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NuScale Power Achieves Standard Design Approval from NRC for 77 MW SMR

LCG, May 30, 2025--NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale), a leading provider of advanced small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear technology, yesterday announced that it has received design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for its uprated 77 MW power modules. NuScale states that it remains the only SMR technology company with design approval from the NRC, and the company remains on track for deployment by 2030, with 50- and 77-MW SMR options.

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EIA Presents Analysis of California's Solar and Wind Power Curtailment Challenges

LCG, May 29, 2025--The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an analysis yesterday showing that the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid operator for most of the state, is increasing its curtailment of the rapidly growing solar- and wind-powered generation facilities in order to balance electricity supply and demand, which is necessary to maintain a stable electric system.

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Industry News

Key Enron Unit Lied About Profits, Former Employee Alleges

LCG, Jan. 25, 2002--A former sales director at Enron, Margaret Ceconi, found soon after starting at the company that Enron Energy Services, which made wholesale energy deals with corporations, was making losses on nearly all of its deals, she told Reuters Thursday.

After working at Enron for approximately nine months, Ceconi was laid off in a reorganization in mid-2001. Ceconi then sent an e-mail to then-chairman Ken Lay and Enron's board that laid out her concerns that EES' financial statements showed profitability for every quarter, beginning in the fourth quarter of 1999. Her attorney, Demetrios Anaipakos, said there was "a genuine concern on her part that EES had essentially been playing a shell game, window-dressing its own alleged profits."

According to Ceconi, the losses were masked by other activity in the wholesale energy business units. "This is common knowledge among all the EES employees and is actually joked about. But it should be taken seriously," she said.

A University of San Diego law professor unconnected with Ceconi offered testimony to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday that reinforced the sense that Enron made large losses, which were covered up by profits in other areas. Frank Partnoy said he believed, based on "written information, e-mail correspondence and telephone interviews," that revenues from the company's derivatives trading business were used to cover up unprofitable activities.

Partnoy said that Enron's profitable use of derivates, financial contracts which are valued based upon prices of commodities or securities, enabled the company to lie to the financial community about its losses from speculation in risky stocks and its failed ventures in retail energy, water and broadband services.

He stated that by expertly inflating its billions of dollars in profits from derivatives, the company intentionally created false accounting statements. The professor said that regulation of derivatives and capital markets were necessitated by the role of "auditors, law firms, banks, securities analysts, independent directors and credit rating agencies" in the company's demise.
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