Canada last week marked a major milestone in its move toward establishing a national carbon market by laying down the rules for a federal greenhouse gas offset system.

A report released on Monday by the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Western Renewable Energy Zones (WREZ) initiative identifies 36 areas in the Western Interconnection that have the potential both for large-scale development of renewable resources and low environmental impacts.

China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) last week halted construction of two major hydroelectric projects on the Jinsha River for inadequate environmental reviews. The order has thrown into question a 200 billion yuan (US$29.2 billion) investment in hydro projects along the middle reaches of the river.

A superior court judge from Maricopa County, Ariz., has accepted jurisdiction to decide whether the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), a state regulatory body, has constitutional and statutory authority to adopt and implement renewable energy standards across the state.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) announced support for the FutureGen project on Friday resurrected hopes for the Illinois gasified coal power plant and carbon capture initiative from which the Bush administration abruptly withdrew last year. If a decision is made to move forward with construction in 2010, however, the Mattoon, Ill., project will be initially designed for 60% carbon capture—not 90% as originally intended—and to gasify a single coal type.

By Kennedy Maize Here’s further evidence why I believe the current smart grid hoopla is bogus, and North America should be focusing on a strong grid instead. I live on a small farm in rural Maryland, some 60 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. My electric company is Allegheny Power, a distribution subsidiary of Allegheny Energy, […]

An administrative law judge presiding over hearings on an appeal of an air permit granted by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to the $1.6 billion ultrasupercritical John W. Turk, Jr. Power Plant proposed for Hempstead County, Ark., on Monday threw out arguments by environmentalists questioning whether carbon dioxide emissions from the plant were properly considered.

Babcock & Wilcox Co. (B&W) entered the race to commercialize small-nuclear reactors today, unveiling the mPower, a modular 125-MW Generation III nuclear reactor that can be scaled to produce up to 750 MW.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu laid out the Obama administration’s position on nuclear energy, nuclear waste storage, and carbon sequestration at a House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee last week.

A federation of Japanese power companies last week reportedly asked member companies to “rethink plans” to power the country’s nuclear plants with mixed oxide (MOX) fuel because many plants are unlikely to launch plutonium generation within the next three years, as expected.

European heavyweights Alstom and Siemens could vie to bid for AREVA’s transmission and distribution (T&D) business if the French state-controlled giant puts it up for sale to plug a €12 billion gap and finance its investments, market research group Frost & Sullivan said last week.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week renewed the operating licenses for Units 1 and 2 of the 2,301-MW Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Ga., for an additional 20 years, making them the 53rd and 54th reactor licenses renewed by the federal regulatory body.

Entergy subsidiaries on Thursday announced they had completed three major transmission projects in south Louisiana, including a rebuild of a line in Plaquemines Parish that had been destroyed in Hurricane Katrina and two upgrades to transmission lines that run through the Baton Rouge to New Orleans corridor.

By Kennedy Maize After almost unrelenting hype, skepticism about plug-in hybrid cars is beginning to emerge in the mainstream media. It’s a good thing, as much about the much-ballyhooed vehicles, particularly the General Motors Chevy Volt, doesn’t withstand serious business or technical scrutiny. In early June, Jim Motavalli at the “Wheels” blog at the New […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on Friday appealed a January 2009 ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that declared emissions from the public company’s coal plants in eastern Tennessee and Alabama a public nuisance in North Carolina. Experts say that the landmark decision could pave the way for public nuisance suits to regain prominence in climate change–related litigation.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on Friday ordered Duke Energy to permanently shut down three units—a combined capacity of 265 MW—at the company’s Wabash River Station in Indiana within three months.

The Canadian government is restructuring the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) and may sell a stake of the company to the private sector to leverage the country’s long-term investment in nuclear energy.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, now bound for debate on the House floor after clearing the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, contains four key changes that will secure the coal industry and thousands of jobs that coal provides, U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) said Friday.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) was the most solar-integrated utility in the U.S. last year, followed by Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, according to new rankings released last week by the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA).

Owners of unregulated power generation in the Mid-Atlantic continued to enjoy high profits in 2008, despite the economic downturn, according to a study of financial data released on Monday by the American Public Power Association (APPA).

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, speaking in Atlantic City on April 6, added more hot air to the discussion about offshore wind when he stated that windmills off the East Coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, of the coal-fired power plants in the U.S. I’m disappointed Salazar didn’t take a few minutes for fact-checking and back-of-the-envelope ciphering before his speech.

Australia, the world’s second-largest exporter of thermal coal and uranium, and a significant exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), faces inevitable electricity rationing and the threat of blackouts unless the government acts urgently to ensure large-scale investments are made in new power-generating capacity, experts from five nations said in April. The Australian Academy for Technology […]

Newport Corp. introduced the 1928-C Single-Channel Benchtop Optical Meter, a compact and versatile power meter that provides an affordable alternative to customers looking for a single-channel benchtop energy/power measurement tool. The new model interfaces with all of Newport’s photodiode detectors, thermopiles, and pyroelectric detectors. It has the capability of measuring from 11 pW up to […]

Microbe Turns Carbon Dioxide into Methane A team of Penn State engineers say that a tiny self-perpetuating microbe can take electricity and directly convert carbon dioxide and water into methane, potentially producing a portable energy source with a carbon-neutral footprint. Methanogenic microorganisms produce methane in marshes and dumps, but scientists thought that the organisms turned […]

Denmark’s Risø DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy in late April announced it had connected the world’s first polymer solar cell plant to the grid. The achievement follows years of research into the novel photovoltaic (PV) technology that has been touted as a future inexpensive, flexible, and customizable alternative to silicon crystal solar cells. The […]

Q: What do you get when you gather roughly two dozen top researchers from academia, government, and industry to speak on interdisciplinary energy-related issues for a week?
A: A lot of informative but crowded slides, high-octane brain power, fact-based analysis of where we are and we’re headed globally, informed questions, and surprisingly practical answers.

Southern California Edison’s (SCE) 2,250-MWe San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) recently took receipt of a new and upgraded generator rotor for one of its two Alstom steam turbine generator units (Figure 1). Following the successful installation and flawless start-up of this new rotor in the Unit 2 generator, the former Unit 2 rotor was […]

Germany’s E.ON laid the foundation stone in late March for a 433-MW combined-cycle power plant in Gönyü (Figure 6), a power-stricken region in northwestern Hungary. The power plant, expected to begin operation in 2011, will operate with a net efficiency of more than 58% — making it one of the most efficient power plants in […]

In the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling related to cooling water intake practices at large power plants, many utilities are relieved to be off the hook as far as implementing expensive control upgrades to protect fish and other aquatic organisms.

News items of interest to power generation professionals.