Leonard S. Hyman is an economist and financial analyst specializing in the energy sector. He headed utility equity research at a major brokerage house and has provided advice on industry organization, regulation, privatization, risk management and finance to investment bankers, governments and private firms, including one effort to place nuclear fusion reactors on the moon. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and author, co-author or editor of six books including America’s Electric Utilities: Past, Present and Future and Energy Risk Management: A Primer for the Utility Industry.
You can find Leonard Hyman's lastest book Electricity Acts on Amazon
William I. Tilles is a senior industry advisor and speaker on energy and finance. After starting his career at a bond rating agency, he turned to equities and headed utility equity research at two major brokerage houses and then became a portfolio manager investing in long/short global utility equities. For a time he ran the largest long/short utilities equity book in the world. Before going into finance, Mr. Tilles taught political science .
The is some big spending ahead for electric utilities. More than the politicians and policymakers expect. Electric utilities have to decarbonize and modernize. Even if…
Close down coal-fired power stations. Do not replace them with gas-fired electricity. That would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the USA by 15 percent. That’s…
Margaret Thatcher hated the UK’s coal miners and especially their union. A series of brutal strikes divided the nation during her regime. But when the…
Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, characterized in the past as “feeble” and “toothless”, now has threatened in a recent proposal to halve the profitability of…
We’ve always had difficulty understanding why US electric companies have not simply closed down old, smaller and least efficient coal-fired power plants quickly. From a…
This sounds like the old motto of the 1859 Colorado gold rush, “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” But regardless of potential riches, “Net Zero by 2050”…
BP, the British oil company, announced this week it would reduce the value of its oil and gas assets by $17.5 billion. Even though this…
Investors were more than annoyed when Royal Dutch Shell slashed its dividend by two thirds. Just last year, the giant oil company announced its plan…
The Trump administration’s energy policy, as we consider the two candidates for our nation’s highest office, has been very clear. It rests on three conceptual…
When two of the biggest beneficiaries of fossil fuels abandon the cause is that an omen? Start with Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the biggest in…
Some very wrong but intuitively appealing ideas about energy keep recurring. These are the ideological equivalents of vampires in old movies, waking hungry and rising…
When Lord Browne ran BP (formerly British Petroleum) from 1995 to 2007, those initials also stood, aspirational, for “Beyond Petroleum”. The company made renewable energy…
The discussion today about nuclear energy is nothing short of tribal, two warring camps shouting slogans at each other. This so-called debate reminds us of…
We came to the conclusion that the future is a separate line of business when perusing the graphically flashy 2019 annual report issued by Enel…
Presently, one-sixth of our electric bill goes to pay for fossil fuels to generate electricity. When fuel prices were higher the percentage was even bigger.…
In our fractious domestic politics, squabbles over infrastructure spending are as old the republic. But here we propose an infrastructure project of considerable scope that…
The decarbonization of electricity production around the world today may be seen as part of a technological shift. Everyone wants electricity or its immediate benefits…
Electric utilities around the world, like other industries, are not immune to the unpleasant financial effects stemming from the covid19 pandemic. While electricity customers “shelter…
This is the question that a venerable publication catering to utilities and regulators, Public Utilities Fortnightly, asked: “When will climate change represent a tangible threat…
Electric utility capital expenditures (CAPEX) in the US have been rising steadily. But they are not remotely large enough to meet future industry requirements to…