountain, then what? That's the question that the nuclear energy sector is asking the Obama administration, which has effectively killed the permanent repository for spent fuel by cutting off its funding.

It had long been thought that if the nuclear sector is to make a revival, it would need a permanent place to bury its radioactive material and Yucca Mountain, 90 miles outside of Las Vegas, provided such a spot. But the site has been entangled in one legal morass after the next -- a predicament that will now force the industry to rethink its growth strategies.

March 18, 2009

Of the top five utility stocks in 2008, only two ended the year in positive territory. The third best-performing stock, Unisource, was down 6.9 percent. What happened and will it happen again this year? Lots of factors are at play.

Barry Abramson, utility analyst at Gabelli Funds, took a look at five of the worst-performing stocks of 2008 to parse the negatives. Constellation, of course, is a case apart, although companies heavily invested in merchant trading were all hurt. Looking at other underperformers, however, reveals a distinct set of negative factors. New Mexico's PNM was squeezed by a need for rate increases, which hadn't happened for several years, despite rising costs. It got partial relief last year, but not enough to lift earnings anywhere near where they had been five years ago. At the same time, its fuel and operating costs continued to rise. As a result, the stock was punished, down a whopping 53 percent.

Source: The Great Lakes IT Report
Posted: Tuesday, 17 March 2009
by Matt Roush

Two Michigan entrepreneurs say they plan to begin putting thousands of people to work in the wind energy industry this summer.

Global Wind Systems Inc. says it will employ 300 at its Novi assembly operations by this fall, building the central hubs of huge 1.5 megawatt wind turbines. CEO Chris Long likens the hubs to "70-ton school buses" in shape and size.

Meanwhile, Gilbert Borman and his Borman Holdings LLC hope to act as a supplier of gears to Global Wind Systems.

The dirty little secret of today's rapidly growing American wind power industry is that virtually all of its hardware is imported from Europe, which has been pursuing wind power for 30 years now. Long and Borman aim to change that, with the enthusiastic support of state officials like Stanley "Skip" Pruss, director and chief energy officer of the state Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.

Long said Michigan's long legacy manufacturing expertise gives it substantial advantages in wind turbine manufacturing, and global demand is astounding.

Source: The Great Lakes IT Report
Posted: Monday, 16 March 2009
by Matt Roush

The global economic downturn is even hitting solar energy.

Rochester Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (Nasdaq: ENER) said Monday that it will eliminate 70 jobs in solar panel production at the older of its two Auburn Hills plants based on current economic conditions.

The company also announced a two-week production hiatus effective Sunday, March 22. And it said that when it finishes the basic construction of its latest new plant in Battle Creek, it will defer the purchase of equipment and hiring of operating personnel. It's also minimizing the use of temporaries and consultants.

The company blamed "the present impact of credit availability on project flow in the global pipeline for photovoltaics.

March 13, 2009

Electricite de France's 49 percent acquisition of Constellation Energy's nuclear assets signifies its belief that nuclear energy will gain traction in the United States. As a first step, it will join forces with a company in which it already has relations and which is an established entity.

While a full nuclear resurgence may be more than a decade away, the fundamentals are in place for it to occur. The country is inexorably headed toward carbon constraints. And with the demand for energy projected to gradually rise over time, it will become imperative that the nation build more base-load generation. That leaves two options, which are coal and nuclear. Unless researchers and developers can commercialize carbon capture and storage technologies, nuclear would then become the most viable.