GAS POWER Direct

Following up on its series of conferences on gas-electric coordination this past summer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission appears ready to find some real solutions in 2013.

Surging supplies of natural gas have led to serious discussions of exporting this resource. The head of APGA explains how this threatens the U.S.’s long-term interests and energy security.

The power-hungry ERCOT region is getting an upgrade, as Siemens and Bechtel are building two advanced combined cycle plants in central Texas.

When the Albany area needed a new power plant, pulling water from the Hudson River would have been the easy choice. But the plant owners chose to get creative, drawing on a convenient but unconventional source for their cooling water.

When you’re building a natural gas pipeline, running pipe from Point A to Point B is only the final, most obvious step. You’ve got to jump through a lot of hoops to get there, in a process that can take years and that involves a lot of foresight.

Bigger isn’t always better, but when you’ve got big power needs in a remote location, your options are often limited. A new mobile gas-fired generator aims to change that, offering both big capacity and a small footprint.

The shale boom has run well ahead of the infrastructure needed to handle all the production. When there’s nowhere to put associated gas, much of it is being flared. But this common industry practice is starting to draw some uncommon attention.

This year’s healthy growth in global gas-fired power generation continued in the third quarter, with significant projects being planned in Turkey and Japan.

Growing hothouse tomatoes might not be the first application that comes to mind for a natural gas–fueled combustion engine, but that’s exactly what an innovative grower in Southern California is doing, with some help from General Electric (GE).

Relatively simple upgrades to legacy turbine systems can yield big payoffs in efficiency and reduced maintenance.

The influx of cheap Chinese-manufactured solar panels has upended the solar industry in more ways than one. The saga offers some lessons on what to do about LNG exports.

There’s plenty of uncertainty in gas-fired power these days, with low prices and impending coal plant retirements. Even so, many generators are forging ahead with some ambitious projects and plans for the future.

Natural gas is poised to revolutionize how the United States uses energy, but only if government and industry leaders seize the opportunities it offers.

Many environmental groups are calling for a ban on hydraulic fracturing and are even lobbying to end natural gas development altogether. The Environmental Defense Fund is not. The EDF energy program chief counsel explains why.

Current low gas prices offer a unique opportunity to lock in savings for years to come—but only if utilities, gas suppliers, and regulators have the vision to commit to a new way of doing business.

Gas production by hydraulic fracturing has upended the global energy markets, and talk of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports has major producers astir. But on the horizon is another game-changer: enormous floating LNG platforms that could again reset the equation. 

Science costs money, and someone has to pay the bill. When that someone is a corporation or industry group, certain hackles get raised. But does “industry-funded” research really deserve the condemnation it gets? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no.

These are heady days for gas-fired power, as record low prices have turned natural gas from an also-ran into possibly the leading source of electricity generation. But lurking in the background is a potential roadblock—the pipelines that bring gas to the plants, which have lagged behind in capacity. 

Gas is up and coal is down. The why of it is not so clear, nor is the degree to which it’s likely to continue. Here’s a review of the nuts and bolts, which suggests coal may be poised for a comeback.

Building almost any kind of power plant takes a lot of careful public relations. But NRG Energy has traveled a long and winding road in its attempts to replace a coastal plant in Southern California.

Incremental advances in gas turbine technology have made these industry workhorses bigger, more efficient, and more powerful. But some developments on the horizon suggest the industry is now poised to make some major leaps forward. 

When Verbund Thermal Power needed reliable and flexible condensate pumps for its new combined heat and power plant in Mellach, Austria, it used a new type of self-regulating centrifugal unit. 

In an exclusive interview with GAS POWER, International Energy Agency Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven explained how natural gas is poised to revolutionize the world’s energy business—but only if producer and policy officials make the right choices.

That natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel isn’t news. But recent scientific studies are showing that it’s also a key tool in the efforts to reduce climate change.

The failure of cap and trade seemed to have doomed the U.S. to missing greenhouse gas emissions cuts it committed to at the 2009 Copenhagen conference. But a funny thing happened on the way to the hothouse.