Are Nukes the Answer?

Nuclear energy polarizes people. There are two camps: Those who actually think of nuclear energy as a form of renewable energy that makes clean fuel fast (most of us would call this group France), and those who think the first camp is spouting evil propaganda for the Man and that nuclear power is a frightening, dirty, nasty tidbit of Cold War leftovers.

Doesn't seem to be a lot of gray area on the nuclear front.

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu blogged---yes, blogged---on Facebook about the need for a newly announced nuclear power loan guarantee program. He made all the rational arguments for the program: that no one single power source can be the solution, that renewables are not feasible enough to be a large power footprint right now, that nuclear energy does help reduce carbon and, therefore, would positively impact climate change. His arguments were reasonable and practical---just what you'd expect from a scientist who is also the Secretary of Energy.

The outsider comments on his blog entry were not so reasonable, nor so rational. There were a lot of angry diatribes from a lot of angry Facebookers about how to make renewables more feasible instead. Interestingly enough, they wanted the money being guaranteed for nukes to be promised, instead, to renewables. A lot of those discussions claimed that nukes wouldn't be feasible without this government financial assistance (which may be true, but, right now, there's a very solid similar argument for solar and wind, so it seems these guys are shooting themselves in the foot in order to take pot shots at the enemy).

I've always found it fascinating---all the walls built between renewable energy camps and traditional energy camps. The renewable peeps find traditional energy old, outdated and dangerous. The traditional energy peeps fine renewable energy a tad silly, ridiculously expensive and impractical. The hippies versus the squares, to put it all into 1960s war metaphor terminology.

But, there are good arguments on both sides. Renewables have great potential, but there are still issues (storage, intermittence, cost, maintenance, investment). Traditional energy is currently practical, but offers a future with severe imperfections (climate change, global warming, loss of fuel source, reliance on unstable economies for fuel). But, in the end, there is no direct way to dissolve traditional energy and transition entirely into renewables overnight. So, rather than stand on opposite sides of the digital wall and scream at each other, perhaps it's time for a little overlap.

I really think that's all Sec. Chu was driving at: The importance of all sorts of shades of gray in the energy equation. No one says you have to see nukes as the shining light of an energy future. But, perhaps we can see it as a way to transition, a "baby step" toward a different energy economy.

Exelon to "Arrogant Americans": No Gig for You

Fox News is reporting quite the HR snafu from energy powerhouse Exelon. It seems that the company sent out a note via an IT staffing firm requesting a writer with a focus on the nuclear industry and a certain reverence for China. Unfortunately, it wasn't worded quite as nicely as I just put it.

Toward the end of the ad's second paragraph, after discussions about job duties and skills required, is the line "An arrogant American will not work well in this role."

Apparently, that made a few Americans---both arrogant and otherwise, perhaps all a bit sensitive to the label---a tad unhappy.

See, now I know exactly how this happened. Somewhere in this process was someone just as blunt as me. Some perturbed or stress-out manager with a reputation for "plain language" said, quite directly, something about needing a person for the job who is not the typical "arrogant American" who runs over outside cultures (which we have a reputation for, unfortunately) because Chinese culture is very, very different and requires a lot of social delicacy.

And, sadly, this plain language never hit an editor or a stage where they added some fluffy verbiage to say it more PC like "attune to cultural differences and willing to defer to cultural needs." (Probably due to company lay-offs or other cutbacks, that editor/assistant/secretary/HR intern who would read it for such plain language doesn't exist anymore.)

Nope. Taken literally. Put into the ad directly. Funny stuff.

This is a good example of how an editor could save your butt. Isn't it an amusing bit of dramatic irony (giving the job ad an air of great literature) that a good writer was needed to whip up an ad to garner a good writer---the concept of which the staffing firm that penned the query apparently wasn't aware.

But, to help their defense attorney, I'd point out that the ad didn't restrict ALL Americans from the gig---just the arrogant ones. So, they could get off on a technicality, if challenged. They are not discriminating by nationality. They are discriminating by nationality plus personality. And, heck, all employers discriminate by personality. To paraphrase Pulp Fiction, a good personality goes a long way.

Makes you wonder what other plain language ads could pop up in this industry. Wind farms could ask for no former nuclear engineers. Solar proponents might restrict "the typical old school energy executive in love with coal." I'd love to have a biomass producer write "no whiny former CEOs who can't get their hands dirty."

That would make reading the industry want ads much more interesting.

FirstEnergy Bargain Shops, But is it a Sweetheart Deal?

FirstEnergy, that large utility out of Ohio best know for being at the blame end of all the finger pointing during the 2003 blackout in the Northeast, has decided to throw caution to the wind (farm) and make a play for Maryland-based Allegheny Energy for nearly $5 billion----although like Ted Turner buying his first TV station, no actual money will change hands, just stock.

At first glance, it seems like a sweet deal. FirstEnergy gets a bigger footprint and Allegheny stockholders get a price above what's being currently traded for their slice of the pie. Plus, it would form one of the largest power companies in the U.S., and bigger is better, right?

Well, not always. The American public in general---and American investors specifically, it would seem, given the blah reaction of the stock market to this announcement---remember all too well the "we're too big to fail" mantra of banks before the recession. And now, bigger isn't always seen as better; it's just as often seen as a breeding ground for folly, hubris and ego.

Of course, when you're as problem-laden as FirstEnergy and Allegheny in customer reputation and reliability, it may be simply a matter of bad branding. If the power company you already don't like is bought by a power company with the reputation for blackouts and huge million-dollar government fines, it may be that two wrongs don't actually make a right.

And, there are other questions hanging in the air as well. First, how many job losses will this mean in a weakened economy? While CEOs of both companies say that they were not seeking to cut jobs, specifically, with this merger, talk of "efficiency" and "streamlining" is always translated as "layoffs" to a skittish population. That won't be stellar for their individual, or combined, reputations---just another bruise.

Additionally, what about climate change? This is a merger that seems to defy the scientists and politicians pushing for more cap and trade and less use of coal. This will make FirstEnergy a huge coal player, which is a big, big risk given that no one knows, exactly, what will come down the pike in the form of regulations and allowances. And FirstEnergy is putting all their little plastic Easter eggs of gold coin into one black and messy coal basket. Is that a good idea that will pay off or a huge risk that will bite them in the keister in just a few years?

In the end, I expect that FirstEnergy and Allegheny thought the announcement of this deal would re-establish both of them into good utility standing. But, given the economy, their past transgressions and a series of utility mergers that unraveled like cheap carpeting (Exelon and Public Service Enterprise Group, for example), it appears that most people gave this announcement the old stink eye.

Dude, What's Your Major? The Smart Grid

I never did major in anything particularly cool in college. I have an AA in liberal arts, a BA in English and a graduate degree in poetry writing. No one ever confused my love of Mark Twain's essays and the one-two literary poet punch of Keats and Yeats with anything remotely close to cool. The closest I ever got to a with-it sort of major was time spent with a close friend who was studying film. And, in the 1990s, film studies was the ultimate example of a cool major.

Even film studies might be eclipsed by Cincinnati State's new autumn 2010 offering: a major in smart grid.

Just today the Ohio Board of Regents, which governs the state's school system, gave the thumbs-up to Cincinnati State to offer that unique major as part of the college's power systems engineering technology program.

According to Larry Feist, chairman of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Major at Cincinnati State, the program is "designed to capitalize on both the short term demand for technicians to install new generations of electric and gas meters and on the longer-range need for specialists who will be able to maintain the new systems and work on the distribution and transmission aspects of the electrical grid." (At least, that's how he was paraphrased in the article about this announcement on the college's website.)

So, they're going to teach people to install smart grid stuff and then teach people to go back and fix those problematic bits of installed smart grid stuff. Fair enough. We're definitely going to need bringers and fixers in the smart grid mix. But, what exactly does this smart grid major require? What classes does a burgeoning, passionate smart grid college student take?

The college's website notes that this major will build on traditional power engineering classes. So, before you get to "What Smart Grid Represents in Modern Metaphysical American Culture" you will have to take those hard courses like physics, algebra, calculus, direct/alternating current labs, examinations of national electric codes and, of course, power system design.

On top of that basic power engineering stuff, Cincinnati State will layer the exciting smart grid classes on instrumentation, control systems and communication. No, there won't really be one on what smart grid stuff represents in American culture—although, to be honest, that would be the one smart grid class that even a poet like me would be interested in.

So, I'm calling the official death of film studies as the "cool" major. It shall be replaced by degrees in the smart grid. Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi! (The King is dead. Long live the King.)

Yes, I know. Too poetic of an ending. You'll just have to forgive me. Poetry was my major, after all. I went to college before I could get a degree in the practical awesomeness of the smart grid.