POWER
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POWER

  • Coal

    Oregon Utility Weighs Gas Power Options as Coal Exports Loom

    It’s not all coffee and hydropower in the Northwest, as Oregon’s largest utility looks toward natural gas to help it navigate the shifting shoals of regulation and renewable mandates.
  • Coal

    Summer Power Burn: Are Generators Headed Back to Coal?

    Last year’s stampede toward gas in the power sector is moderating for 2013, as higher gas prices cut into the economic incentives supporting coal-to-gas switching.

  • Wind

    Gas Power Needs Wind Generation Too, Says Study

    Gas-fired power is due to serve an important role in supporting intermittent renewable generation in the coming decades. But a new study suggests wind power may be able to return the favor—as a valuable hedging resource.
  • Business

    Disruptive Generation: Anxious Utilities Ponder the Threats

    Cheap gas-fired power stands to upend more than the dispatch order if some new developments under way bear fruit, as utilities may soon be dealing with generation from home-based fuel cells.
  • Environmental

    Methanation of CO2: Storage of Renewable Energy in a Gas Distribution System

    Energy storage has been the achilles heel of the renewable boom, but new technology may offer a way to join gas and renewables even more closely—by using excess renewable generation to manufacture synthetic natural gas from carbon dioxide.

  • Nuclear

    Disgruntled SONGS Employee “Leaks” Photo of Jury-Rig Repair to San Diego Media

    The bad luck for Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) crippled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) continued this week. The local ABC affiliate in San Diego reported on April 30 that it had been given a photo of a makeshift repair to the water box in Unit 3  by a plant employee.

  • Coal

    Navajo Nation Signs New Navajo Station Lease

    Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly signed a land lease extension on April 30 for the 2,250-MW Navajo Generating Station, but not before adding several amendments to the agreement. The early lease renewal with the Navajo Nation must be in place before plant owners could consider making future investment in expensive new air quality control equipment.

  • Nuclear

    Decision to Close SONGS Nuclear Reactors Could Come by Late 2013

    Edison International said that without a restart of Unit 2 at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), it could decide by the end of the year to retire both units at the California nuclear plant. The units with a combined generating capacity of 2,350 MW have been offline since early 2012, the result of unexpected erosion and tube leaks in their steam generators. Costs tied to the shutdown now total around $553 million, including $109 million spent on inspections and repairs and $444 million for replacement power.

  • Coal

    Power Sector Is Critically Vulnerable to Drought, Hearing Panel Testifies

    Drought is a serious vulnerability for the power sector, witnesses testified at a full committee hearing held last week in the Senate to assess the impacts of drought on the power and water sectors. Members of the panel invited by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources offered a number of possible solutions for federal agencies and power companies that could mitigate adverse effects from drought.

  • Nuclear

    Senators Propose New Agency to Deal with Waste from Nuclear Power Plants

    A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation that would effectively shift responsibility for the disposition of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to a new agency created solely to deal with nuclear waste issues.