An annual survey of more than 100 executives from the U.S. and Canadian electric and natural gas industries by consulting firm Capgemini has found that the five most critical challenges facing the North American energy industry are environmental regulation, aging infrastructure, non-environmental regulation, an aging industry workforce, and the need for new pricing mechanisms.

In the past week Luminant’s proposed Comanche Peak Units 3 and 4 and UniStar’s proposed Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 reactors received environmental approvals associated with applications for combined construction and operation licenses (COLs) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). 

There’s a lot to see and learn on the Exhibit Hall floor, but you only learn when you ask questions. Following are the paraphrased answers to this question: What’s one thing about your company that isn’t widely known that attendees would find interesting? INSERT FLOOR PHOTO Innovative Energy (110): We offer the first truly distributed, scalable model for […]

It’s the final day of ELECTRIC POWER 2011 . . . Conference sessions end at noon. Exhibit Floor hours today: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Last chance to see it all! Are you attending ELECTRIC POWER just for today? Visit the Registration booth from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to get your badge. Lunch: on the Exhibit Floor […]

Helping Small Reactors Survive the Licensing Process Imagine fission in a bottle. That’s what Ed Wallace of NuScale Power described at the ELECTRIC POWER session on nuclear power Wednesday morning. What NuScale is cooking up is a small (45 MWe), modular, and scalable light-water reactor, contained inside what is essentially a large vacuum bottle resting […]

Two newly built reactors reached important milestones in the past week. Reports say the second unit of the Ling Ao phase II nuclear plant in China’s Guangdong Province was connected to the grid on May 3, while Russian state-owned Atomstroyexport said Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant achieved criticality on May 8 and is now functioning at the minimum controlled power level.

Need to Register? The Registration desk is open from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Exhibit Floor hours today: 10 a.m- 6 p.m.  Lunch: on the Exhibit Floor from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Today’s voucher is blue. Are you an employee of a generating company? Then be sure to visit the Genco Lounge on the Exhibit Floor […]

Industry Leaders Discuss Current and Looming Challenges "This is the best power conference in the world." That’s not a quote from ELECTRIC POWER organizers but from this year’s keynote speaker, John Shelk, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, the trade association for competitive power suppliers who are active in the U.S. and global markets. According […]

Celebrating Winners Each year, ELECTRIC POWER begins with a Monday night Power Plant Awards Banquet at which we recognize and celebrate the winners of POWER magazine and Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) award winners. The event also provides a unique opportunity to see the evidence of trends in the power generation industry. POWER Editor-in-Chief Dr. Robert Peltier, […]

Republican leaders of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson seeking information about the agency’s planned implementation of regulations affecting the electric power sector. Among other issues, they asked how the agency makes decisions and what analysis it uses to support the development of rules.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday conditionally offered a $90.6 million loan guarantee to support the construction of Cogentrix of Alamosa’s Alamosa Solar Generating Project. The 30-MW (net capacity) High Concentration Solar Photovoltaic (HCPV) generation project in south-central Colorado near the city of Alamosa will source over 80% of its components from the U.S, the DOE said.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) on Tuesday said it would supply two 350-MW steam turbines for installation at two large-scale coal-fired thermal plants in Morocco planned by Jorf Lasfar Energy Co., a power plant company owned by Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. (TAQA).

The 900-MW Hatfield power project, one of the UK’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) coal-fired projects, was revived on Monday with the purchase of Powerfuel Power Ltd. by 2Co Energy, a new company backed by private equity fund firm TPG Capital. The project has now been renamed Don Valley Power Project, and it is set to begin operations between 2015 and 2016, capturing and storing up to 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year under the seabed of the North Sea.

Dominion plans to shutter two of the four units at Salem Harbor Power Station by the end of this year, and it will close the entire plant in Salem, Mass., by June 2014 because “pending environmental regulations and market conditions are making the power station uneconomical to operate,” the company announced today. The news comes on the heels of the announced closure of Dominion’s State Line Power Plant in Hammond, Ind.

Win a Vacation for Two! All ELECTRIC POWER conference delegates are eligible to enter into a drawing to win money toward a vacation for two in the continental United States. To enter, you must have each sponsoring exhibitor stamp your prize card. Stamps are located in each sponsoring company’s booth. Complete the form on the […]

How Do We Learn About Safety? The hard way—usually when somebody dies. That was one of the critical messages conveyed in the Monday preconvention workshop on "Conveyor Safety." It was also a key rationale for the session, led by Larry Goldbeck, manager of conveyor technology for Martin Engineering. In 1911, 3,539 people died handling coal […]

There’s a lot to see and learn at ELECTRIC POWER 2011, and the show guide is your key information source. In it you’ll find: An overview of the conference schedule on page 10. Session details (time, topic, presenters, and room) starting on page 14. Exhibit Hall layout on pages 44-45. Exhibitor information beginning on page 50. However, […]

On Sunday, Mexico’s labor secretary, Javier Lozano, announced that the bodies of all 14 miners had been retrieved from a coal mine in northern Mexico that collapsed last Tuesday after a methane explosion.

Japanese utility Chubu Electric Power Co. on Monday agreed to shut down all units at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture as soon as possible on safety concerns. The action includes idling Unit 4 and Unit 5, an advanced boiling water reactor that started commercial operation in 2005. The company, which is in the process of mothballing Units 1 and 2, said it would also postpone restarting Unit 3, which has been shut down for maintenance since November 2010.

 Marine energy technology firm Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) on Monday said it had begun ocean trials of the first of its new generation utility-scale PowerBuoy device, the PB150. The ocean trials are being conducted at a site approximately 33 nautical miles from Invergordon, off ScotlandÂ’s northeast coast, and are expected to last up to three months.

Dominion will at the end of next year close the 515-MW State Line Power Station in Hammond, Ind. The coal-fired plant has two units: The first fired up in 1955 and the second, in 1962.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 8, 2011 — Anyone who has followed energy politics in the U.S. for the past 15 years or so knows that Bill Richardson is a buffoon. Back in August 2003, following the mammoth Northeast blackout, Richardson famously said, “We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid.” Richardson […]

Tomorrow is the last day to preregister and save $200 for ELECTRIC POWER 2011! ELECTRIC POWER 2011 is more than a conference and trade show. Just look at all of the colocated events (for more details and registration, visit the ELECTRIC POWER website): Power Plant Management Institute: Plant managers attend this two-day event free of […]