If you're a power system manager, there are far worse places to be than the current situation faced by PNM.

As my Sunday story explained, PNM is in the midst of a long-range planning exercise that forced the company to sit down with stakeholders like the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy and lay out a long term power strategy.

Electricity system planners face a dilemma right now. For meeting big base load needs, coal and nuclear power remain king right now in this country, but both are fraught with uncertainty.

In the case of coal, most people agree that climate change legislation is going to add to the cost, but no one knows how much. Nuclear power does not have the climate legislation risk, but no one has a crystal clear picture of how much it will cost to build the next generation of nuke plants, and the environmental and political baggage faced by nuclear power is potentially huge and costly.

PNM, luckily, does not need large amounts of new base load. The result is a surprisingly green-looking package that will push hard on conservation and renewables. Renewables are a state requirement, but (especially in the case of wind) they're also looking good on the basis of their own economics. And New Mexico has a lot of wind.

Gail Ryba of CFCAE described the resulting plan as a good first step. Expect this to be revisited (by law, the planning exercise must be redone every three years). It seems reasonable to expect that future iterations may look even greener.

Further reading: the full plan.

If you want to go to Los Alamos National Laboratory's web site, you soon might need to type "lanl.energy.gov" instead of the long-used "www.lanl.gov" domain. That is only one of a host of changes contemplated in a draft communications strategy now being circulated by the Department of Energy. (See here for the plan in all 24 pages of its regulatory glory.)

The goal, according to the proposed directive is to "establish and maintain consistency of communications products throughout the U.S. Department of Energy complex."

Here's my favorite bit:

Each entity must include the Department of Energy logo in the top section of website as part of the standard formatting of all pages, with the seal portion of the logo being no smaller than 40 pixels in diameter and at a level even with or above the logo of the laboratory. The DOE logo must be an active link to www.energy.gov.

Heaven forbid that the lab's logo might be higher than the DOE's. Wouldn't want that sort of branding!

Wait, no here's my favorite bit (so much to choose from!)

To ensure high visibility and uncluttered presentation, always maintain clear space around the DOE logo. To determine the clear space, measure the width of the "E" on all sides. The clear space will change depending on the size of the logo.

I swear I am not making this up.

There's a lot of discussion of "text-based co-brand form" for written communication and a scheme that looks to me like it will require a whole bunch of signs to be changed:

Signs at facility entrances, the primary administration building and major research or user facilities must include the DOE logo with no text-based co-brand below or next to the DOE logo. Signs may include text referencing the single prime operating contractor of the facility, in the form of the DOE affiliation text line.

Years ago, the Department of Energy hired a consultant to study personnel and management issues. Among many problems, the consultant concluded that DOE simply had too many people trying to manage the nuclear weapons complex. If a manager doesn't have something to do, the report concluded, they'll find something to do. In the process, they end up creating work for others within the weapons complex to do in order to respond to the new thing they just thought up.

'Nuff said. (hat tip the LANL blog)

Ralph Nader said yesterday that he thinks the proposed Desert Rock power plant is a really bad idea:

During his news conference, Nader spoke about the Desert Rock Energy Project, a proposed coal-fired power plant to be built on the Navajo Nation in northwestern New Mexico. He said the plant should never be built and the focus should be on developing solar energy, given the area's abundant sunshine.

"We are nearing a stage now of burgeoning solar energy reality and potential. The mere proposal to build this a giant coal-burning plant would be considered a crime against humanity," Nader said. "It would be considered a poisoning of the air, water and soil that are the background of human health and safety."

(For some Desert Rock back story, see my recent piece on coal in New Mexico.)