Carbon is poised to become an auditable and verifiable reporting requirement for American business. Because utilities are among the organizations with the most at stake in a carbon-constrained economy, they should proactively tackle carbon management and carbon accounting in spite of uncertainties about the precise formulation of the final regulatory framework. In short, whether a carbon accounting requirement is legislative, administrative, or driven by business partners and consumers, now is the time for utilities to act.

The stage is being set for negotiating a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. is trying to exert some leadership in the international climate change debate by attempting to build consensus for binding carbon emission reductions prior to the upcoming Copenhagen meeting. Meanwhile, carbon legislation is, thankfully, stalled in the Senate, and developing countries are rejecting our entreaties. You can’t win if other countries don’t want to play.

The consumer, societal, and business benefits of grid moderniaztion are unclear, because the vast majority of grid-related stimulus funding appears destined to primarily expand, not cure, the ailing system we have today.

By Kennedy Maize Bobby Hefner, the doyen of deep gas, is back on the energy policy scene in a big way. That’s the only way Hefner has ever wanted to be seen: on a big canvas. Back in the 1980s, Hefner’s Oklahoma-based GHK company was the prophet of natural gas finds way down below where […]

The board of South Carolina’s largest power producer, Santee Cooper, on Monday voted to suspend construction of the proposed $2.2 billion Pee Dee Energy Campus—a 600-MW coal-fired power plant— in Florence County, S.C.. The state-owned utility cited the recession, lowered power demand, and proposed federal government regulations as primary reasons for its decision.

The Tennessee Valley Authority—the largest public utility in the U.S.—is reportedly considering shuttering two of its oldest coal-fired power plants. At the same time, it is moving forward with plans to end wet storage of ash and gypsum at fossil fuel plants, with a goal of modernizing its facilities and impoundments.

Fatalities at the 6,400-MW Sayano Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia rose to 71 on Tuesday after several bodies were recovered as water was drained from the turbine room that completely flooded following an explosion on Aug. 17 at the giant hydropower station in the Russian Federation. Four workers remain missing.

American Electric Power (AEP) last week said it would request federal funding from the Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative Round 3 to pay part of the costs of installing the nation’s first commercial-scale carbon dioxide capture and storage system on its Mountaineer coal-fired power plant in New Haven, W.Va.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said on Monday it would award $27.6 million in federal funding to 19 projects that enhance the capability to simulate, track, and evaluate the potential risks of carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage in geologic formations.

The first federally licensed in-stream hydrokinetic power project in the U.S. began operating commercially on the Mississippi River in Hastings, Minn., on Thursday.