POWER

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced selections for the award of approximately $40 million in total to two teams led by Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and San Diego–based General Atomics for conceptual design and planning work for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP).

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on March 3 that it had filed a motion to withdraw its license application to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

On Friday, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Xcel Energy, and a coalition of lawmakers, energy companies, and environmentalists announced agreement on legislation that will lead the nation in cutting air pollution, creating jobs, and increasing the use of cleaner energy sources.

On Friday, First Wind, an independent U.S.-based wind energy company, was offered a conditional commitment from the Department of Energy for a $117 million loan guarantee to finance the construction of its proposed 30-MW Kahuku Wind project in Kahuku, Hawaii. The project is expected to include a battery energy storage system.

On Friday, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar praised the work of the 22-member Wind Turbine Guidelines Federal Advisory Committee, which reached consensus on a set of draft recommendations aimed at minimizing the impacts of land-based wind farms on wildlife and its habitat.

First Solar Inc. has signed a power purchase agreement to supply Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) with renewable electricity from a 300-MW photovoltaic (PV) solar power facility that First Solar is developing in Southern California.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds keep flowing from Washington. On Tuesday, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that a project with NRG Energy has been selected to receive up to $154 million, including funding from ARRA. Located in Thompsons, Texas, the post-combustion capture and sequestration project will demonstrate advanced technology to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. It will also assist with enhanced oil recovery efforts from a nearby oil field.

American Electric Power has been named one of the top 50 companies for executive women by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) for a second time.

Entergy Corp. accepted a national award on Mar. 3 for its work restoring power following a destructive ice storm last year in Arkansas. It is the 12th consecutive year Entergy has received a storm response award from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI).

Last week the first-ever ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit brought encouraging news to companies seeking to move their green technologies from the drawing board into the marketplace by announcing the availability of stimulus fund money. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E), part of the Department of Energy, is modeled on the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which led to developments including military and networking technologies.

Last Wednesday, Vermont’s state Senate voted to disallow the operation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant after its current license expires March 21, 2012. The plant would change ownership if Entergy were allowed to spin off a new company consisting of its merchant nuclear fleet. The likelihood of that happening now looks very dim.

Both units of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern Maryland were offline for 10 days after water leaked through the plant’s roof on Feb. 18, causing a ground fault at Unit 1 that led to a series of events resulting in the automatic shutdown of both units.

The 365-MW Powder River Basin coal–fired Wyodak Power Plant near Gillette, Wyo., shut down last Friday after one of its 140-foot-tall scrubber vessels sustained significant structural damage.

In a statement last Thursday, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) recommended that power plants and industry discontinue the gas venting practice that resulted in the massive explosion on Feb. 7 at the Connecticut Kleen Energy plant, which was not yet online.

Concentrix Solar, a German supplier of concentrator photovoltaic systems, announced on Feb. 24 that it has signed a contract with Chevron Technology Ventures for the deployment of a 1-MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be installed at a Chevron Mining facility in Questa, New Mexico.

On Tuesday, Sweden’s enterprise minister, Maud Olofsson, announced in an editorial in Dagens Nyheter that his country would build 2,000 new wind turbines in 10 years for a total added capacity of 10 TWh by 2020. Sweden currently has the largest percentage (about 20%) of renewable energy in Europe and has a goal of supplying at least 50% of its energy from renewables by 2020.

While nuclear power is taking one step forward and two steps back in the U.S. (see top two stories), several other nations, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, are lining up to build new—or their first—reactors.

Just one person behaving badly at work can send company morale into a downward spiral. It’s time to call out those morale-and-productivity-busting personalities so managers can spot them and steer clear of the mess they make.

Water and gas provide the energy for Peru’s power generation sector, and the country could generate considerably more, especially from hydro and wind. While the nation strives to extend electricity service to all its citizens, it’s also looking beyond its borders for potential future customers.

Spectra-Physics, a Newport Corp. brand, introduced an addition to its Pulseo family of Q-Switched diode-pumped solid-state industrial lasers. The rugged and reliable Pulseo 355-10 provides 10 W of 355-nm output at 90 kHz with a short pulse width of less than 23 ns. Key applications for the Pulseo 355-10 are crystalline silicon photovoltaic solar cell […]

Wind generating capacity hit new highs in 2009, but that didn’t mean much for the wind power manufacturing sector, meaning fewer “green” jobs than the Obama administration hoped to see.

Poor lignite fuel quality had plagued the Red Hills Power Plant since it began operation eight years ago. The solution: real-time measurement of coal properties that has allowed Red Hills Mine to carefully monitor fuel quality and adjust fuel collection processes to ensure that only high-quality fuel is delivered to the plant. Now all delivered fuel is consumed, and plant reliability is much improved. It’s a classic win-win project.

Masdar, BP Hydrogen Power Plant to Be Completed in 2014. The $2.2 billion Hydrogen Power project — a joint venture between the United Arab Emirates’ renewable energy initiative Masdar (60%) and oil company BP (40%) — should be completed in 2014, the companies said on Jan. 18. The 420-MW plant, located in Abu Dhabi, would […]

How do pharmacy product displays and regulatory conferences differ? A prominent regulatory thinker ponders the differences, and, ironically, the similarities.

Concentrated sulfuric acid is often used to prevent calcium-based scale formation on condenser and heat exchanger tube surfaces in power plant evaporative cooling water systems. Unfortunately, the chemical’s price has jumped more than 300% over the past three years. If the rising cost of water treatment has you under the budget gun, here are some alternative strategies that can reduce or even eliminate your sulfuric acid usage.

China’s nuclear power plant building spree got a little more frenzied this January, as the country kicked off its 21st project at Ningde 3.

Motivating workers can be simple and low-cost: Make your employees feel valued and important.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory is pursuing a new integrated energy-water R&D program that addresses water management issues relative to coal-fired power generation that takes into account the major impacts of CCS on water use. The goal of this research is to promote more efficient use of water in power plant operations and increase the availability of heretofore unusable waters for power plant use. Those practices can mitigate the impacts of CCS on power plant water use and allow for continued development of energy resources.

Brazil’s state-owned oil producer, Petrobras, on Dec. 31, 2009, said it had inaugurated the world’s first power plant to run exclusively on ethanol.

Data shenanigans and recent political developments in the U.S. suggest that the climate change frenzy is rapidly fading. Could the backlash also sink renewable energy portfolio standards?