POWER

New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) on Friday awarded Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE) $4 million to develop a 345.6-MW offshore wind farm, a project that could be the first offshore wind farm on the East Coast.   GSOE’s proposal calls for building 96 wind turbines arranged in a rectangular grid 16 miles off […]

UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture of Constellation Energy and France’s EDF Group, last week submitted a combined construction and operating license (COL) application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a potential new reactor at Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Scriba, N.Y.   The final decision on whether to proceed with the […]

President Bush on Friday signed into law a measure to renew critical energy tax incentives that had been set to expire at the end of this year. The measure, which gained new life after a political impasse had left its future uncertain only the week before, was one of many added to the financial bailout […]

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week created a new government department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as part of his latest cabinet shuffle. The new entity will take on several issues affecting the UK power industry, including soaring wholesale prices resulting from a squeeze in generating capacity, the nation’s crumbling power infrastructure, and […]

U.S. baseload generation capacity reserve margins declined to 17% last year, and with demand expected to outpace capacity growth, the nation could face significant risk of costly power brownouts and blackouts as early as next summer, suggests a new study released by NextGen Energy Council.   The nonprofit organization is composed of a wide variety […]

Folks, this is a true story. We do not make this stuff up. As the late, great comic Steve Allen used to say, “I kid you not.” An NBC television crew, dispatched to the Arctic to show the horrendous effects of global warming – an ice-free Northwest passage – was stalled in the Arctic Sea […]

Did the now-irrelevant 1997 Kyoto Protocol reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, or even slow the rate of increase? No, according to Global Carbon Project, established in 2001 to measure worldwide, man-made carbon emissions patterns. According to the project’s “Global Carbon Budget,” released Sept. 25, “Anthropogenic CO2 emission have been growing about four times faster since […]

A majority of supporters of John McCain and Barack Obama largely agree on how to deal with both the country’s energy needs and the problem of climate change, a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll shows.   WorldPublicOpinion.org, an international research project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, surveyed 1,174 Americans […]

Current U.S. tax credits for renewable energy, including wind and solar energy, are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2008. Last week, both U.S. congressional houses passed versions of a bill that would extend these credits, but the House’s version of what has been called “the year’s most important tax package” prompted criticism from the […]

Nuclear energy giant Électricité de France (EDF) on Wednesday clinched a deal to acquire British Energy plc—a privatized UK company that provides almost 20% of Britain’s electricity—for £12.5 billion ($23.18 billion).   On Thursday, the majority French state-owned company bought a 26% stake in British Energy through its subsidiary Lake Acquisitions as part of its […]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last week announced a solicitation for up to $8 billion in federal loan guarantees for coal-powered projects that employ advanced technologies to reduce or sequester emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases.   This marks the third round of solicitations for the DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program. The DOE said […]

RWE npower has urged the UK government to address pitfalls in carbon capture and storage (CCS) regulation and policy that could prompt delays to vital investments. The company, which revealed it was close to completing a UK CCS facility, was responding to the government’s CCS consultation that closed last week.   RWE npower, which supplies […]

All 12.6 million allowances offered at the first U.S. carbon dioxide emissions auction sold on Sept. 25, 2008. The permits were bought by 59 participants from energy, financial, and environmental sectors at a clearing price of $3.07 per allowance, states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) said Monday.   RGGI said on its […]

New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. on Thursday submitted a combined construction and operating license (COL) application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), selecting GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s next-generation ESBWR reactor design.   Entergy, the nation’s second-largest nuclear plant operator, is seeking to reserve the option to build a potential new reactor at its River Bend […]

The power industry’s operating and maintenance practices were held up to intense regulator and public scrutiny when on November 6, 2007, a Massachusetts power plant’s steam-generating boiler exploded and three men died.

Chromium-molybdenum (chrome-moly) pipe has become a standard in the power generation industry, not only because of its corrosion resistance and high-temperature strength, but also for its cost-effectiveness. In many applications, it is a viable alternative to a more costly stainless steel pipe.

In a bid to preserve some of the health and air quality benefits of a defunct regulation, House Democrats have floated a legislative proposal to codify the near-term emission reductions required under the Bush administration’s Clean Air Interstate Rule, a regional cap-and-trade program for utility emissions that was thrown out in July by a federal appeals court.

Spurred on by a recent audit showing widespread utility noncompliance with voluntary recommendations meant to protect the grid from cyber attacks, key lawmakers have unveiled plans to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) broad powers to enact new mandatory measures to close vulnerabilities in the U.S. bulk power system to potentially devastating computer-launched assaults.

In a move that could boost the value of wind and nuclear generation, relieve stress on the nation’s transmission grid, and reduce utility carbon emissions, PSEG Global LLC and energy storage pioneer Michael Nakhamkin have announced that they have formed a joint venture to market and deploy “second generation” compressed air energy storage technology.

Though former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer may be remembered for one type of indecent exposure, the current New York attorney general is promoting a more damaging type of indecent exposure for coal-fired power plant owners.

No matter what its size, fine particulate matter is a serious matter for coal-burning power plants. A process that charges those particles shows promise for mitigating the problem.

The already razor-thin power supply margins in the UK are likely to become nearly transparent by 2012, according to a new study prepared by Fells Associates: “A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK” (PDF). The report notes that the UK’s electricity shortfall will blossom to between 30 GW and 35 GW by 2027, and residents should expect periods when demand exceeds supply in just three years. If you think the UK government is worried, think again.

OBE: overcome by events. That’s the story of the nation’s energy policy agenda in the wake of the credit collapse of the past several weeks. In short, there likely will be no new major energy investments in the coming months or years, whether Congress enacts energy legislation or not, or if executive branch agencies implement […]

Cellulosic ethanol? How about cellulosic gasoline and diesel fuel instead? A research team from the University of Wisconsin at Madison has come up with what may be an economic way to produce what a UW press release calls “green gasoline” from the sugars in corn stalks and stover and other plant residues that the Department […]

Just when you thought coal was down for the count, here’s a report from London’s Financial Times. “British coal production looks set to grow for the first time since 2001, thanks to higher prices and power generators’ new-found appreciation of domestic coal supplies.” Coal production in the UK mostly has been falling since the 1950s.

Where’s Sam? Energy Secretary Sam “The Sham” Bodman has been absent from the discussions in Washington in recent months about energy prices and energy policies. What does this say about Bodman? It says that neither Sam nor the Department of Energy have any influence in Bush administration energy policies. That’s not a bad thing. Energy […]

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is a Malthusian. That’s clear from his latest book – Hot, Flat and Crowded. As such, he’s a wrong-headed fool, in the camp of Paul Ehrlich (a lepidopterist by training), Lester Brown, and the Club of Rome pessimists. Their view is that the world is running out of resources, […]

The Wall Street financial crisis hit Baltimore’s main street on Thursday, as Constellation Energy Group agreed to be bought by Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings for $4.7 billion ($26.50 per share.) Among the victims in the sale could be Constellation’s attempt to build a new, third nuclear generating unit at its Calvert Cliffs site in […]

More evidence that the demise of coal – Al Gore to the contrary notwithstanding – is greatly exaggerated. On Sept. 11, Tulsa-based Alliance Resource Partners announced it will open a new underground coal mine on the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border, digging high-sulfur Pennsylvania No. 8 coal for the utility market. At the same time, the U.S. […]

Tackling substandard water sources / Control abrasive wear in scrubber piping / Sensors and final control elements