POWER

Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, trusts the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report’s conclusions that anthropogenic carbon emissions are the primary cause of climate change. When pressed, the customary response of Browner and other proponents has been to rely on that oft-cited list of 2,500 scientists said to have given their full support of the report’s conclusions. Browner should check her facts.

Ensuring the availability of water for power plants is a matter of both water quantity and quality. As freshwater becomes less available for power plant use, new supplies from marginal or impaired sources will require new cooling technologies. We look at cooling equipment options and how water availability and quality affect cooling system design and cost.

In recent months, U.S. utilities, manufacturers, and technology firms received $3.4 billion as part of the economic stimulus package. These funds have been allocated to help modernize the country’s electric power system and increase energy efficiency. However, as these "smart-grid" grants continue to be awarded, questions are being raised about how to safeguard smart meters and other critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

New York regulators in April approved construction of a 20-MW energy storage system at the site of an operating coal-fired power station near Union, Broome County. When operational, the $22.3 million project, owned by AES ES Westover LLC—an AES Corp. subsidiary—will use the technology to participate in New York’s growing day-ahead market for ancillary services and regulation.

Austin Energy replaced the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst twice over five years for its four peaker turbines. The duct modifications and injection grid redesign, combined with new catalyst, are producing high NOx reduction and low ammonia slip, and the catalyst is now expected to last at least five years.

In an unusual two-option proposal that drew clashing views from green groups and power plant operators, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed regulating coal combustion ash either as a nonhazardous waste subject to tougher management and disposal requirements or as a "special" hazardous waste that would have similar controls but still be eligible for recycling and reuse in products such as Portland cement.

After more than a decade of debate, in April, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved Cape Wind, a proposed 130-turbine offshore wind farm for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. It would be the first wind facility in U.S. waters. Despite remaining hurdles, the approval marks a shift in political winds for the nation’s fledgling industry, and it could spur further development of projects proposed for relatively shallow waters along the East Coast and in the Great Lakes.

Gas turbines require clean gas to operate efficiently. Particulate contamination fouls fuel nozzles, causes increases in flue stack emissions, and occasionally causes unplanned plant outages. Now a new real-time natural gas cleanliness monitoring and web-based alarm system is providing valuable protection for natural gas–fired power plants. The adaptation of laser light–scattering technology for the purpose of contaminant measurement in high-pressure gaseous pipelines provides a method of monitoring liquid and solid contamination levels.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 26, 2010 — A breathless article in today’s New York Times outlines ties between U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and, today’s chief villain, British Petroleum. Turns out that BP dropped half-a-billion dollars on Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for work on alternative fuels when Chu ran the lab. When he got […]

Renewables will be the fastest-growing source of energy throughout the world over the next 28 years, helping to meet a projected 49% increase in world energy use, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). But, the agency also found in its International Energy Outlook 2010 released on Tuesday that fossil fuels could meet more than three-fourths of total energy needs in 2035, if current policies remain unchanged.

The U.S. Energy Department last week offered French firm AREVA a conditional $2 billion loan guarantee to facilitate financing of a uranium enrichment facility planned for development near Idaho Falls, Idaho.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on Monday said completing one of two unfinished units at the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in north Alabama would be preferred over building a new Westinghouse AP1000 reactor there, or taking no action.

New Jersey’s largest utility, Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) on Tuesday filed an Early Site Permit (ESP) application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a possible nuclear power plant adjacent to the company’s Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations in that state.

GE on Monday said it had struck a deal with the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. (LEEDCo ) to provide direct-drive wind turbines and maintenance services for the Ohio company’s 20-MW proposed freshwater offshore wind farm in the Great Lakes.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week released action plans developed by 16 utilities describing measures the facilities are taking to make their coal ash impoundments safer.

The Virginia Court of Appeals on Tuesday unanimously approved an air emissions permit granted to Dominion Virginia Power’s 585-MW Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, a coal-fired plant that is 63% complete.

Michigan regulators on Friday denied Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative’s air quality permit for a new 600-MW power plant, fueled primarily by petroleum coke and coal, in Rogers City. The state’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) decision was based on findings of the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), which said the company failed to demonstrate the plant was needed to meet future supply.

Nonprofit Ohio utility American Municipal Power (AMP) last week said it would begin shutting down the 213-MW Richard H. Gorsuch Generating Station (RHGS), a 1950’s vintage coal-fired power plant located near Marietta, Ohio, as part of a New Source Review (NSR) settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

By David E. Wojick, PE, Ph.D. Washington, D.C., May 22, 2010 — Listed below are the National Research Council panel members who wrote the so-called National Academies of Science report on climate science, published this month. Several are old time anthropogenic global warming (AGW) proponents, like Bob Corell of the Heinz Center, Warren Washington of […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 21, 2010 — Thanks to the far-reaching and meticulous online research for which he is justifiably famous, my friend Glenn Schleede has answered the conundrum that stands in the way of widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies. Writes Glenn, “I haven’t been able to verify this, but I’ve heard […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 29, 2010 — File this in the “empty threat” folder: Gary Pierce, a member of the five-person, elected Arizona Corporation Commission, the state’s utility regulator, has suggested that Arizona should block a move by the city of Los Angeles, Calif., to boycott the Grand Canyon State by cutting off […]

The Arkansas Supreme Court last week upheld a state appellate court decision that had previously overturned, on technical grounds, a permit authorizing construction of Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s (SWEPCO’s) 600-MW John W. Turk Jr. coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County. The decision could pose a serious setback for the project—the nation’s first ultrasupercritical plant—that is under construction and almost a third complete.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on May 13 finalized the so-called "Tailoring Rule," regulations that would implement certain Clean Air Act (CAA) permitting programs for electric power plants, refineries, and other major "stationary sources" that emit at least 100,000 tons per year of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

Last week brought news about new nuclear power projects from Turkey, Jordan, and Mexico.

The UK’s Liberal Democrats—a party long-opposed to nuclear power—last week said it would abstain from voting against construction of new nuclear power plants in that country, as long as they are privately funded.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the State of California on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to coordinate procedures and schedules for review of hydrokinetic energy projects off the California coast.

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., May 16, 2010 — Will Happer, noted Princeton physicist, and a veteran of Washington’s bureaucratic wars, has an intriguing suggestion about how to reconcile the views of raving advocates for climate controls with the objections of skeptics, when both sides are populated by reputable scientists. He wants the government to […]

Barely three months after Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) and CPS Energy negotiated a $1 billion settlement that reduced the San Antonio municipal utility’s share in the proposed nuclear expansion of the South Texas Project (STP), Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said on Monday it would take a 9.24% stake in the Bay City project.

UK-based National Grid on Friday agreed to buy power from the $1 billion Nantucket Sound Cape Wind project, a 468-MW offshore wind farm expected to be operational in 2012 that had garnered approval from the U.S. Interior Department just nine days earlier.

Dominion Virginia Power on Friday said it had selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI’s) U.S-specific version of the Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (US-APWR) for its proposed unit at North Anna Power Station in central Virginia. The selection was the result of a competitive process launched by the utility last year.