Crain's Chicago Business reports that during a recent address at a Chicago renewable conference, NRG Energy CEO David Crane took a swipe at Exelon for seeking some form of subsidy or public support for its uneconomic nuclear assets, despite Exelon opposing subsidies for other generation and positioning itself as a champion of markets.

"That's just hypocritical," Crain's quotes Crane as saying.

Crain's also quotes Crane as saying, "I'm just anti-B.S."

Check out Crain's Chicago Business for more

While we applaud Crane's straight talk against Exelon's hypocrisy, Crane is also entering "glass houses" territory.

While Exelon's sought subsidies for merchant nuclear plants should be skewered -- so should all non-market subsidies for merchant plants, for which investors, not ratepayers, are supposed to take on the risk.

Yet Crane's NRG has consistently sought a capacity mandate in Texas -- while nominally called a "market", it is the classic definition of a subsidy -- money is extracted from customers that is currently not being provided from the energy market.

Additionally, while Crane continues to take shots at utilities for their old-way of thinking, and emphasizes customer empowerment and individual choice (click for more), his own company continues to demand a top-down, bureaucracy-driven regulatory design (the capacity market), whose time, if this bad idea ever had a time, has clearly passed in a 21st century which should be driven by customer choice and innovation.