International pushback against China’s export restraints on rare earth elements, tungsten, and molybdenum intensified on Wednesday as the U.S., the European Union (EU), and Japan asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to establish a dispute settlement panel to vet the matter.

A federal court on Friday granted a request by Oklahoma for a stay of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) final rule requiring the reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions at four electric generating units in the state pending a review of the rule.

Owners of the 1962-built B.L. England Generating Station in New Jersey’s Cape May County will shutter the plant’s 113-MW coal-fired Unit 1 by 2013 and convert two other units to natural gas under the terms of an administrative consent order with New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The order fits in with New Jersey’s energy plan, which envisions a gradual phase-out of coal power.

FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co.’s (FENOC’s) conclusion that cracks in the shield building at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, were caused by environmental factors resulting from a blizzard in 1978 and aspects of the shield building’s design is sound, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Thursday.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied review of a case in which several states and citizen groups contend that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) Order 697—issued in 2007 to improve market-based rate regulations—exceeds FERC’s authority under the Federal Power Act (FPA).

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 26, 2012 – Pardon my déjà vu, but an article in Monday’s Washington Post, citing a study of how the Interior Department’s coal leasing program in the Powder River Basin is mismanaged, takes me back 30 years. The study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis claims […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 25, 2012 – When it comes to electric infrastructure, no state is more dysfunctional than California. That observation, based on many years of observing the twists and turns of California electricity policy, is highlighted by the problems the state now faces with the possibility of the San Onofre nuclear […]

Unexpected steam generator tube wear that prompted the indefinite shutdown of Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in January was caused by excessive tube vibration, company executives confirmed at a community meeting on Monday. Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) meanwhile pinned the tube failures on a flawed computer model used to design the steam generator components.

Though many have touted the vast promise of ocean energy, it has been slow to reach commercial scale, especially in North America. Today, offshore generating technologies are less of an impediment to commercial project fruition than permitting, financing, and transmission challenges, but small changes are beginning to brighten the outlook for the newest power industry sector.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday narrowly rejected a measure that would have overturned the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), voting 46 to 53 to defeat the resolution introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

In an effort to slash its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the California Department of Water Resources (CDWR) last week said it would terminate a contract to buy power from a units of NV Energy’s Reid Gardner coal-fired power plant in Nevada and instead rely on power from Northern California Power Agency’s (NCPA) 255-MW Lodi combined cycle natural gas-fired plant, which is under construction.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) on Monday completed and put into service its 500-kV Sunrise Powerlink, a $1.9 billion transmission line linking San Diego to the renewables-rich Imperial Valley.

In response to a court order, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed updates on Friday to its national air quality standards for harmful fine particle pollution, including soot (known as PM2.5). The agency says that 99% of U.S. counties are projected to meet proposed standards without any additional actions.

The United States is in a "fierce race" to compete in global solar energy markets, and its success depends on innovation and deploying solar energy at scale, said Steven Chu, secretary of the Department of Energy. He spoke at the SunShot Grand Challenge summit and technology forum in Denver last week. Chu called on the solar industry to drive down costs to enable the technology to compete against natural gas at a price of around $4 per million Btu.

Not all is well in the realm of PJM, as several states in its jurisdiction have chafed under perceived roadblocks for expanding generation capacity. In April, Maryland fired a shot across the ISO’s bow, as its Public Service Commission ordered the construction of a new gas-fired plant.

Municipal landfills across the country have been quietly harnessing their methane emissions for years. But as the appetite for natural gas grows and the price of oil skyrockets, some creative sanitation departments are starting to make some real noise.

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.

There are legitimate concerns with the effects hydraulic fracturing can have on health and the environment, but the discussion is in need of some perspective.

Do we really have only a decade of gas left? Or a century? Or more than that? The answer requires agreement on some definitions, and a solid grip on the big picture.

New federal regulations promise to change the fracking landscape in the coming years, perhaps substantially. But technology may be running ahead of the law, as improvements in the fracking process threaten to make some of the new rules unnecessary.

All but unthinkable a decade ago, the U.S. gas industry is gearing up for a major shift toward export of liquefied natural gas. Across the country, projects are afoot that could make the U.S. a serious LNG exporter within the next decade. GAS POWER reviews some of the major players and issues.

A lot goes into the decision to upgrade a simple-cycle plant to combined cycle. Careful planning and analysis can make the difference between a profitable, successful switch and an expensive hassle.

A review of the global gas power industry shows solid growth in gas-fired generation. Here’s a snapshot of who’s doing what, and where.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 17, 2012 — If the Obama administration is, as Republicans charge, the most anti-business administration in U.S. history, why is it doing everything it can to save publicly-traded uranium enrichment enterprise USEC from itself? Could Ohio have something to do with it? We are shocked, shocked, as shocked as […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., June 12, 2012 – It’s hard to cry the blues for a union worker at a nuclear power plant making $122,000 a year with a good health plan and a solid 401(k). That’s the situation of the average striking (or locked out, if you will) member of Local 369 of […]

A host of new technologies are ready to transform the energy system, offering the potential to drastically reduce carbon emissions, enhance energy security, and generate a huge investment return, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new energy technology publication launched on Monday.

In a long-running labor dispute, Entergy Corp. on June 7 locked out union workers at its Pilgrim nuclear plant 38 miles southeast of Boston near Plymouth, Mass., bringing in workers from its other plants and contract workers to operate the 685-MW unit along with management officials.

Natural gas-fired generation enjoyed a competitive advantage through this past winter and spring as historically low prices for the commodity combined with mild weather and relatively light demand to turn the dispatch stack on its head and favor gas over coal. That advantage is narrowing as summer demand approaches. A senior market analyst with Bentek Energy expects coal-fired generation to be advantaged at least until the fall shoulder season.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Circuit ruled unanimously on Friday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) erred in deciding that spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the nation’s power plants could be stored as long as 60 years after a plant’s operating license expires.

Duke Energy and Progress Energy received conditional approval for their merger from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on June 8. The companies plan to close their merger, which would create the nationís largest utility, by the targeted date of July 1.