In a major air regulatory development, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to issue rules by November 2011 to reduce mercury and other hazardous air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants under a settlement agreement resolving a lawsuit filed by a host of environmental organizations.

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided it will reconsider the 2008 ozone standards issued by the Bush administration, with the agency suggesting in a court that it would toughen the standards because it has concerns about whether standards “satisfy the requirements of the Clean Air Act.”

There are four approaches to measuring fly ash content and, therefore, the quality of fuel combustion in a boiler. Before choosing one, you should understand their relative levels of complexity and accuracy.

India and Russia signed another key nuclear cooperation deal on Monday in Moscow, opening the way for Russian state-owned nuclear company Rosatom to play a major role in the subcontinent’s plans to expand its nuclear capacity tenfold by 2020.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday—opening day of the 12-day international climate change talks in Copenhagen—formally declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) threats to public health and welfare. The move responds to the Massachusetts v. EPA U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2007 that found that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.

A permit issued by Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) last week to Southeast Idaho Energy to operate a clean coal gasification fertilizer plant near American Falls is the first in the state and the nation to set enforceable greenhouse gas emission limits.

San Antonio’s CPS Energy on Sunday filed a petition with a Bexar County court to define the liability faced by the utility and NINA (Nuclear Innovation North America), a Toshiba-NRG Energy consortium, if both parties pulled out of a project to expand the South Texas Project (STP) nuclear plant near Bay City, Texas.

In a “push” to the economy and employment, the European Commission today granted €1 billion to six carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects and €565 million to nine offshore wind energy projects.

The U.S. Energy Department last week said it would fund three carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects with a value of $3.18 billion to accelerate their development: American Electric Power’s (AEP’s) proposed Mountaineer demonstration project; Southern Co.’s Plant Barry demonstration in Alabama; and Summit’s Texas Clean Energy Project in Midland-Odessa.

An analysis released today by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) projects that if Congress adopts climate change legislation based on a blueprint released by the organization earlier this year, the nation’s economy would grow about 70% through 2030 despite adopting carbon emission–curbing measures.

Last week, President Barack Obama set a U.S. target for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050, while China separately said it would reduce the intensity of its carbon dioxide emissions by 40% to 45% by 2020. The announcements come weeks before the 12-day international climate meeting at Copenhagen, Denmark, which will begin on Dec. 9.

Australia’s parliament today rejected—for a second time—a climate change bill that would effect a carbon trading program. The world’s biggest coal exporter was proposing to reduce greenhouse gases by 5% to 15% of 2000 levels via a carbon trading system similar to Europe’s within the next decade.

French nuclear giant AREVA on Monday announced it would sell its lucrative transmission and distribution (T&D) division to Alstom and Schneider Electric—both French firms—for €4.09 billion, rejecting bids from U.S.-based General Electric and Japan’s Toshiba Corp.

The week brought news of more closures or cancellations related to coal-fired generation. Exelon Corp. said it would permanently shut down four older units—a total capacity of 933 MW—in Pennsylvania; Progress Energy announced the closure of 11 North Carolina units in a shift to burning natural gas; and cost increases for an Ohio plant are prompting American Municipal Power to consider a combined-cycle gas plant instead.

Rebuilding aged feedwater heaters can make better economic sense than buying new ones, because rebuilding reduces capital cost and plant outage expenses. At one Texas generating station, rebuilding saved one-third the cost of a new feedwater heater while improving the plant’s heat rate.

(Web supplement to "Assessing the Earthquake Risk of Enhanced Geothermal Systems.") The future of geothermal energy will be driven by six primary technologies, but each will pose its own challenges.

On October 16, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals revived a lawsuit filed by residents along the Mississippi Gulf coast against several corporations in the energy, fossil fuels, and chemicals industries alleging that the defendants were responsible for property damage caused by Hurricane Katrina — Comer v. Murphy Oil USA, et al., No. 07-60756 (5th Cir. Oct. 16, 2009).

Argentina has set out to complete Atucha II, a nuclear reactor it started building in 1981 and abandoned when it was 81% complete, owing to financial problems. If all goes according to plan, the country’s third reactor could go online by 2011—some 25 years behind schedule.

Located on the border with Canada and operational since 1902, the Edison Sault Hydroelectric Plant is one of the oldest continuously operating power plants in North America. This pioneer plant continues to generate between 25 to 30 MW when operating at full capacity. Modern wind and solar projects have captured the public’s interest, but this century-old hydroelectric project shows that time is the ultimate arbiter of a technology’s value to society.

A £4.4 million grant by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) this September to Clipper Windpower’s Britannia project kicked up a whirlwind of interest in the supersized wind turbine—and others being developed around the world.

Sempra Generation has conjured up a market plan for producing merchant photovoltaic (PV) power that is inspired. Working with First Solar, Sempra has developed a finely tuned and standardized 1-MW PV power block that can be replicated as needed. Sempra built the modular PV plant on land adjacent to an existing gas-fired plant to shorten the development period, piggyback the power directly to the grid, and enable existing staff to manage the combined plants’ operation.

Anglo Coal, one of Australia’s coal mining companies this September opened a 45.6-MW power plant at its Moranbah North mine in northeast Queensland that captures methane-rich coal mine gas and uses it as a fuel to generate power instead of venting it into the air.

The tractors and combines on Indiana’s farms are getting some competition from a new harvesting technology — powerful turbines that harvest wind. This March the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm opened its first phase, which consists of 222 wind turbines with a total capacity of 400 MW. Phase II is currently under construction and will use 133 wind turbines with a total capacity of 200 MW. A future, third phase will add another 150 MW and give the completed facility a total capacity of 750 MW, which will make it one of the largest wind farms in the world.

Marine energy prototypes in the UK are sailing ahead of entries from the rest of the world, propelled by government backing and public support.

After decades of struggling with serious air contamination issues and large financial losses, this Pennsylvania waste-to-energy facility, which was built in 1972, was in need of an extreme makeover. In the wake of an unsuccessful $84 million retrofit attempt in 2005, the faltering facility’s last hope lay with a Covanta project team that took over its operation in 2007. After almost two years of hard work, the facility is now producing up to 17 MW while achieving its environmental compliance goals and earning substantial revenues.

This September, as Siemens Energy wrapped up testing of its H-class SGT5-8000H gas turbine at E.ON’s Irsching 4 gas power plant in Bavaria, Germany, the company raved about what it is calling "the world’s most powerful gas turbine."

While the overall economy is down, the effort to add renewable energy resources in the U.S. continues to push project development forward.

In June, the 2.3-MW Hywind facility, the world’s first large-scale floating wind turbine, was towed to a North Sea location with a water depth of about 220 meters (722 feet) and began operation. Over the next two years this turbine will be subjected to strong wind and waves in a harsh ocean environment in an effort to thoroughly test the innovative technology.

News items of interest to power industry professionals.

By 2008, the 19-year-old wood-fired Rio Bravo Rocklin Power Station’s operating performance had been significantly degraded by boiler erosion and corrosion caused by (among many other problems) poor fuel. After much consideration, the plant owners elected to invest in a comprehensive upgrade to restore the plant to its as-built performance. Today, the plant operates very reliably. A newly implemented predictive maintenance program should continue to drive down operating costs and further reduce the number of forced outages.