“Europe’s biggest nuclear power operator EDF, which manages France’s fleet of 57 reactors, is under pressure to show it can improve on its record of reactor construction. Recent projects have been severely delayed and hugely over budget, taking well over 10 years to complete.” – Financial Times, February 20, 2026).
There’s a new leader in the nuclear power plant cost overrun derby, and it isn’t even in the clubhouse yet. Britain’s Hinkley Point C — being built in Somerset by France’s government-owned Électricité de France (EDF) — is now going to cost at least £49 billion ($65 billion) if it goes into service in 2030 and another £1 billion ($1.3 billion) if the first unit is delayed to 2031. This equates to $10 million per megawatt–best case–with multiple years of waiting.…
Continue ReadingEd note: The extract below from a Joint Economic Committee Staff Report briefly describes the end of oil price and allocation regulation in 1981, righting one of the worst energy fiascos in U.S. history. This experience has taken price controls off the political table ever since with petroleum, including today with the Iran War. [“President Reagan’s Economic Legacy,” Section C: Energy Shortages and Regulatory Failures]
In the 1970s, OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) was temporarily successful in driving up energy prices and hitting consumer wallets worldwide. OPEC’s manipulations of oil supplies were turned into a full-scale energy crisis in the United States because of price controls in energy markets.
Rising oil prices hurt consumers, but long lines at gas stations and shortages of heating oil were the work of bad policy, not of markets.…
Continue Reading“Many [green] philanthropists who are willing to step up are looking around and saying, ‘DOE is stepping back and Catalyst doesn’t exist. I can’t solve this on my own.’” – Lara Pierpoint, Trellis Climate at Prime Coalition (below)
For decades, energy realists have explained why the stock energy created by the sun — fossil fuels — are inherently more economical than the dilute, intermittent flow from the sun. The concept of energy density has been explained ceaselessly in articles and books by Vaclav Smil. Political Economy 101 — markets pick winners, leaving losers for government — also comes into play as experimental technologies enabled by special government favor face the political winds of change.
Evidence? Start with the recent demise of the rooftop solar industry and the EV industry here in the U.S.…
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