By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., July 3, 2013 – As a daily reporter for and an editor of energy publications, online and offline, I deal with a lot of industry and government websites. The typical bell curve applies in my experience. Some are really quite good. Some stink. Most are somewhere in the middle. But […]

The benefits of combined heat and power haven’t been enough help it to keep pace with other generation resources. That’s why a new regulatory approach is needed.

Cheap natural gas is being blamed for many of the nuclear industry’s current predicaments. But is gas truly the culprit?

The complexities of operating under a broad renewable portfolio standard require careful analysis of the options when planning a new power plant. Here’s how one generator in California navigated the sea of conflicting priorities when it was time to upgrade.

Cycling is a fact of life for most gas plants. But do you really understand the true costs of cycling operation? Not having a full picture risks leaving substantial money on the table.

Don’t talk to New England about exporting natural gas. Without the Everett Marine Terminal, the region’s gas supply crunch would be a whole lot worse.

Sounding the call for new perspective, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. says it’s past time to formally consider gas availability and gas supply constraints when assessing the reliability of the bulk power system.

Though often cast as rivals for the same slice of the generation pie, gas and renewables, according to a new study of the ERCOT market, are natural allies for the long term.

An agreement signed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this May could pave the way for the world’s first ATMEA 1 reactors to be built in Turkey in the 2020s.

Natural gas prices and low wholesale electricity prices are creating headwinds for large-scale renewable projects such as wind.

Despite technical and financial hurdles, annual global demand for grid-scale energy storage is expected to soar to 185.4 GWh by 2017, which means a possible 231% average year-on-year demand growth between 2012 and 2015, according to Lux Research.

Transformer fires are fearsome events, perhaps the most dangerous common threats to human life—both onsite and beyond the boundaries of a power plant—that can hit an electric utility.

German energy giant E.ON in late April narrowly averted idling its Irsching 4 and 5 units in Bavaria, Germany—its most technologically advanced gas-fired generating units that began operations just three years ago at a cost of €400 million.

As the book title Too Dumb to Meter: Follies, Fiascoes, Dead Ends, and Duds on the U.S. Road to Atomic Energy implies, nuclear power has traveled a rough road. For the conclusion of POWER’s exclusive serialization of the book, we offer the “Epilogue: Some Dumb Ideas Never Die.” The first 12 installments are available in the POWER online archives.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt Sign $1.6 Billion Agreement to Link Electricity Grids. Under an agreement signed on June 1, Saudi Arabia’s majority state-owned utility, Saudi Electricity Co., and Egypt’s state power company, Egyptian Electric Holding Co., will share the cost of building a 3,000-MW undersea transmission cable to link their electricity grids. The $1.6 billion […]

There are many reasons to anticipate that the use of wireless instrumentation in industrial settings will increase dramatically in the next few years.

Robotic Torches for Single Arc, Tandem Applications ESAB Welding & Cutting Products launched the new Aristo RT line of robotic torches, designed for single arc or tandem applications. The Aristo RT range of robotic torches work with three different product setups: Standard (external cable), Hollow Wrist Helix (rotation +/–220o), and Hollow Wrist Infiniturn (endless rotation). […]

The transformative increases in current and expected future domestic natural gas production have spawned yet another energy debate: Should the U.S. should export natural gas?

In communities all across North America, environmental justice (EJ), which calls for the fair treatment of all people, including those of color and the economically deprived, remains a serious concern.

Drought and competing uses for water continue to challenge power plant operators worldwide. In response, innovative approaches for reducing water use are being explored from South Africa to China.

Even though it enjoys sizeable coal and natural gas reserves, Indonesia struggles to provide electricity to its growing economy. Geography is its most obvious challenge. Others include evolving international markets and an energy sector that remains highly politicized.

Recent studies have shown that system oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) is not only an important factor for predicting wet flue gas desulfurization (WFGD) absorber chemistry but also may be a predictor of process equipment corrosion and wastewater treatment requirements.

A vital part of any coal-fired unit is its fuel delivery system (FDS). A newly formed subcommittee of the ASME Research Committee on Energy, Environment, and Waste has investigated potential FDS upgrades on three typical 500-MW wall-, tangential-, and cyclone-fired boilers. The subcommittee has produced a series of suggested upgrades that have a simple payback of no more than two years.

The electricity grid has been characterized as the world’s largest and most complicated machine. The grid, like all machines, requires periodic upgrades and maintenance to prevent outages during the normal course of business, and it can be brought down by various outside forces. Solar flares and cyber attacks have temporarily crippled the machine, but an electromagnetic pulse event would be the “ultimate cyber security catastrophe.”