POWER

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.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has joined American Electric Power (AEP) and Alstom in a validation of advanced carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies at AEP’s Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, W.Va. The $76 million project is being watched closely around the world because it will be the first to capture carbon dioxide from a pulverized coal-fired power plant as well as inject it into a permanent storage site more than 7,800 feet underground.

NRG Energy’s proposed 112-MW project to repower its coal-fired Somerset Station in Massachusetts with plasma gasification technology has moved on to the due diligence phase of the Department of Energy’s federal loan guarantee program.

New geothermal projects representing as much as 7,100 MW of new baseload capacity were under development in 14 U.S. states between March and September 2009. When added to the 3,100 MW of existing capacity, these could bring U.S. geothermal capacity to more than 10 GW, a new report from the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) shows.

Senate Democrats today unveiled the long-awaited 821-page discussion draft of the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” a bill touted as “tough on corporate pollution”—but which will “improve the way the nation generates and uses energy,” without raising the “federal deficit by one single dime.”

Exelon Corp. is the third utility to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the past week, following moves by California utility PG&E Corp. and New Mexico–based PNM Resources. Exelon, the largest nuclear operator in the U.S. cited the “organization’s opposition to climate legislation” for its decision, an allegation the business federation refuted on Tuesday.

Dozens are feared dead after a 330-foot chimney under construction at a 1,200-MW coal-fired power plant collapsed last week in India’s Chhattisgarh state. Teams have so far retrieved 46 bodies from the debris.

A federal appeals board has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will have to reconsider a long-contested air permit for the $3 billion Sithe Global Desert Rock coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Reservation, saying that the agency abused its discretion by not considering integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology in its analysis of best available pollution control systems for the plant.

By Kennedy Maize In 1979, researcher Renate Kimbrough of the Centers for Disease Control, part of the Department of Health Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), shocked the electrical world with an epidemiological study. She found that GE employees from the transformer works at Schenectady, N.Y., exposed to high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls […]

Babcock International last week agreed to buy the full commercial arm of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)—a UK government body that provides nuclear decommissioning, waste management, and new nuclear build support services—for £50 million.

In a decision that experts say could have profound implications on the future of climate change litigation, a two-judge panel of a federal appeals court on Monday reversed a 2005 district court decision and ruled that eight states and New York City can sue coal-burning utilities for creating a “public nuisance” through their emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday issued a final rule that will require—for the first time—most large emitters of greenhouse gases to begin recording data under a new reporting system starting in 2010.

The week brought several developments concerning climate change legislation. A Republican senator is considering introducing an amendment to a fiscal appropriations bill that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources. Meanwhile, as reports emerged that Senate hearings on climate change legislation could begin next month, Texas Governor Rick Perry railed against the Waxman-Markey bill, and China pledged to slow growth of its carbon emissions.

Working Mother magazine has selected American Electric Power (AEP) as one of the 100 best companies for working mothers. AEP is the only electric utility and the only Ohio-based company on the 2009 list.

Southern Co. plans to implement an advanced integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) technology developed in conjunction with the Energy Department, KBR Inc., and other partners at an Alabama federal research facility at an existing fuel oil–fired power plant in China, the company said on Thursday.

The Department of Energy last week announced the award of 11 projects worth $75.5 million to conduct site characterization of promising geologic formations for carbon dioxide storage.

By Kennedy Maize A few environmental myths about electric power just won’t die. I’ll begin to discuss some of them in this blog. The first is that exposure to electrical and magnetic fields from high-voltage power lines causes cancer. This long-shot-down claim resurfaces repeatedly. It is simply wrong, and multiple scientific studies – including a […]

By Kennedy Maize This blog has nothing to do with energy or power.  It’s about music. But I suspect that there are enough readers out there who will connect with it to make the blog worthwhile. I’m writing about the death on Sept. 16 of Mary Travers, 72, the dominant force of the folk group […]

By Kennedy Maize Partisan Correctness: Does Harry Reid Speak for Harry Reid? Who’s speaking approximate truth here? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said this week in a press conference that he expects energy and climate legislation, which has narrowly passed the House, will get punted into next year. The reason, Reid said, is the […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Tuesday that it has completed a multi-year study of power plant wastewater discharges and concluded that current regulations—issued in 1982—have not kept pace with changes in the power industry over three decades. It now plans to revise existing standards for water discharges from coal-fired power plants. Revisions could include tightened restrictions on contaminants in wet scrubber wastewater streams.

Alstom last week pulled out of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), an industry group that advocates for the “robust” use of coal and advancement of cleaner coal technologies. The French company widely active in the development and testing of carbon capture technologies said it broke with the coalition because of its questionable support for climate legislation—the same reason Duke Energy cited when it withdrew from the ACCCE earlier in the week.

Competition for funding under the Energy Department’s Round 3 Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) heated up on Monday as Future Power PA Inc. (FPPI) announced it had applied for about $610 million for a proposed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant with carbon sequestration in Pennsylvania.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed an executive order on Tuesday directing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to adopt regulations by July 31, 2010, to increase California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 33% by 2020—one of the strictest in the country.

GE-Hitachi (GEH) Nuclear Energy last week said it had submitted a final design certification document for the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The submittal allows the regulatory agency to proceed with its evaluation of the third-generation reactor design.

An innovative project that uses algae to mitigate carbon emissions from a coal-fired power plant owned by Arizona Public Service (APS) has received a $70.5 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE).

Exelon, the largest nuclear generator in the U.S., on Thursday signed a $1.2 billion contract to purchase separative work units (SWUs) from USEC’s American Centrifuge Plant to fuel its reactors starting in 2012.

Nuclenor, the operator of Spain’s oldest nuclear power plant, the 466-MW Santa Maria de Garoña, on Monday appealed a government decision to close the plant in 2013. Nuclenor said it had “solid reasons to support the continued operation of the [plant] until 2019.”