The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday finalized changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), applying to periods of startup and shutdown at new and existing coal- and oil-fired power plants nationwide.  As published in the Federal Register on Nov. 19, the final action on the EPA’s reconsideration of the startup and shutdown […]

China on Wednesday issued a key energy strategy that sets obligatory 2020 targets for renewables and nuclear power use and urges increased natural gas consumption—but which also caps coal consumption.  The State Council’s Energy Development Strategy Action Plan covers the period between 2014 and 2020. It caps annual energy primary consumption at 4.8 billion metric […]

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan could result in the retirement of between 3.3 GW and 8.7 GW of coal-fired capacity in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid and jeopardize electric reliability for the state that is already power strapped, the independent system operator (ISO) says in a new analysis.  The Environmental Protection Agency’s […]

Events over the past year—turmoil in the oil-rich Middle East and the Russian-Ukraine gas crisis—along with uncertainty for nuclear power and pervading energy poverty worldwide show that the energy system is “under stress,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its freshly released World Energy Outlook 2014 (WEO-2014). Despite technology and efficiency improvements, without actions […]

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Reaching an unexpected climate breakthrough, the U.S. and China in a joint statement on Wednesday each announced new targets to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.  President Barack Obama set a new target to cut U.S. carbon emissions between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, meanwhile, said his country […]

Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s twin Sendai nuclear units in Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture on Nov. 7 got the government’s green light to restart. Once back online, likely in 2015, the units will be the first to restart of Japan’s 48 reactors that were shuttered for safety checks following the March 2011 Fukushima accident. Kagoshima Prefecture Governor Yuichiro […]

Four industry-led projects will each receive about $16 million in federal funding to help them to significantly reduce the cost of producing hydrogen-rich syngas derived from fossil fuels and advance the gasification process for power generation and syngas production, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced on Nov. 6. “Gasification plants have the potential for greater […]

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A collapse of Bangladesh’s national power grid over the weekend turned out the lights for about 60% of the nation of 160 million people for more than 10 hours.  The interruption reportedly occurred at about 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 1 at a substation in Kushtia district, western Bangladesh, which knocked out a 400-kV transmission line […]

South African utility Eskom was forced to implement rolling blackouts for the second time this year after a coal silo supplying a 4.1-GW coal-fired power plant collapsed on Nov. 1. A crack was observed in one of the three 1994-built coal storage silos serving the 13-year-old Majuba Power Station in Mpumalanga Province at about 12:30 […]

The Republicans seized full control of Congress on Tuesday, bagging the six seats necessary to snatch the Senate away from the Democrats—and leaving several Obama administration energy-related initiatives in a fog.  With most election results in, Republicans have control of at least 52 Senate seats, snaring key seats in Iowa, North Carolina, Colorado, Arkansas, South […]

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Cost estimates for the Kemper County Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle project (IGCC) have surged another $330 million since August, mostly owing to delays that have shifted the plant’s in-service date to the first half of 2016.  Plant owner Mississippi Power’s latest monthly report submitted to the Mississippi Public Service Commission shows that the project’s total […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) final rule governing long-term spent nuclear fuel storage onsite at U.S. power plants is illegal and should be overturned, the attorneys general of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont claim in a legal challenge filed on Monday.   In a petition filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. […]

The AREVA-Siemens consortium that is building the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor in Finland, and the plant’s owner, Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO), have again increased claims and counterclaims for billions of dollars in costs and losses, which they say are caused by delays afflicting the world’s first EPR project. At the end of 2003, TVO […]

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Compliance cost estimates for a revised ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) soon to be proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “will be little better than guesses,” the Congressional Research Service (CRS) says in a recent document.  The NAAQS does not directly impose emission controls on industry, “but it sets in motion a process […]

Decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant will cost up to $1.24 billion, owner Entergy Corp. said in a study submitted to Vermont regulators on Friday.  Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) plans to shutter the reactor in late 2014. The decision to close the plant stems from a settlement agreement negotiated by several Vermont state agencies […]

The stalled Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear waste repository will meet regulatory requirements when permanently closed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has found in a long-awaited safety evaluation report (SER).  The federal regulatory body on Oct. 16 issued Volume 3 of the five-part SER on the underground geologic nuclear waste repository proposed to be built in […]

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San Antonio’s CPS Energy on Monday announced a new agreement to buy power from Summit Power’s  proposed integrated combined cycle coal gasification (IGCC) plant that will include carbon capture, utilization, and storage. The municipally owned utility will buy 200 MW of power from the the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), which is about half the […]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up industry’s challenge to a federal court ruling that upheld the Bush administration’s air quality standard for ozone.  The high court’s denial leaves intact the D.C. Circuit’s July 2013 decision upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) last revision of its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) […]

American Electric Power’s (AEP’s) Ohio unit has asked the state’s Public Utilities Commission for permission to essentially charge customers for costs to operate nine unregulated coal-fired units, a move the company says will address market volatility and ensure the economic viability of Ohio’s generation.  AEP Ohio on Oct. 3 proposed an “expanded” power purchase agreement […]

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The Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday issued a draft solicitation that would provide up to $12.6 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear projects. The agency identified four technology areas of interest in the draft solicitation: advanced nuclear reactors, small modular reactors, upgrades and uprates at existing facilities, and front-end nuclear projects. The draft solicitation […]

Despite record low temperatures and widespread generation outages during the polar vortex, bulk power system reliability was maintained, says the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) in a newly released analysis of the extreme cold weather event that engulfed most of the nation this January.  The Jan. 6–7, 2014, weather condition that resulted in temperatures […]

The U.S. power sector has seen a number of developments on the regulatory front in recent months. Here’s where major federal rules stand today. (For a more dynamic and graphic version of this article, see http://powermag.com/long-form-stories/bw-power/ .) GHG Rules New Power Plants. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in September 2013 revised a 2012 proposal to […]

Several countries and companies at the United Nations (UN) Climate Summit 2014 in New York City pledged action to address climate change by slashing carbon emissions, mobilizing funding, or putting a price on carbon.  The one-day event on Tuesday was designed to raise political momentum and spur transformative action ahead of COP 21, the December […]

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