POWER

Constellation Energy last week offered to sell its 50% stake in the UniStar joint venture to partner Électricité de France (EDF) for $1, plus $117 million in reimbursement costs—a price well below market value—in order to further the project and ensure future energy supplies for Maryland.

Nebraska-based Tenaska on Monday said it would sell a portion of interests in five power plants to Japanese energy firms Tyr Energy and Chubu Electric.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) on Thursday issued a recommendation to the electric power industry providing sensitive information about the so-called “AURORA vulnerability”—gaps in critical infrastructure protection concerning large motors and generators connected to the bulk power system.

Constellation Energy last week rejected a $7.5 billion conditional loan guarantee offer from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a new reactor at its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland with partner Électricité de France (EDF), saying the government’s proposed terms and conditions were “unworkable.”

Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy last week called for an evaluation of “alternative solutions” to execute a large-scale carbon capture plant whose construction is under way at the Mongstad refinery on the country’s western coast, after “theoretical studies” indicated health and environmental risks related to amine technology.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday reversed a May 2008 jury verdict finding that Cinergy Corp.—which merged with Duke Energy in 2006—violated New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act when it performed certain work on its coal-fired boiler units at several of its Indiana facilities without first obtaining a permit. The ruling allows Duke Energy to restart three Indiana coal-fired units that it had been ordered to shut down.

Solar installations in the U.S.—both photovoltaic and concentrating solar power (CSP) installations—grew 114% in 2009, and by the year’s end, they could surpass 1 GW, a new report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week proposed requiring the Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington, N.M., to install and operate selective catalytic reduction (SCR) controls on all five of the 2,040-MW coal-fired facility’s units. The measure would cut the plant’s nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter emissions by nearly 80%, the agency said.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a notice of violation to Portland Gas and Electric (PGE), alleging that the company’s coal-fired Boardman facility in Oregon violated the Clean Air Act, including New Source Performance Standards and operating permit requirements.

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week announced a conditional commitment to provide a partial guarantee for a $1.3 billion loan to the Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project, an 845-MW wind farm planned for eastern Oregon that it is calling “the world’s largest wind farm.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an arm of the Commerce Department designated by Congress to coordinate development of communication protocols, last week told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) it had identified five “foundational” sets of standards for smart grid interoperability and cybersecurity.

Responding to looming federal regulations to reduce power plant pollution, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board signed off on a proposal to shut down 1,000 MW of older coal-fired generation and replace it with an equal amount of natural gas capacity while also pursuing 1,900 MW of demand response and energy efficiency programs and adding 1,140 MW of new nuclear generation by 2015.

An Environmental Protection Agency plan to tighten emission limits for new and existing industrial boilers has sparked alarmed protests from the biomass generation industry and electric utilities, who say the proposed regulations are so onerous they threaten to shut down existing biomass power plants and already are chilling deployment of new facilities.

The conventional and oft-repeated truth is that wind generation directly reduces carbon emissions. Challenging the conventional wisdom has drawn much criticism from wind proponents, but the latest research has shown that wind has had, and will continue to have, negligible impact on the nation’s carbon emissions. The data are convincing and can no longer be ignored.

Wind electricity production must displace some existing generation. However, its relentless variability imposes daunting challenges for wind integration. Clever engineering schemes can mask the problem, but the data show that wind generation has and will continue to reduce carbon by negligible amounts, but at great expense.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to select its approach for future regulations regarding coal ash storage later this year. One option would be to continue classifying the waste as nonhazardous and leave enforcement with the states. Another option—the worst case for the power industry—would be a determination that coal ash is a hazardous waste, which would result in increased federal oversight and lawsuits.

The U.S. electric utility sector is undergoing a transformation unparalleled in its history. Extraordinary challenges, driven by the urgency of climate change and other market forces, are compelling the industry to abandon its century-old business model of building large, fossil fuel plants to sell increasing amounts of electricity.

In recent months, two noteworthy letters have been sent to Congress by eminent scientists examining the merits—or demerits—of biofuels in the climate debate.

If you want the most accurate test results, it’s worth the extra effort to take isokinetic coal samples from coal pipes when collecting fuel and air measurements. Together, the data collected will allow more accurate balancing of coal pipes, measure fuel fineness, and improve the combustion efficiency of your steam generator.

Pending Environmental Protection Agency regulations to slash U.S. power plant emissions likely will lead to the closure of nearly 18% of the nation’s coal-fired generation capacity, trim demand for steam coal by 15% to 31% and boost demand for natural gas by 8% to 16%, a new Credit Suisse analysis concludes.

U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) on Monday introduced a comprehensive package of advanced energy tax incentives for clean renewable energy, energy efficiency, and carbon mitigation.

U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday approved the first large-scale solar energy plants ever to be built on U.S. public lands, and today he signed the nation’s first lease for commercial wind energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

UK energy regulator Ofgem on Monday warned that the country would need to rewire in a smarter way to secure access to renewable plants, but that an investment of £32 billion ($50.8 billion) would be needed to overhaul the aging grid, including replacing old “pipes and wires.”

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has awarded French company AREVA an engineering and development contract to work on potential completion of the 1,200-MW Unit 1 at the Bellefonte nuclear power plant in northern Alabama.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last week issued an air quality permit to the White Stallion Energy Center, a 1,320-MW coal- and petroleum coke–fired power plant proposed for construction in Bay City, Texas.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2010 (S. 20), which would require utilities to obtain 20% of their energy from “clean energy” sources by 2020, with the requirement rising by 5% every five years through 2050.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has finalized its initial set of smart grid cyber security guidelines. NIST’s Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security (NISTIR 7628) includes high-level security requirements, a framework for assessing risks, an evaluation of privacy issues in personal residences, and other information for organizations to use as they craft strategies to protect the modernizing power grid from attacks, malicious code, cascading errors, and other threats, according to NIST’s press release.

The age-old adage “water and electricity don’t mix” does not apply to 21st-century infrastructure planning. The two entities can no longer be viewed as separate commodities. The demands on both are intertwined, so solutions for meeting new and growing challenges associated with water scarcity and carbon regulations must also be integrated. Water is essential to […]

Cleaning air heaters in power plants or recovery boilers has traditionally involved using high-pressure water, chemicals, or steam. These techniques, though effective on moderate airside fouling of heat exchange surfaces, are usually ineffective on the more tenacious deposits that can develop in coal-fired plants. If these deposits are not removed by periodic cleaning, heat transfer in the heaters is reduced, which in turn reduces boiler efficiency and increases a unit’s heat rate. Severe fouling on air preheaters (APHs) can even reduce a unit’s power output.

Sierra Instruments has introduced a new cryogenic version of its Innova-Mass multivariable mass vortex flow meter for measuring mass flow rates of cryogenic fluids down to –328F (–200C). Using a special cryogenic temperature RTD, mass calculations are done with the latest density equations of state for liquid oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and carbon dioxide. The multivariable […]