The new Wachs EP 424 with the new Speed Prep feed system is a precision I.D.-mount end-prep machine tool designed to bevel, compound-bevel, J-prep, face, and counterbore pipe, fittings, and valves. The system uses a new Wachs mechanism that feeds simultaneously in the axial and radial planes. Wachs claims that the system is able to […]

A host of European countries have recently made concessions on long-standing nuclear policies. In February this year, for example, Sweden proposed to lift a nearly 30-year-old ban on nuclear power and annulled its nuclear phase-out. And in May 2008, Italy announced it would resume building nuclear plants—two decades after public referendum banned nuclear power and the nation deactivated all of its reactors.

As director of public policy analysis in my last seven years at Enron, I participated in many legislative and regulatory debates involving electricity, although the public policy thrust of the company was the opposite of what I believed. While I favored free markets, the business model of Ken Lay (a PhD economist with years of Washington regulatory experience) centered on special government favor. Enron, for example, had seven profit centers geared to government pricing/rationing of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. And in the 1990s, the company was squarely behind a Btu tax. Today, Enron would be pushing cap and trade.

Assume, for the moment, that the U.S. Congress is unable to agree on legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions from industry, vehicles, and power plants (the carrot approach). Further, assume that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eventually promulgates rules that require power plants to reduce carbon emissions (the stick approach). Have you given any thought to the range of possible best available control technologies (BACT) that the EPA might require under the Clean Air Act (CAA)?

Concerns raised by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about the structural strength of Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000 reactor could cause delays for several nuclear plants that planned to use the design in the U.S. — and it raises questions for new builds started or proposed in China and the UK.

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.

By Kennedy Maize WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2009 — This blog has highlighted my concerns about the security of the smart grid for many months. Now, there’s a new potential problem with the smart grid: privacy. Washington Post technology security writer Brian Krebs, in a recent posting, notes that “privacy experts are warning that the so-called […]

On Monday, a number of leading U.S. business executives ─ including Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan Motor Company; David W. Crane, president and CEO of NRG Energy; and Frederick W. Smith, chairman, president, and CEO of FedEx Corporation ─ convened to announce the formation of the Electrification Coalition. The coalition describes itself as  a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization committed to promoting policies and actions that will facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security vulnerabilities caused by our nation’s dependence on petroleum.

Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) on Monday introduced a climate and energy bill that proposes to spend $20 billion over the next 20 years to fund a series of nuclear-oriented provisions. These include nuclear loan guarantees, workforce development, and reactor-lifetime extensions.

The current sluggish U.S. economy is now being reflected in the country’s overall production of electricity. On Nov. 13, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report that concludes net generation of electricity in the U.S. was down for the 13th consecutive month compared to the same calendar month in the prior year.

On Monday in his speech at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ annual convention, Exelon Chairman and CEO John W. Rowe said that current legislative proposals on climate will minimize costs to consumers while addressing the looming threat of global warming.

Held in New Orleans from Monday through Wednesday, the Brownfields 2009 Conference is the largest conference in the U.S. focused on environmental revitalization and economic redevelopment of contaminated land, which are known as brownfields. This year’s conference focused several sessions on the topic of placing renewable energy projects such as wind farms and solar energy facilities on brownfields and old mining sites in order to make these sites productive again.

On Nov. 12, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced projects selected for more than $24 million in grants to research and develop technologies to produce biofuels, bioenergy, and high-value bio-based products. For this program, the DOE plans to invest up to $4.9 million and the USDA intends to contribute up to $19.5 million. Advanced biofuels produced through this funding are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% compared to fossil fuels.

On Friday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) cleared 564 enforcement cases submitted in an omnibus filing by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the Commission-approved reliability organization.

Several clean energy and climate change–related agreements resulted from President Barack Obama’s trip to China. The three main areas addressed by the agreements are coal, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles.

By Kennedy Maize WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2009 — Call it “kick the can.” The Obama administration, according to the New York Times, has persuaded (does than mean big-footed?) the rest of the world attending the upcoming Copenhagen climate change confab to adopt a policy duck. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and […]

Loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants in the U.S. should not be awarded until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has fully reviewed plans for a proposed project and granted it a combined construction and operating license (COL), Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told Energy Secretary Steven Chu last week.

Six draft policy statements unveiled by the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband on Monday map out an energy future that focuses on a “trinity” of fuels: nuclear, renewables, and “clean” fossil fuels. Miliband also identified 10 suitable sites for the nation’s next generation of nuclear plants and a new policy for the transition to clean coal.

A federally sponsored large-scale project in Mississippi has become the first in the nation to inject more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide in an underground formation, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced last week. Only four other projects—in Norway, Canada, and Algeria—have reached the milestone.

Key developments for U.S. offshore wind this week could give that sector a much-needed boost: On Monday, NRG Energy acquired offshore wind developer Bluewater Wind, and on Tuesday, the governors of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware formed a tri-state partnership for the deployment of offshore wind energy in the Mid-Atlantic coastal region.

Mississippi’s Public Service Commission (PSC) on Monday unanimously agreed to continue hearings for a $2.4 billion integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal plant in Kempner County, saying that the Mississippi Power Co. (MPCO) had aptly demonstrated that the region would need new generating capacity as early as 2014.

Potential climate change and energy legislation could wreak havoc on industry growth, witnesses said in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday. The hearings follow the 11–1 passage of the Kerry-Boxer bill (The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act) through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)—chair of the Finance Committee, which is currently reviewing the bill—was the sole nay vote.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last week signed a cooperative agreement with Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) to build and demonstrate a $2.3 billion hydrogen-powered electric generating facility, complete with carbon capture and storage, in Kern County, Calif.

By Kennedy Maize I come not to praise Yucca Mountain as a final repository for spent nuclear fuel, but to bury it. The lid on the Yucca coffin has long been in place, but now the Obama administration is  nailing it down, according to a report in The Energy Daily. That’s good news. The newsletter […]