Aaron Larson

Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 was taken offline the morning of Dec. 9 due to a transformer fire in the site switchyard. Operators at the plant declared an “Unusual Event” at 8 a.m. CST and notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of the situation. An Unusual Event is the lowest of four nuclear emergency classifications […]

Duke Energy submitted its decommissioning plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) this week for the company’s retired Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida. The 860-MW plant, located about 85 miles north of Tampa, went into service on March 13, 1977. It has been shutdown since September 2009 when engineers discovered a delamination, or separation […]

With an electrical efficiency of 45.95%, the Lünen hard-coal-fired power plant, located on the Datteln-Hamm Canal in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, is Europe’s cleanest and most efficient. The 750-MW unit is owned by Trianel Kohlkraftwerk Lünen GmbH und Co. KG and has been online in continuous operation since Dec. 1. The plant had […]

AREVA announced that on Nov. 29 the first steam production was achieved at the concentrated solar power (CSP) plant it is constructing near Dhursar in the state of Rajasthan, India. The plant is Asia’s largest CSP installation and will be operated by Reliance Power. The 100-MW plant was approved for carbon credits in July under […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has extended the expiration date of the construction permit for the unfinished Unit 2 at the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant (WBN) to Sept. 30, 2016. WBN is located about 10 miles south of Spring City, Tenn., and is owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). TVA requested the extension […]

Coal-fired power stations rely on storing coal in large bunkers or silos. Over time, changes in the type and quality of coal can lead to poor flow during discharge, creating production inefficiencies and significantly reducing storage capacity. Manual intervention is frequently used to promote flow; however, this is a hazardous process for operators and fails […]

Anyone operating a coal-fired power plant has faced the challenge of keeping coal-handling equipment free of blockages and plugging. Not only do material flow problems interrupt smooth plant operations, but they also require dirty, sometimes dangerous, and often unscheduled maintenance work. As in many other industries, remote-controlled tools can help solve this problem. Bulk material […]

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) will hire a nuclear engineering consultant to investigate cost overruns associated with Xcel Energy’s Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant Life Cycle Management/Extended Power Uprate Project. The project, at an estimated cost of $320 million, was authorized by the MPUC in 2009 and included necessary upgrades to increase the 600-MW plant […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced last week that the final shipment of low enriched uranium (LEU) derived from Russian nuclear weapons had departed from the port of St. Petersburg, Russia. “For two decades, one in ten light bulbs in America has been powered by nuclear material from Russian nuclear warheads. The 1993 United States-Russian […]

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G) announced the completion of another major construction milestone at its V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County, S.C. Having completed the first new construction nuclear concrete pour just seven months earlier, SCE&G finished the nuclear island basemat for Unit 3 on Nov. 4. “This successful basemat placement is […]

ABB and its consortium partner, Bondfield Construction, announced on Nov. 5 that they have won an order from Canadian Solar Solutions to supply a 100 MW turnkey photovoltaic (PV) solar project for the Grand Renewable Energy Park in Haldimand County, Ontario, southeast of Toronto. Ontario is in the final stages of a decade-long plan to […]

U.S. House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) unveiled draft legislation on Oct. 28 to address Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules affecting electricity generation. The bipartisan legislation is intended to ensure America can maintain a diverse and affordable electricity portfolio, which includes the use of coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and renewables. Whitfield […]

Former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, made a pitch for the use of thorium in nuclear power generation at the Thorium Energy Conference 2013, which concluded this week at the Globe of Science and Innovation at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. The Swedish diplomat was the first […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued orders on Oct. 28 prohibiting two former employees of the Dresden Nuclear Power Station in Morris, Ill., from participating in nuclear work under its jurisdiction. The two were implicated in an incident involving violations of the Behavioral Observation Program. Even without the order, the workers in question are unlikely […]

EDF Group and the UK Government have reached an agreement in principle on the key commercial terms for an investment contract for the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Finalization of this agreement and construction of the plant are subject to a final investment decision. The government and EDF will work together to address […]

FirstEnergy Corp. announced that two new steam generators have arrived in Oak Harbor, Ohio, for the company’s 900-MW Davis-Besse nuclear plant. The new steam generators are scheduled for installation during the plant’s refueling outage next spring. Fabrication began in 2009 at Babcock and Wilcox’s nuclear equipment manufacturing facility in Cambridge, Ontario. The 74-foot-long, 12-foot-wide steam […]

Utility roles are changing rapidly, and the utility of the future will need to be ready for a much more diversified, secure, and decentralized grid. That was one message at the Minnesota Utility Investors (MUI) 23rd Annual Meeting in Brooklyn Center, Minn., this week. MUI is a grassroots organization representing the interests of individuals and […]

CPS Energy announced that its 420-MW Deely Unit 1 power plant was returned to service on Oct. 12. The plant had been shutdown since Sept. 10, 2013, when it was taken offline following an explosion that resulted in damage to the cascade building, which houses the conveyor system that feeds coal into the plant. The […]

Courtesy: Dominion Curt Morgan, CEO and president of Brayton Point Energy LLC, announced in a written statement on Oct. 7, 2013, that the Brayton Point Power Station will be closed permanently in 2017. The news comes as a bit of a surprise, since the station was recently purchased by a subsidiary of funds controlled by […]

In a letter to President Obama on Monday, former Colorado Public Utility Commissioner Ron Binz withdrew his name from further consideration as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). His nomination proved to be highly controversial and was met with resistance by many members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. In […]

Courtesy: OKG At noon on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013, Oskarshamn Unit 3 (O3) was manually shut down due to a large amount of jellyfish present at the cooling water intake. Operations management chose to disconnect the facility from the grid as a preventive safety measure rather than risk an automatic shutdown due to insufficient cooling […]