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POWER

  • Going Coastal: The Case for Offshore Wind

    Offshore wind projects involve regulatory, technological, and economic challenges that are greater than those confronted by onshore wind projects. Overcoming these challenges will be necessary to permit offshore wind to achieve its full potential.

  • MIT Researchers Propose Solid Oxide Fuel Cells for Natural Gas Power

    A new power generation system that uses solid oxide fuel cells in conjunction with natural gas and promises lower carbon emissions would not use any new technology, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but rather would combine existing components in a novel configuration.

  • Restraining Torsional Vibration

    All rotating equipment power trains found in a power plant have some amount of vibration, usually caused by mechanical unbalance of the rotating system, shaft misalignment, or weakness in the bearing support.

  • Double-Edged Sword

    A loosely knit coalition of state leaders and environmental activists petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in late 2007 for interpretive guidance on the corporate obligation to disclose material information about all aspects of climate change. The petitioners received what they asked for and a little bit more.

  • Copenhagen: The Case for Climate Adaptation

    The U.S. Congress won’t pass anything that looks like a cap-and-trade or carbon tax approach to global warming anytime soon. What’s left? Adaptation, the low-tech, low-cost, slow-cooking, most-sensible policy approach.

  • Venezuela’s Power System on Brink of Collapse

    Venezuela, a country that relies on hydropower for almost three-quarters of its electricity, has been battling a deepening electricity crisis since a drought in 2009 and a sudden 7% surge in demand brought the country’s power system to the brink of collapse.

  • TREND: Water, Water Everywhere—But Not in the U.S.

    Although hydro power in the U.S. is politically incorrect, even though it generates no greenhouse gases and is by far the largest renewable resource in the country’s generating mix, the rest of the world often has a more sanguine approach to using water to generate electricity. For example…

  • Competitive Maintenance Strategies

    Many consultants are prospering today by creating "new" maintenance strategies. What they’re really creating is new buzzwords.

  • Mass Flow Meters Conform to EPA Reporting Rule

    Sierra Instruments introduced a line of mass flow meters that conform to the new emissions reporting rule from the Environmental Protection Agency. That rule, 40 CFR Part 98, mandates that as of Jan. 2, 2010, U.S. companies that emit more than 25,000 tons a year of carbon dioxide equivalent must report their greenhouse gas (GHG) […]

  • Rare Earth and Lithium Supplies Cloud Renewables

    Ensuring an adequate supply of rare earth elements and minerals may be a hurdle in the renewable energy supply chain. The metals and their compounds are used in battery technologies, windmills, catalysts, and communications technologies. Add lithium (not a rare earth) to that mix, as Latin American politics could cloud the prospects for new lithium supplies.