Gas hydrates, a form of natural gas that forms when methane from the decomposition of organic material comes into contact with water at low temperatures and high pressures, could play a role — even if a small one — in future fuel supplies, researchers attending a March meeting organized by the American Chemical Society suggested.

When the housing bubble burst, it exposed an unseemly alliance between special interests and the financial sector. Activists wanted homes for all at any cost, and lenders were happy to oblige despite the inherent risk.

Emerson Process Management launched a new extreme temperature version of its Rosemount 2130 vibrating fork liquid level switch that is designed for use in extreme temperatures — from – 94F to 500F (–70C to 260C). The new version includes a low-density option suitable for liquids with specific gravity down to 0.5 (500 kg/m ³). In addition to built-in fault-monitoring/self-checking diagnostics to detect corrosion of the forks or any internal or external damage or breaks in the internal electrical wiring, it features a "heartbeat" LED, which provides instant visual indication that the unit is operational. The unit requires no onsite calibration and is available in 316L stainless steel, corrosion-resistant alloy C wet side, or a range of other stainless steel and aluminum options. (www2.emersonprocess.com)

Sweden’s SKF Reliability Systems introduced the SKF Microlog Analyzer AX, an advanced vibration-monitoring technology. With simultaneous triaxial or four-channel vibration measurement capability, the unit speeds up data collection and saves time in monitoring rounds. The 806 MHz Xscale processor also means faster real-time rate and display updates. An available range of application modules allows users to create a custom device to perform several advanced tasks, such as impact tests, digital recording, modal analysis, transient phenomena analysis, and quality inspections.

Jon Wellinghof, the latest chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is, by his own words, a doofus. As reported in Power News this week, Wellinghoff said the U.S. may never need new baseload electric generating capacity.  Why? Because wind will be so cheap it will get sent out first in an economic dispatch regime. […]

The estimated $30 billion that electric utilities have paid since 1982 to the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund for the construction and operation of the federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain could be returned to them if a Senate bill introduced on Thursday passes.

The U.S. may never need new nuclear or coal-fired power plants because renewable energy and improved efficiency can meet future power demand, Jon Wellinghoff, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chair, last week reportedly said.

The UK will not permit new coal-fired power plants without equipment to capture and store at least 25% of carbon emissions from day one and 100% by 2025, when carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is expected to be technically and commercially proven, the country’s climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said last week.

Changes to a state bill that would have allowed AmerenUE to charge customers during the construction of a second nuclear plant at Callaway in Missouri last week prompted the company to pull the plug on the $6 billion project.

Executives of North American utility companies are nearly split on whether President Obama’s proposed energy initiatives will have a significant impact on the structure of the electricity sector, according to the third annual Platts/Capgemini Utilities Executive Study just released. But there is greater executive agreement that environmental regulation and electricity prices for end users will be increasing.

Spurred by New York’s target to meet 45% of its electricity needs through renewable resources by 2015, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) last week issued a call for proposals to develop offshore wind projects of up to 120 MW in New York State waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

The performance of automated systems designed to protect infrastructure from damage during severe system conditions must be addressed to limit the scope and severity of bulk power system disturbances in North America, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) told stakeholders in a letter last week.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to reconsider an air permit it awarded last July to the 1,500-MW coal-fired Desert Rock Energy Facility project proposed for construction by Sithe Global Power, LLC on the Navajo Nation tribal reservation in New Mexico.

The 30-year anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident passed with little fanfare because our nuclear plant fleet today operates with high reliability and struts an excellent safety record. That wasn’t always the case.

Nuclear loan guarantees in the 2005 Energy Policy Act have proven to be a failure: not just too little, but far too late.

UCLA management guru Sam Culbert calls annual employee performance reviews “bogus” and not conducive to good company management. Get rid of them, he says.

Few companies consider carbon in their supply chain decisions, says an Accenture study. Should purchasers require carbon reductions from suppliers as part of their business model?

North Dakota garnered most of the Department of Energy’s earmarks in March’s omnibus appropriations bill.

It’s not easy being a regulator as the nation faces several daunting energy challenges—integrating renewables, carbon constraints, reliability, and security into an elderly grid that is barely able to keep up with its current mission of moving power from generator to load.

Congress looks at what “smart grid” means and comes up with mixed definitions. The one thing everyone agrees on: The smart grid is going to be expensive.

The most lasting effect the Three Mile Island nuclear accident had on me was what it taught me about crisis communications—lessons that served me well over the 25-plus years that followed and especially after the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

Opponents of locating new energy facilities near where they work and live are often painted with a broad brush as activists or called some other pejorative term. How do you differentiate the professional opponents of any new development from those who have valid reasons to stand up and be heard?

Investors are continuing to bail out of alternative energy stocks—good, promising companies such as ABB, American Superconductor, Evergreen Solar, and Itron. These companies and many like them were Wall Street darlings not that long ago. Not anymore.

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday approved the $4.5 billion acquisition of nearly half of Constellation Nuclear, the indirect owner of three nuclear power plants in upstate New York, to a wholly owned subsidiary of Électricité de France S.A. (EDF), the world’s largest nuclear power plant owner.

After 14 hearings and 15,000 comments, the Department of Energy has decided to pull the plug on any domestic involvement in the three-year-old Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which the U.S. initiated to focus on reprocessing spent commercial nuclear fuel.

On Thursday, while visiting Jefferson City, Mo., with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Vice President Joe Biden announced that, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more than $3.3 billion in smart grid technology development grants and an additional $615 million for smart grid storage, monitoring, and technology viability were being made available.

On tax day, Dominion and BP Wind Energy announced full commercial operation of Phase I of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County, Ind. Of the 400-MW facility, BP and Dominion are partners on approximately 300 MW. The two companies could expand the facility to a total of 750 MW in the future.

In recognition that downed power lines can cause catastrophic wildfires when winds and temperatures are high, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has proposed to shut off power to a mountainous backcountry area in northeastern San Diego County when conditions warrant the emergency measure. If the proposal is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), it would be the first such attempt to prevent fires by shutting off power to an at-risk area.

Officials of Tri-State Generation and Transmission still don’t know what caused symptoms that sent a total of 19 contract workers to the hospital on Friday night. Those affected were among 600 workers who are engaged in a six-week outage to upgrade boiler, turbine-generator, and scrubber systems of northwest Colorado’s Craig Station Unit 3.

An op-ed by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis titled “Building the American Clean Energy Economy” ran in six city papers yesterday and today. Selected excerpts follow.