Thule (“Two Lee”) Air Base is a 254–square mile base located in a coastal valley in the northwestern corner of Greenland, within the Arctic Circle. The base, the U.S.’s northernmost military installation, is nestled between mountains and surrounded by icebergs and glaciers as far as the eye can see.

How does your company prepare and share fossil plant performance data? What data are important, and how much effort is required to collect and report the data? What are the most important statistics for reporting key fossil plant operations? The latest EUCG benchmarking survey reveals the favored fossil performance metrics at several of the largest utilities in eight key categories.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., February 24, 2011 – The most committed global warming alarmists are alarmed by the fact that – contrary to their claims that the science is settled – formidable scientists with worldwide reputations disagree. Credentialed experts such as Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer do not buy what Jim Hansen, Michael Mann, […]

The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday passed, with a 235-189 vote, a short-term government funding measure that cuts more than $61 billion from the remainder of the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget—including a $3 billion slash to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) budget. The continuing resolution (CR) seeks to block the EPA from implementing or enforcing statutory or regulatory greenhouse gas (GHG) rules affecting stationary sources that became effective after January 1, 2011.

In response to a federal court order, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued final Clean Air Act standards for large and small boilers and incinerators that burn solid waste and sewage sludge. The EPA said, however, that it would reconsider the rules because “certain issues of central relevance” arose after the period of public comment.

Following President Obama’s $97 million budget request last week to support research into small modular reactors (SMRs), Westinghouse introduced a 200-MW class integral pressurized water reactor modeled on the company’s third-generation AP1000 reactor. The company also said it was preparing to collaborate with the U.S. Department of Energy’s SMR demonstration program.

The past week brought important news from state legislatures regarding nuclear power plants. Minnesota voted to lift a 17-year ban on new nuclear plants; a bill that would allow utilities to recoup costs for early site permits advanced in Missouri; and the Indiana Senate is preparing, amid controversy, to vote on a key measure that could incentivize development and construction of new nuclear generation in that state.

Progress Energy’s CEO William Johnson, who last month agreed to a merger deal with Duke Energy, on Thursday told attendees at a conference that proposed nuclear power plants in Florida and North Carolina would not be operational until at least 2020.

Dominion Energy last week told ISO New England, the power grid operator for six New England states,  that it could shutter its 60-year-old 738-MW Salem Harbor coal- and oil-fired power plant in Massachusetts by June 2014 to avoid retrofitting the facility with expensive pollution controls required by federal environmental regulations.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 22 February 2011 – NRG Energy’s South Texas two-unit nuclear project, which has been on life support for months, may soon win a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, according to several industry sources. But the money for the loan guarantee may get tangled up in Congress’s current […]

No initial evidence had been found that the Texas power market had been manipulated when grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Feb. 2 ordered rolling blackouts, but investigations would continue, Texas regulators told legislators on Tuesday. The blackouts were necessary as some 82 power plants—out of 550 on the grid—went down for various reasons while freezing temperatures caused a record-breaking demand spike, ERCOT said.

Jacksonville, Fla., municipal utility JEA last week signed an agreement with Duke Energy that gives it the option to buy up to 20% of the power generated by Duke Energy’s planned 2,234-MW Lee Nuclear Station when it becomes operational in 2021.

The rupture of a 6-inch steam pipe at Unit 1 of the 1,884-MW coal-fired Homer City Generating Station in Indiana County, Pa., last week tripped the unit and sent six workers to area hospitals with burns.

The power sector saw steady, modest growth of merger and acquisition activity during the last three months of 2010, recently released analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows. The largest 25 announced deals decreased 37% in value, to $19.3 billion, compared to $30.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, but financial buyers maintained investments in power deals in 2010 while corporate buyers continue to lead deal activity due to large amounts of cash to invest, PwC said.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday issued its first loan guarantee for a transmission project, committing $343 million to develop the One Nevada Transmission Line (ON Line) project. Jointly owned by Great Basin Transmission South and NV Energy, the proposed 500 kV AC transmission line is expected to carry 600 MW nearly 235 miles from Ely, Nev., to just north of Las Vegas.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) today announced it has signed an agreement with Lockheed Martin. The two U.S.-based companies will join forces to design and build what they say will be the world’s most advanced digital control systems and nuclear reactors.

President Obama’s $29.5 billion Department of Energy (DOE) budget for fiscal year (FY) 2012 increases priority for renewable and nuclear energy technology research while cutting subsidies to fossil fuel energy. It also calls for a $1.3 billion cut to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Connecticut, New York, and Vermont are suing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), challenging a recently effected rule that makes it legal to store used nuclear fuel on-site for up to 60 years after a plant shutdown.

Ontario on Friday said it would not approve or accept any new offshore wind projects until more scientific research has been done on the installation of turbines in freshwater lakes.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., February 15, 2011 – Can Energy Secretary Steven Chu learn to lobby? The fate of the Obama administration’s budget for his department hangs in the answer to that question. So does the fate of the tattered remnants of the strategy the administration brought to Washington to deal with its apocalyptic […]

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson were questioned by panels of the House’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power this morning as part of a discussion on draft legislation that seeks to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). The legislative hearing’s witnesses also included other major players in the climate change regulatory debate, such as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Canadian companies TransAlta Corp. and TransCanada Corp. are at odds over TransAlta’s abrupt notice on Tuesday that it will close and destroy its Sundance 1 and 2 coal-fired units near Edmonton, Alberta. TransCanada, which buys power from the units under a power purchase agreement (PPA) agreement, said today it had not received validation of TransAlta’s determination that the plants were so corroded that they could not be economically restored to service.

Four investor-owned utilities and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in a high-profile “public nuisance” case in which states and environmental groups allege that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from four investor-owned utilities and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) have contributed to climate change.

State senators in Minnesota and Kentucky passed crucial legislation that could end longstanding bans in those states on the construction of new nuclear plants.

The UK government on Tuesday said it would push forward with legislation to create a new independent statutory body to regulate the country’s nuclear power industry. The new agency, the “Office for Nuclear Regulation” (OCR), will carry out regulatory functions performed currently by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Department for Transport.

A strategic plan to accelerate development of offshore wind energy, released by the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Interior (DOI) on Monday, focuses on overcoming the relatively high cost of offshore wind energy; the technical challenges surrounding installation, operation, and grid interconnection; and the lack of site data and experience with project permitting processes.

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week released additional details of its “SunShot Initiative,” a program that seeks to reduce the total costs of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems by about 75% before 2020 so that costs for PV systems can compete with other forms of energy without subsidies.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of Basin Electric Power Cooperative to receive a loan guarantee to construct more than 100 wind turbines to produce 151.5 MW of electricity. The loan guarantee will provide financing for engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning of the PrairieWinds wind farm energy project in central South Dakota.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., February 5, 2011 – We are all familiar, sometimes too much so, with utility regulation. As customers, we encounter the results regulation every day. Many of us, in our business lives, work with (or against), ponder, and praise (or damn) utility regulation. But none of us has given more thought, […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last week voted 2-0 to approve an air permit for the 1,300-MW Las Brisas Energy Center. The approval for the $3.2 billion petroleum coke–fired project planned for Corpus Christi, Texas, comes despite objections from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and recommendations by two administrative law judges against the permit’s issuance.