By Kennedy Maize Washington, April 7, 2010 — The coal mine disaster at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia rips at my heart. The 25 miners who died, and that’s likely to be 29, are the kind of folks I grew up with and lived with a major portion of my life. […]

Suniva, a U.S. manufacturer of high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells and modules, announced on Thursday that it has been selected for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Guarantee Program under the DOE’s Innovative Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Advanced Transmission and Distribution Technologies Solicitation.

Portland General Electric (PGE) said on Friday it had submitted a proposal to Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to close its coal-fired Boardman Power Plant by 2020.

Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) said on March 31 that meeting state-mandated energy conservation goals could cost the typical 1,000-kilowatt-hour customer an additional $2 to $3 a month.

An explosion Monday at a coal mine owned by Massey Energy has left 25 confirmed dead and four missing as of Wednesday morning.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) filed an appeal on Friday against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) over its decision last year to continue charging fees associated with moving and disposing of spent nuclear fuel. To date, ratepayers have paid approximately $17 billion into the fund over the last 27 years, according to NARUC. Further, the fund has earned an additional $13.5 billion in interest, bringing it to about $30 billion.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Thursday a set of actions to further clarify and strengthen environmental permitting requirements for Appalachian mountaintop removal and other surface coal mining projects, in coordination with federal and state regulatory agencies.

Entergy Corp. announced on Monday that it plans to continue operating its 2,000-MW Indian Point nuclear power plant in spite of the N.Y. Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) rejection of the plant’s application for a water quality certification on Friday.

The Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) announced on Thursday its plan to carry out a multi-pronged evaluation process for the independent testing of smart meters installed in the Texas competitive retail electric market. This action follows Oncor Electric Delivery’s announcement last week that it had incorrectly installed more than a thousand smart meters in central Texas.

Xcel Energy and Calpine Corp. announced on Monday that Public Service Company of Colorado, an Xcel Energy company, will purchase two of Calpine’s power plants near Denver that currently provide power to the utility under power purchase agreements.

Entergy Corp., the second-largest operator of nuclear power plants in the U.S., announced on Monday it will cancel its proposed spin-off transaction that would have relocated six of its nuclear units into newly formed companies, Enexus Energy Corp. and EquaGen LLC. This decision occurred in the wake of the New York Public Service Commission’s (NYPSC) decision on Thursday to reject the company’s planned spin-off.

Biomass has many advantages as a fuel for boilers: It’s inexpensive, readily available in many regions, CO₂ neutral, and its use warrants government subsidies. The fuel also presents unique concerns to the designers, owners, and operators of biomass plants, especially in the design of the control system.

I’m often asked about my source of ideas for this space each month. I have two primary sources of subject material. First, I read the industry news every day and save those items that either annoy or agitate me. At the end of the month, I go over the list, often a long one, and pick the one item that immediately motivates me to take virtual pen to paper. This month, no single item emerged as the topic for my bully pulpit, so I present a potpourri of loosely connected topics for your consideration. (It should be noted that other things bug other members of the editorial staff; we’re a diverse group and do not always agree about industry issues.)

UK-based Sherborne Sensors has introduced the LSI series of closed-loop gravity-referenced servo inclinometers to the North American market. The family of inclinometers is specially designed to withstand severe shock and vibration inputs for precise measurements in demanding environments. The series incorporates a unique, flexure-supported torque-balancing system that is rugged enough to withstand shock inputs of […]

Siemens Hands Over 870-MW Dutch Gas Plant. Siemens Energy on Feb. 12 handed over the 870-MW Sloecentrale combined-cycle power plant to the joint venture of Dutch company Delta Energy and Electricité de France. The natural gas – fired plant in the Dutch town of Vlissingen-Oost reportedly has an efficiency of 59% and uses a state-of-the-art […]

High-speed imaging systems manufacturer Photron introduced hardware to extend the normal operating temperature range of the Fastcam SA5 and Fastcam SA2 high-speed cameras. The Range Version (RV) is a new sealed case design that makes the camera models impervious to dirt, dust, and sand. Photron’s RV option includes two serviceable external fans that direct cooling […]

Nearly every combined-cycle operator recognizes that cycling reduces the life expectancy of hot-gas-path components in combustion turbines. Often overlooked, however, is that the same phenomenon affects the heat-recovery steam generator (HRSG).

Early last year, there were promising signs that electric transmission line construction would be facilitated by the convergence of the new administration’s emphasis on developing remote renewable generation resources, proposed legislative provisions expanding federal siting authority, and the granting by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) of generous cost-of-service returns on such investments. However, the stars did not align for transmission policy in 2009 as had been hoped, and the forecast is cloudy.

Greensburg was destroyed by an EF5 tornado on May 4, 2007. Instead of abandoning the Kansas town, the community quickly embraced the task of rebuilding it from the ground up, maximizing the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficient building techniques. Rebuilding continues, but the future of Greensburg has never been stronger.

In response to Ontario’s provincial regulatory mandates to phase out the use of coal by the end of 2014, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is exploring its capability to employ biomass feedstocks to displace coal in some units within the OPG thermal fleet. The primary fuels employed during the respective trials at its Nanticoke and Atikokan Generating Stations have been agricultural by-products and commercial grade wood pellets. The Canadian utility has learned valuable lessons about fuel supply and logistics, and the technical challenges of safely handling and firing high levels of biomass.

President Barack Obama’s January State of the Union speech called for incentives to make clean energy profitable — mainly through the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants. That comment, an apparent effort to reach out to Republican members of Congress, drew furious applause. Within three weeks, the president’s backing of nuclear power had already made a significant impact on the U.S. nuclear sector.

The EUCG Nuclear Committee has collected benchmarking data of U.S. nuclear plant staffing for many years. A summary of this highly desirable data was gleaned from EUCG databases and is now, for the first time, made public through an exclusive agreement with POWER.

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California speculate that a prototype nuclear fusion power plant could be operational within a decade, thanks to a test of the world’s largest laser array that confirmed a technique called inertial fusion ignition is feasible. Their first experiments have demonstrated a unique physics effect that bodes well for NIF’s success in generating a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction. Fusion energy is what powers the sun and stars.

The power industry needs a straightforward definition of "fleet optimization" and a game plan to achieve the promised economic gains of optimizing. This need has become more urgent because integrating nondispatchable renewable resources requires more complex optimization strategies. The bottom-up approach presented here applies well-understood optimization principles and techniques that will help power producers minimize their fleetwide cost of production, independent of the technologies used to generate electricity.

Could the transformation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into carbonates and oxides solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from fossil-fired power plants? Some companies are betting that such processes could make everyone happy and even create new profits. Buzz has been growing about this approach, though the concept has been around for many years.

A good default proposition regarding the government’s role in the economy would state that the government should not loan money to an enterprise if the enterprise in question cannot find one single market actor anywhere in the universe to loan said enterprise a single red cent. It might suggest—I don’t know—that the investment is rather … dubious.

Enhanced condenser tube designs can significantly improve the heat rate and performance of fossil and nuclear plants. Using the optimum number of tubes and replacement tube sheets will cost more than simply replacing plain tubes. However, the investment’s simple payback is measured in only weeks, which builds a strong case for using an enhanced tube design as part of your next condenser overhaul.

Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (OPT) announced on Feb. 1 that it had successfully deployed one of its PowerBuoy wave energy devices about a mile offshore from a U.S. Marine Corps Base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The device generates up to 40 kW of power from the rise and fall of waves, and since its deployment in December 2009, it has been generating power within specifications.

In December 2009, representatives of nearly 200 governments met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to hammer out the details of a new climate change treaty. Treaty drafts indicated that industrialized countries would be required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions—primarily carbon dioxide (CO2)—up to 80% by 2050. Developing countries would not be required to reduce emissions much, […]

River deltas experience extreme seasonal changes in water quality that perplex conventional water treatment systems. Industrial development in China, including new power plants, has spurred the development of desalination processes that have tamed these brackish water sources to provide a virtually unlimited supply of boiler-quality water.