POWER

Last December, as Spain’s national carbon capture and storage (CCS) research laboratory Fundación Ciudad de la Energía (CIUDEN) began a much-watched testing phase of oxycombustion in its 30-MWth circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler in Cubillos del Sil, Vattenfall scrapped the €1.5 billion ($2 billion) Jänschwalde CCS demonstration project that it had planned to build and begin operating by 2015 in the German federal state of Brandenburg.

Turner Designs has introduced the Opti-Check Handheld Fluorometer for performing system verifications for industrial water process control applications. The Opti-Check is a small, lightweight, highly durable handheld fluorometer that is ideal for quick measurements in the field. Configurable for either PTSA or Fluorescein as well as both dyes, the Opti-Check enables monitoring of either cooling […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday urged owners of 62 nuclear power plants in the Central and Eastern U.S.—facilities housing 96 of the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear reactors—to reevaluate seismic hazards using a new seismic model and information from a recent report.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit temporarily blocked the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) just two days before it was set to go into effect. The federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to continue administering the previously promulgated Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) until a final decision can be made on the merits of the rule, likely this summer or fall.

Indonesian state-owned utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) formally launched operations at three new coal-fired power plants on Dec. 28.

Columbia Research Laboratories’s Model VM-300 is a general purpose vibration measuring instrument designed for periodic routine checks of industrial equipment where portability and ease of use are required. Acceleration, velocity, and displacement measurement modes are provided, along with a number of value-enhancing features. Dual power allows the VM-300 to be powered from its internal battery […]

A failed electrical insulator at a switchyard at Exelon Generation Co.’s two-unit Byron nuclear plant in Lisle, Ill., has been blamed for the loss of offsite power on Monday morning that automatically shut down Unit 2 and forced Exelon to declare an “Unusual Event.”

The hazards of coal dust accumulation in power plants are familiar to coal-fired plant operators. Operators of plants that burn Powder River Basin coal are particularly aware of necessary housekeeping and fuel-handling practices, but any plant that allows excessive amounts of coal dust to accumulate is playing Russian Roulette with its staff and equipment.

ANDRITZ to Rebuild Oldest Egyptian Nile Dam. Austrian firm ANDRITZ HYDRO on Dec. 22 won a $138.4 million contract from the Egyptian Ministries of Energy and Water Resources for the supply and installation of four bulb turbines, generators, and the electrical and hydro-mechanical equipment to rebuild the Assiut barrage—the oldest dam in the Egyptian section […]

Milan-based ATO S.r.l. has introduced a series of flexible seal rings made of KetaSpire polyetheretherketone (PEEK) resin, which is made by Solvay Specialty Polymers. KetaSpire KT-820 PEEK provides greater flexibility and elasticity than competitive PEEK grades, the company says. The parts can be folded or twisted in half and then twisted again into three or […]

The 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) appointed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu in January 2010 to provide comprehensive recommendations for a long-term solution to managing and disposing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste released its much-anticipated final report last week.

Creating a landfill to hold dry boiler ash is a challenging proposition these days. There’s more to the project than you might imagine, as you’ll learn from this article about the development of a typical new ash landfill.

The National Fire Protection Association has issued a new standard for gas line cleaning in response to the urgent recommendations prepared by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

French company ProSim, which provides process simulation and optimization software to the process industries, released a new version of BatchReactor, its software for batch chemical reactors simulation. The new software combines detailed equipment modeling, reaction engineering, and advanced numerical methods to create a state-of-the art simulation environment for chemists and chemical engineers, providing a complete […]

A federal district court judge on Tuesday ruled that the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), must complete an environmental impact study (EIS) before any approvals or other major federal action can be taken on the $2.8 billion expansion at Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s coal plant in Holcombe, Kansas. The ruling may delay construction of the 875-MW plant, a politically controversial project in the Kansas Legislature.

The expectation of millions of "green jobs" has disappeared from public debate. Today, the debate is narrowly focused on "jobs" and selecting the best approach to developing permanent jobs, regardless of color. Some look to the government to create jobs through regulation or subsidy, and others trust companies operating under free market principles to create permanent jobs.

POWER recently talked with Erika Jakobsson, a project manager at Volvo Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, who is responsible for developing intelligent trucks in response to European Union (EU) directives.

The Precision Controls Division of Marsh Bellofram Corp. launched the Type 41 high-performance air pressure regulator series, which is designed to support a variety of demanding industrial and original equipment manufacturer flow-monitoring requirements. Available in two different packages with identical performance characteristics, both with ¼-inch NPT BSPT port size, the Type 41 incorporates a patented […]

A high-voltage electricity panel arc reportedly sparked a brief fire at the 100-MW Nacogdoches Power, LLC biomass power plant under construction in Sacul, Texas, and sent two workers to hospital in critical condition on Tuesday.

Rules requiring removal of combustible dust from the workplace will undoubtedly improve worker safety and health. A survey of equipment suppliers finds a variety of dust collection systems are available to meet just about every dust collection need in the power house.

Synovus relies on emergency standby generator sets to prevent any loss of services or data in the event of a utility outage.

Silicon Designs, a designer and manufacturer of rugged industrial-grade microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitive accelerometer chips and modules, has introduced a ±5 g model to its 2210 accelerometer series. The low-noise, single-axis model 2210-005 accelerometer module incorporates high-quality MEMS capacitive sensing elements. Sensing elements are packaged within a compact, lightweight, anodized epoxy-sealed aluminum housing, occupying a […]

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday released a white paper that seeks comment on its proposals to “provide a fair, timely and transparent process” for FERC to advise the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on requests for extension of time to comply with its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., January 29, 2012 — Detroit is back and the year 2012 looks promising for U.S. automakers. But unlike the hype of early last year, the color that most of the auto industry is seeing in its dreams for 2012 isn’t green, it’s black. That’s in black ink, which has firmly […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., January 25, 2012 — For as long as most of us can remember, both U.S. political parties have been shouting from the partisan tree tops that the country needs an “energy policy,” whatever that might mean. The parties disagreed on just what it should be. The GOP’s mantra has always […]

A federal judge last week ruled that Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant—Vermont’s only reactor—can remain operating beyond a state-mandated shutdown deadline. State laws that would force the closure of the 40-year-old plant, which recently garnered a 20-year operating license extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), are preempted by federal law, the judge said.

In response to a recent decision by a federal court judge that reinstates rules stayed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early 2011 and that govern hazardous air pollutant standards for industrial boilers and commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators—so-called Boiler MACT rules—EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency was committed not to enforce those standards until April, when a new revised suite of boiler standards will be finalized.

Over the next two decades, the U.S. power profile will be markedly different as generation from coal declines, natural gas power and renewables surge, and nuclear generation decreases slightly, said the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its early release version of the Annual Energy Outlook 2012 on Monday. The full report, scheduled to be released this spring, presents updated projections of U.S. energy markets through 2035.

President Barack Obama championed an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy” in Tuesday’s State of the Union address to develop all U.S. energy sources, though his focus rested on renewables and natural gas—with no mention of coal or nuclear power.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday issued its first pilot project license to Verdant Power’s 1,050-kW Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) project.