Energy Efficiency, Power Prices, Regulation, Solar  -  April 8, 2017

Weekend reads: Coal museum goes solar; GE mulls lighting sale; Ohio looks to nuke subsidies & more

Every Saturday, we'll bring you five of the most interesting — or quirky; it is the weekend after all — energy stories from around the web that you may have missed this week. This weekend's reads:

General Electric Wants Out of the Lightbulb Business (The Wall Street Journal): The company that pioneered lightbulbs now wants to turn off the switch. General Electric Co. GE +0.75% is weighing a sale of its consumer-lighting business, which for decades defined the company following its co-founding 125 years ago by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the first viable incandescent lamp. The Boston-based industrial giant has been interviewing investment banks to sell the unit, which could fetch around $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Kentucky coal museum switching to solar power (CNN): You wouldn't expect a museum dedicated to the coal industry to run on anything other than coal -- but a mining museum in Kentucky is soon to be solar powered. The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, owned by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, is switching to solar power to save money. The museum, which memorializes Kentucky's history in coal mining, is modernizing with a new form of cheaper energy.

States, greens sue feds over delays in energy efficiency rules (The Hill): Environmentalists and Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump administration over its decision to suspend implementation of several energy efficiency rules. Earlier this month, the administration proposed delaying six rules setting high energy efficiency standards for products such as ceiling fans, walking-in coolers and freezers, and others.

Ohio lawmakers introduce bill to support FirstEnergy's nuclear plants (Utility Dive): Ohio is the latest state to catch ZEC fever. Zero emission credits are designed to aid nuclear plants at risk of early closure in the nation's wholesale markets by paying them for their zero-carbon generation. But critics, ranging from consumer advocates to gas generators, have opposed them, saying they threaten price formation in organized power markets. 

Former Google Vice President Starts a Company Promising Clean and Safe Nuclear Energy (Bloomberg):  Mike Cassidy, who was formerly vice president at Alphabet's X research lab and headed Project Loon, its high-altitude balloon-based internet access initiative, is ready to try the nuclear option. Though Cassidy remains an advisor at Google, he has quietly started a new company, Apollo Fusion. On Friday, a website for the firm, which previously consisted only of a definition of the phrase "nuclear fusion," was updated to include a vision statement that gives a tantalizing peek into Cassidy's plans.

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