The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and Montana State University (MSU) said on Tuesday they would begin work on a $67 million, eight-year project that will involve permitting, injecting, and monitoring one million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) to be stored in deep porous rock formations in northern Montana.

Just a month after American Electric Power (AEP) announced it would shut down 6 GW of its coal-fired capacity by 2014 because of new federal emission rules, the Ohio-based utility on Thursday terminated a cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy (DOE) and brought a $668 million project to commercialize carbon capture and storage (CCS) to a screeching halt, citing an uncertain U.S. climate policy and the weak economy.

Georgia Power and Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) on Monday agreed, after long negotiations, that the state agency will withdraw a proposed risk-sharing mechanism for the company’s $14 billion two-reactor nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle, in Waynesboro, Ga., but it will retain the right to strike down costs as “imprudent” even after they have been verified and approved in the established semi-annual cost review process.

Backlash against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) newly finalized Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) mounted in the past week as Texas state agencies, utilities, and regional grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas separately warned that the state could face a generation shortage if the federal pollution rules were implemented as written.

A federal judge on Monday threw out Entergy Corp.’s bid for a preliminary injunction to stop the state of Vermont from shutting down the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in March 2012, when its original 40-year license expires. The ruling will force the company to decide whether it will buy $65 million of nuclear fuel to keep the plant running until a trial begins this September, or to shut down the plant.

Duke Energy’s 862-MW W.C. Beckjord Station southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, is the latest coal-fired power plant that will be shuttered as a result of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) recently proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule.

Portland General Electric (PGE) and environmental groups on Tuesday reached a consent decree that will resolve alleged Clean Air Act violations at the 585-MW Boardman power plant—Oregon’s only coal-fired plant—by capping sulfur dioxide emissions and phasing out the use of coal by 2020.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week proposed secondary air quality standards for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx), building on rules—like the recently finalized Cross State Air Pollution Rule—to reduce NOx and SOx emissions.

Rentech Inc.’s proposed St. Joe Renewable Energy Center—one of the world’s first biomass integrated gasification combined cycle (BIGCC) projects—last week received a final air permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and will now begin construction of the planned project.

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) on Thursday announced approval of four new renewable projects on public lands, including two utility-scale solar developments in California, a wind energy project in Oregon, and a transmission line in Southern California.

On Tuesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order in which it said it found insufficient consensus on smart grid interoperability standards to require it to institute a rulemaking procedure. It urged industry participants to continue working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop such standards.

The Canadian province of Québec last week issued draft rules for the operations of a greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program based on guidelines from the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), of which it is a member. The draft regulation, now open for a 60-day public comment period, covers emissions of more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and it applies to power sector and industrial emitters. If the rules go into effect, the province could have a working cap-and-trade program by Jan. 1, 2012.

New Hampshire’s Gov. John Lynch last week vetoed a bill that would have withdrawn the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional carbon trading program whose members include nine other Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. The governor said the bill would cost the state’s citizens jobs and hinder economic recovery.

On July 6, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which requires 27 states in the eastern U.S. to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollution in other states. This rule replaces the EPA’s 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR).

The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC) has said it is concerned that Duke Energy has not demonstrated any “budgetary constraints” on the Edwardsport integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project under construction near Vincennes, Ind. And, in a reversal of position, the state agency representing utility ratepayer interests recommended that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) should not approve the company’s request for cost recovery for more than $2.35 billion.

Xcel Energy announced on Friday that it has reached a settlement with the federal government regarding costs incurred by Northern States Power Co. (NSP) and its customers because of the Department of Energy’s failure to begin removing used fuel from the company’s nuclear plant sites by a 1998 deadline. As a result, over $100 million will be returned to NSP customers in five states.

The Republican-led House Appropriation Committee on Monday approved an annual spending bill for fiscal year 2012 that would cut funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to $7.1 billion—18% less than requested. The bill would also suspend existing federal rules that limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources, prohibit the agency from issuing any rules limiting GHG emissions from stationary sources, and from issuing permits containing provisions to limit GHGs emissions from stationary sources during the next fiscal year.

Australia’s coal-fired power plants will have access to emergency federal loans to prevent financial failure and ensure power supplies. The government move is in response to a carbon tax set to be announced on Sunday.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s (AECL’s) CANDU reactor division is to be sold to Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. for C$15 million Canada’s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, announced last Wednesday.

Last Thursday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced offers of conditional commitments for loan guarantees of approximately $4.5 billion to support three alternating current cadmium telluride (Cd-Te) thin film photovoltaic (PV) solar generation facilities.

An explosion and fire at a French nuclear plant and jellyfish clogging Scottish and Israeli cooling water intakes were added to the list of challenges faced by nuclear and coal generators in the past week.

Last Wednesday, worsening flooding conditions along the Missouri River prompted the partial evacuation of nonessential workers from the Iatan Power Plant in Weston, Missouri, 40 miles north of Kansas City. The plant remains in operation.

For the first time in 37 years, the Japanese government ordered large customers to restrict electricity usage if they are in Tohoku Electric Power Co. Inc.’s or Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) service territories, effective July 1. With the exception of essential services and powering cleanup operations at the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, large energy users are to cut consumption 15% below last summer’s levels.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced last Wednesday that it has determined that Massey Energy officials kept two sets of safety records for the Upper Big Branch Mine (UBB) in Raleigh County, W.Va., site of a deadly explosion a year ago. Additional details, including evidence that miners faced intimidation that prompted them to ignore safety hazards, point to the conclusion that the accident last spring was preventable.

Last week, New Jersey’s Legislature passed legislation that affirmed the state’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and banned the natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Neighboring New York, meanwhile, is poised to lift a moratorium on new shale gas drilling, and France has become the first country to ban fracking.

On June 30, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved PSEG Nuclear’s request to extend the operating licenses of Salem Generating Station Units 1 and 2 an additional 20 years. The decision was met by protests from environmentalists, who say that PSEG Nuclear has done too little to address leaks at the plant.

Both the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl catastrophe prompted worldwide retreats away from nuclear electric generating technologies. Despite brave rhetoric from nuclear supporters around the world, a number of countries with a large number of nuclear plants are having second thoughts about the future of nuclear power.

Four concrete cooling towers at a coal-fired electrical generation plant exhibited reinforcing steel corrosion that was causing concrete deterioration. This case study follows the repairs to those towers—how the corrosion control solution was selected, how repairs were made, and how follow-up tests found the repairs to be effective three years later.

Thomas & Betts’ Emergi-Lite Nexus Emergency Lighting Management System provides real-time status of the entire emergency lighting and exit-sign system, runs system diagnostics, performs required monthly and annual functional tests, generates maintenance logs, and runs compliance reports from a central control unit. Additionally, the system operates independently of the emergency lighting and exit sign, so […]

How easy is it to hack a generator’s SCADA system? It’s so easy it scares the heck out of the guy who used to run network security for the Bonneville Power Administration. It’s so easy he can’t tell us any details, for security reasons. That’s why we should all be scared.