There's perhaps no better example of how much the world has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago and the end of the Cold Ware shortly thereafter, than the following: an American flips a switch to turn on a light in his or her home and the power came from where?

The Soviet Union.

That's right: from the Soviet Union. Unknown to many Americans, about 10% of the electricity in the United States is generated by fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Soviet-era ones, The New York Times reported. Today, 45% of the fuel in American nuclear reactors stems from former Russian bomb material.

Southern Co.'s (NYSE: SO) stock has meandered over the past four months, but rare is the day one should sell an electric power generation play.

Hence, I'm reiterating my Buy rating for SO, first recommended on June 19, 2009 at a price of $30.61.

Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR) is in that rare category called 'broken stock, not broken company.'

Perhaps due to concern that regulatory hurdles that might hinder the upgrade of the nation's electric transmission and distribution grid -- a key business area for Quanta -- the stock has exhibited sideways action since the June 11, 2009 Buy recommendation at a price of $24.76.

Rare is the day that one should sell an electric power generation play. And the reasons are compelling:

Electricity via wind, solar, and nuclear generation is likely to play a larger role in energy as climate change reduction, then elimination, becomes a societal goal. Electricity also remains a potential propulsion source for cars, given that oil has apparently resumed its climb to uncomfortable levels.

Hence, I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for electric utility Allegheny Energy, Inc. (NYSE: AYE), first recommended on May 30, 2009 at a price of $25.00.

When General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) reports earnings Friday, the question on investors' minds will be whether the company's industrial and entertainment businesses can pick up the slack from the decline from the finance side.

Most of GE's growth has come from is finance businesses over the past decade, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). That's going to change because its WMC Mortgage unit is a big player in the suprime mortgage market which has recently melted down.

WMC Mortgage rival New Century Financial Inc. (NYSE: NEW) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It remains unclear how badly the General Electric business has been affected though Reuters recently reported that WMC Mortgage had some of the worst-performing loans in the benchmark index for home equity asset-backed securities.

General Electric's strength is that if one of its businesses falters, others can make up for the shortfall.

Consider power generation. Remember that about 245 gigawats of new generating capacity will be needed by 2030, which is equal to about 817 new nuclear power plants, according to data from the Energy Information Administration posted on the Web site of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group.

NBC Universal, long a laggard, is showing signs of life thanks to improvements in the NBC television network. No one should buy GE's stock just because they like "Deal or No Deal." That unit is the smallest by revenue, while its Infrastructure business, which includes power generation is the largest.

Analysts are expecting General Electric to have earnings of 44 cents on revenue of $39.83 billion, according to Thomson Financial.