President Obama has called it "Snowmageddon." The nation's capital is caught in the grip of the worst stretch of winter weather in recorded history: 45 inches to date, which currently ranks third behind the winter of 1995-6 (46 inches) and the winter of 1898-99 (54 inches) — see the chart at the Washington Post's "Capital Weather Gang." The 10-20 inches about to hit…
NEMA, whose companies make the products that go into a 21st-century "smart" electrical grid, took on a leadership role in promoting Smart Grid several years ago — long before President Obama announced in his inaugural address that one of his administration's goals would be to focus on modernizing the electrical grid. NIST's recent announcement of the officers its Smart Grid Interoperability…
And now, as the Christmas holiday is upon us, some pontification … With all the nostalgia for past Christmases, when the holidays were less commercial, I'd like to suggest at least one advancement today: Christmas time is a much more colorful season in the era of electricity. The Christmas season of lore, idealized in so many Currier & Ives sketches, was not only…
The Obama administration finds itself in a dilemma. On the one hand, it desperately wants to create jobs. At his "Jobs Summit" last week, the president stated he is committed to ""ideas aimed at accelerating job growth and hiring as we emerge from this economic storm." And who can blame him — less than a year from the off-year elections,…
This is typically the time of year — when Americans have that shop-till-you-drop mentality — that we hear about whether U.S. retailers will see red or black in their Christmas stockings. Such news, we're told, is important for a country whose economy, over the past two decades, has been driven by consumer spending. But an interesting column in the WaPo opinion section…
Economic times are tough for all U.S. manufacturers, and many have had to lay off employees. But some advanced manufacturing facilities have opted not to fire anyone, event if it means switching their roles until production picks back up. You can count NEMA members among the companies that are keeping their workforces intact. In a radio segment today, NPR highlighted two…
The federal government took steps recently to speed up the approval process for electricity transmission lines. Or at least, to speed up the permitting on federal lands. An agreement between the White House and eight federal agencies puts one agency in charge of the cumbersome process of approving transmission corridor permits — a change from the traditional multi-agency hurdle that transmission developers…
As evidence of NEMA's continued influence in international markets, the Commerce Department announced this week that our organization received one of five new Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP) awards for 2010-2013. This is NEMA's second MDCP award from Commerce — the first, which runs from 2007-2010, was given for NEMA to promote U.S. electrical standards and products in Central America. …
"Bloom vows to boost manufacturing," shouted the headline in the Detroit News last week. This should be significant, considering that Ron Bloom was tapped to be the senior counselor for manufacturing policy (aka, the manufacturing czar) by the president in early September. The article even observed that "Obama hopes to boost U.S. manufacturing through innovation and exports." That is a…
Tom “The World is Flat” Friedman, noted NYTimes columnist, has launched a shot across America's bow. His recent column, “The New Sputnik,” outlines a future in which China goes green – and cleans our clock on innovation. If that happens, and the next innovation revolution occurs in China, the wealth that flows from it won’t be lapping at our shores…