Implementation of a new federal nuclear spent fuel–handling program starting in 2020 to remove 6,000 metric tons of uranium (MTU) per year for 10 years and 3,000 MTU per year thereafter could allow for full decommissioning of U.S. sites awaiting fuel removal. It would also enable retirement of all private Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations by 2030, and achieve approximately a 10% reduction in average wet pool density, a new study from consulting firm The Brattle Group suggests.

As warmer-than-average waters in Connecticut’s Long Island Sound last week prompted Dominion to shut down one unit at its Millstone Nuclear Plant, an ammonia release caused an evacuation of part of Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Unit 1, and Constellation Energy shut down of its Calvert Cliffs Unit 1 reactor after a control rod unexpectedly dropped into the reactor’s core. Then, on Tuesday, Xcel Energy shut down its Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant and Unit 1 of its Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant for repairs.

A report that examines and compares sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions of the 100 largest power producers in the U.S. based on 2010 generation numbers says those companies produced 88% of the nation’s total power plant emissions of those pollutants.

A fire sparked by a conveyor belt at a coal-fired power plant in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu has killed four workers and seriously injured four others, news media reported on Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday announced that 106 projects in 29 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico would receive $8.7 million in loans and grants to produce renewable energy and make energy efficiency improvements under the federal agency’s Rural Development’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).

Congress kicked up action on several measures last week before it adjourned for a five-week recess. Two new bills were introduced: One calls for communities to generate at least 20% of their own power needs in preparation for grid emergencies, and the other seeks to put into legislative language recommendations regarding the nation’s nuclear waste storage policy that was finalized this January by the Blue Ribbon Commission. The House, meanwhile, advanced its “No More Solyndras Act.”

The owners of 13 reactors at seven nuclear power plants located Texas, California, Arizona, and Kansas last week formalized an alliance that they say would “leverage the strengths” of their plants and collaboratively focus on improving their operational, regulatory, and financial performances. Chief nuclear officers of the seven plants formally signed and agreed to the formation of a limited liability company, the STARS Alliance LLC.

Senate Republicans last week voted down the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 offered by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), citing concerns that the bill would burden businesses with unnecessary regulations.

Review of the TransWest Express, a 725-mile transmission line running from Cheyenne, Wyo., to Las Vegas, Nev., has been delayed at least six months, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said last week. Developers of the Tres Amigas Superstation in New Mexico are meanwhile, reportedly tackling funding troubles, while U.S. grid operator PJM Interconnection formally announced it would axe the $1.8 billion PATH transmission line.

Seven solar and wind energy projects with a total nameplate capacity of 5 GW in Nevada, California, Arizona, and Wyoming will be expedited under President Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Black Hills Corp. (BHC) is the latest power company to announce slated closures at fossil fuel–fired power plants. The company’s subsidiary Black Hills Energy/Colorado Electric will suspend operations at its 42-MW W.N. Clark coal-fired power plant in Cañon City, Colo., and natural gas–fired steam units 5 and 6 in Pueblo, Colo., by the end of 2012. Another subsidiary will shut down the 25-MW Ben French power plant in Rapid City, S.D., by Aug. 31, 2012, as well as the 34.5-MW Osage and 22-MW Neil Simpson 1 coal-fired power plants on Mar. 21, 2014. The company cited “environmental regulations” and changing energy demands as reasons for the measures.

An explosion in the B coal bunker at Kansas City Power and Light’s (KCP&L’s) 651-MW Iatan  Power Plant Unit 1 near Weston, Mo., on Wednesday morning required the brief evacuation of 250 personnel onsite at the facility. No employees or contractors were injured, and the fire was quickly contained, the company said.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday put a hold on all final licensing decisions—include those for 19 construction and operating licenses (COLs), 12 license renewals, and one operating license—until the federal body can hash out how it will deal with spent nuclear fuel. The order comes on the heels of an Aug. 3 federal court ruling that puts off a decision on whether to force the NRC to act on the Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear waste repository’s long-pending license application.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 6 August 2012 — It’s been a rough road for nuclear advocates in the U.S. of late, although nothing seems to dent the Pollyanna armor of the nuclear crowd, always appearing to believe a revival is just over the horizon and headed into view. Here are a few fraught developments […]

Washington, D.C., 6 August 2012 — It’s been a rough road for nuclear advocates in the U.S. of late, although nothing seems to dent the Pollyanna armor of the nuclear crowd, always appearing to believe a revival is just over the horizon and headed into view. Here are a few fraught developments for the nuclear […]

Back-to-back transmission grid failures in India plunged nearly 670 million people—roughly 10% of the world’s population—into darkness on Monday and Tuesday, paralyzing transport networks and crippling the country’s economic ambitions. Larger than both the August 2003 North American blackout and the March 1999 southern Brazil blackout, the unprecedented Indian grid failures are among the world’s worst.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lacks centralized information on New Source Review (NSR) permits typically issued to fossil fuel-fired power plants by states, though the agency has spearheaded enforcement efforts for noncompliance. The report, which concedes that the NSR permitting process is “complex and controversial,” also suggests that a "substantial number" of existing generating units may not have complied with requirements to obtain NSR permits.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week issued a bulletin to all holders of nuclear plant operating licenses in the U.S., alerting them to a potential design vulnerability discovered at Exelon’s Byron Nuclear Generating Station in January that it says "could have damaged the plant’s emergency core cooling system."

Progress Energy Carolinas, which recently became a Duke Energy subsidiary, on Friday said it would accelerate the retirement of its 316-MW Cape Fear coal-fired plant, located near Moncure, N.C., and the 177-MW H.B. Robinson Unit 1 coal-fired plant, located near Hartsville, S.C., due to “pending changes in the environmental regulations and other rising costs for smaller, older technology plants.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 26 unanimously rejected all pending legal challenges against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) interpretation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) that allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). What is the EPA’s future strategy in its war on coal?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a long history of making waves with the electric power industry because of its efforts to regulate the way thermal power plants construct and operate their cooling water intake structures (CWIS). These structures divert billions of gallons of water into power plants’ cooling systems and can injure or kill billions of aquatic organisms.

—Sonal Patel is POWER’s senior writer.

AES Gener recently completed construction of twin coal-fired, 260-MW units in the electricity-starved desert of northern Chile that may serve as models for future hybrid-fossil plant designs. For meeting an aggressive construction schedule, integrating a 20-MW battery energy storage system, embracing desalination, using the first-of-its-kind seawater cooling tower in South America, and employing innovative financing methods, the AES Gener Angamos plant has earned POWER’s 2012 Plant of the Year Award.

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which oxidize a fuel to produce electricity, have received much attention of late for the technology’s myriad benefits, including high efficiency, long-term stability, fuel flexibility, and low carbon emissions—all at a relatively low cost.

Combined Solar Technologies (CST) has designed, built, owns, and operates a water purification system located at the Musco Family Olive Co. facility in Tracy, Calif., that burns olive pits to purify highly saline wastewater through a distillation process while also producing electric power. For its pioneering approach, CST is the winner of POWER’s 2012 Marmaduke Award for excellence in plant problem-solving. The award is named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer and plant troubleshooter par excellence, whose exploits were chronicled in POWER beginning in 1948.

Siemens Energy in June announced it had produced the first batch of its new B75 Quantum wind turbine rotor blades, fiberglass components 75 meters (m) in length that were cast in one piece (Figure 3). The blades were manufactured to be installed this fall on Siemens’ second prototype of the German firm’s SWT-6.0 6-MW offshore […]

“If you build it, they will come” has proven a risky strategy for some smart grid projects. One of California’s largest investor-owned utilities faced the opposite challenge—customers whose behaviors necessitated a smarter grid. Customer involvement in and support for smart grid plans is a major reason SDG&E’s smart grid efforts continue to garner accolades, including the 2012 POWER Smart Grid Award.

Albania this June inaugurated its first major hydropower project since the early 1980s, bringing online Ashta I, the first of two run-of-river plants with a combined capacity of 53 MW. At the inauguration ceremony, Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha called the plant “a novelty” because it is the largest in the world to use advanced tubular turbines technology.

Moving thousands of tons of coal per hour at high speeds through a complex handling system is a main cause of airborne coal dust in a coal-fired plant. Depending upon the coal’s characteristics, that dust can become explosive when its concentration reaches 80 g/m3 and, hence, a threat to life and property. The best option is to stop the dust from becoming airborne in the first place.

A new gas-fired power generation technology that uses an oxyfuel, high-pressure, supercritical carbon dioxide cycle and produces pipeline-ready carbon dioxide for sequestration or use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), without reducing plant efficiency, garnered the interest of three new partners in June.