The Mexican government over the weekend disbanded Luz y Fuerza del Centro, a state-owned power utility that distributes 30% the country’s power supply, and ordered the federal electricity commission to seize the utility’s operations because it was hemorrhaging money and the ensuing budget gap could threaten service to some 25 million customers.

Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) last week said that it will likely open its 90,000-panel photovoltaic (PV) solar facility later this month. The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Fla., project, which will overtake Nevada’s Nellis Solar Power Plant for the title of largest solar photovoltaic (PV) facility in the nation and in North America, will begin operation as several other large U.S. solar projects are being shelved.

The cap-and-trade approach will best tackle global warming and sustain economic recovery because, though reducing carbon emissions will cost money, alternatives to cap and trade will cost more, Exelon Chair and CEO John W. Rowe reiterated on Tuesday in a keynote address at the PennFuture Southeast Global Warming Conference in Penn Valley, Pa.

In the wake of this week’s Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) in London—a meeting attended by leaders from 22 countries to explore the best ways to accelerate commercialization of carbon capture and storage (CCS)—several significant announcements were made around the world.

The $8 million pilot project funded by 37 power companies from around the world to test Alstom’s advanced chilled ammonia process on a 1.7-MW flue slipstream at We Energies’ coal-fired Pleasant Prairie power plant in Wisconsin has demonstrated more than 90% carbon capture—or about 40 tons each day—sponsors said on Thursday.

American Superconductor Corp. (AMCS) announced on Tuesday that its Superconductor Electricity Pipelines have been chosen for the Tres Amigas Project, the nation’s first renewable energy market hub. The Tres Amigas Project, introduced yesterday in Albuquerque by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who was energy secretary in President Bill Clinton’s administration, focuses on uniting the three main U.S. power grids for the first time to enable faster adoption of renewable energy and increase the reliability of the U.S. grid.

By Kennedy Maize For those of us who follow the ever-contentious global warming debate, one of the key areas of conflict is the recent climate record. Is the globe warming, cooling, or just puttering along. It’s a game that depends on where you start and how you aggregate the data. Each side accuses the other […]

By Kennedy Maize In the words of shade-tree philosopher and New York Yankee Hall-of-Fame catcher Yogi Berra, “It’s deja vu all over again.” The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has put on hold a plan by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to send out compact fluorescent light bulbs to its customers, unbidden, and bill them for the […]

Environmental researchers from Harvard and Tsinghua Universities released a new study, published as the cover story in the September 11 issue of Science, suggesting that China could meet its entire future electricity needs through wind power alone. Studies that focus on a single technology as the silver bullet that solves all of our energy problems often ignore the practical side of their solutions, leaving mistaken impressions in the public mind.

The decision to retube a heat exchanger or condenser begins with understanding why tubes are failing. Only when the “why” is understood can the economic replacement tube material be selected. We explore the most common tube material failure mechanisms and then illustrate how to perform a proper life-cycle analysis for that new set of condenser tubes your plant so desperately needs. In sum, there are many reasons to consider getting the copper out of your condenser.

In another major legal victory for states pressing for controls on industry emissions of carbon dioxide, a federal appeals court has reversed a lower court decision and ruled that eight states and the city of New York City could bring “nuisance” suits against five coal-burning utilities to curb greenhouse gas discharges that the states claim are causing damage to their natural resources.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced it plans to “revise” existing, decades-old guidelines for water discharges of toxic metals from fossil fuel-fired power plants, saying a recently concluded EPA study focused mostly on wastewater discharges from coal-fired power plants uncovered elevated levels of toxic pollutants.

In a major climate change rulemaking, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued final regulations that will require most large emitters of greenhouse gases in the U.S. to report their emissions beginning in 2010.

Can wind turbines actually reduce the amount of fossil fuels consumed? A Wall Street Journal analysis concludes that ERCOT utilities will begin to feel the squeeze in their profits this year and to expect the amount of fossil fuels used to generate electricity to be reduced.

President Obama has set an ambitious goal of doubling renewable energy production in the U.S. within three years, which would spur the development of a clean-tech economy and address the challenge of climate change. There is just one problem: even if we achieve the president’s goal of producing more renewable energy, we have no way of actually delivering that energy to where it’s needed.

The Obama administration’s “new OSHA” has a simple message for U.S. industry. This message has been delivered loudly and clearly by both Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Acting Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Jordan Barab. Their message: “There is a new sheriff in town.” And we all know what sheriffs do. They aggressively enforce the law. That is exactly what the new Occupational Safety and Health Administration intends to do.

Coal-fired power plants that fire low-cost coals or that are equipped with combustion modifications for NO_x controls are challenged with maintaining good combustion conditions while maximizing generation and minimizing emissions. In many cases, significant unit derates, availability losses, and an increase in unburned carbon levels can be attributed to poor combustion conditions that occur as a result of poorly controlled local air/fuel distribution within the boiler furnace. Fortunately, a new generation of combustion optimization technologies is available that uses burner air and fuel controls and spatially distributed combustion monitors to detect and correct local furnace air/fuel distribution imbalances.

By Kennedy Maize Here’s an interesting set of ironies. The Republican majority on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken a position that, at least formally, blocks new nuclear reactors in the U.S., while the sole Democrat on the commission, Chairman Greg Jaczko, widely viewed as opposed to the agenda of the nuclear industry, has […]

By Kennedy Maize In journalism, we call it “burying the lead.” That’s what the New York Times did in a Sept. 25 story headlined “Build a Better Bulb for a $10 Million Prize.” The story said that the U.S. Department of Energy is prepared to pay $10 million for development of an efficient, cost-effective replacement […]

The catastrophe at the 6,400-MW Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant that killed 75 workers in southern Siberia on Aug. 17 had a number of contributing causes, including design, operation, and repair drawbacks, an investigative report released last week by the Russian industrial safety regulator Rostekhnadzor said. But the agency also pointed fingers at six high-ranking officials, saying that the accident resulted from their “negligence, laxity, and a lack of engineering thinking.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week proposed a rule that would limit future regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act to industrial facilities that emit 25,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide annually. The announcement was made on the same day as Senate Democrats unveiled the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” indicating increased pressure on Congress to pass comprehensive climate legislation.

Canadian Hydro Developers last week agreed to buy the rights to a proposed 4,440-MW offshore wind project—what could possibly be the largest offshore wind facility in the world—in Lake Erie from Utah-based Wasatch Wind, but the company later acknowledged that the Ontario government had not yet granted it the rights to build the farm.

Alcoa Power Generating (APGI) has countered North Carolina’s alleged efforts to seize its privately owned hydropower business along the Yadkin River by filing a formal response with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the company said on Tuesday.

A pilot project begun at NRG Energy’s 1,700-MW Big Cajun II power plant will evaluate local conditions for growing switchgrass and high-biomass sorghum and determine if they could replace a portion of the plant’s combusted coal to reduce its carbon intensity. The project could lead to commercial-scale projects that would substitute biomass for some of the coal burned at NRG’s other carbon-intensive plants, the company said last week.

Twelve U.S. carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects will be the first to receive grants from the $1.4 billion allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Energy Department said on Friday.

By Kennedy Maize Oh! ye’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road, And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye– Old Scottish folk ballad When it comes to climate legislation, the Obama administration has chosen the low road – administrative action by the Environmental Protection Agency. At the same time, the administration is […]

For several years there has been widespread doubt about Washington’s ability to move forward with a national program to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At various times during the Bush administration, it appeared that legislation might be possible, but it always collapsed under the weight of partisan politics and competing special […]

When TVA’s Bull Run Fossil Plant was erected in the mid-1960s, it could boast of having the largest boiler in the U.S., and the plant has enjoyed a long, enviable efficiency track record. Today the public judges coal plants by their emissions. Now that it’s been outfitted with the most advanced air quality control systems, including the latest flue gas desulfurization system design, Bull Run scores a perfect "10" in both categories.

Hirakud Power uses environmentally friendly circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion technology to produce electricity for one of the world’s oldest aluminum-smelting operations. This "captive power plant" has engineered a number of technical fixes to its original boiler designs to improve plant reliability and reduce outages and boiler repair costs. It also has made strategic investments in upgraded machinery to reduce auxiliary power consumption. In addition to an excellent environmental track record, as evidenced by being Asia’s first ISO 14001 (BS 7750) – certified power plant, Hirakud Power has solidified its position as an industry leader in CFB boiler operating experience and efficient power production.

This plant’s staff proves that a can-do attitude and high productivity can be compatible with a safer workplace. The proactive approaches they used at the 162-MW Hutsonville plant ranged from improving boiler efficiency to better managing risks to workers.