Business

The UK’s faltering plans to establish a carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry by the 2020s got a renewed boost in December as the government pledged to back the Drax Group’s White Rose project

A year ago, on Feb. 12, 2013, President Obama issued Executive Order 13636, titled “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” The Executive Order instructed the National Institute of Standards and

On Feb. 2, 2011, a winter storm gripped the Lone Star State, bringing freezing temperatures and heavy ice loads onto the state’s electric infrastructure. Texas experienced a series of unexpected rolling

The European Union (EU) should emit 40% less carbon dioxide than it did in 1990 and produce 27% of its energy from renewables by 2030, declares a new framework on climate and energy presented by the European Commission (EC) on Wednesday.  The communication setting out the 2030 framework is now expected to be debated by the […]

FutureGen 2.0, the government-backed but long-stalled carbon capture and storage (CCS) project proposed for Meredosia, Ill., will get about $1 billion in cost-shared federal funding, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced on Jan. 22.  A Record of Decision (ROD) published in the Federal Register marks the DOE’s decision to provide $1 billion of financial assistance […]

A federal court on Wednesday upheld the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) 2012 determination that the 130-turbine Cape Wind offshore wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound, south of Cape Cod, Mass., posed “no hazard” to air navigation.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s decision in Town of Barnstable, Mass. v. FAA […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)—which notes that geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) can have potentially severe, widespread impact on the bulk electric power system—has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to approve its first reliability standard concerning GMD operations. The NOPR issued on Jan. 16 concerning Reliability Standard EOP-010-1 is designed to mitigate the effects […]

Witnesses from four federal agencies, including Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy, answered pointed questions about the president’s June 2013–released Climate Action Plan (CAP) and associated rules at an oversight hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works today.  Committee Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) began the hearing to review President Obama’s […]

Increases in spot natural gas prices generally prompted wholesale electricity price hikes across the nation from in 2013, but power prices were the highest in the Pacific Northwest and New England, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday.  Average wholesale electricity prices at the Mid-Columbia trading hub were $37.53/MWh—soaring 64% in 2013 compared to […]

In an email interview with POWER, Xue Wei, manager for Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions, China Business Development, provided some insight into the current state of control systems for Chinese power plants. His responses, edited for style, follow. POWER: How widespread are “state-of-the-art” control systems (yours and others) in new generating plants in […]

My earlier post graded my first five predictions for 2013. This post grades the remaining five posts and suggests my overall grade for 2013.   In past years, my best overall grade was a B+. I’m still hopeful I can better that score. 5. The EPA Fracks Gas. On the same day the Environmental Protection Agency […]

I have presented my top 10 predictions for the year in the January issue for the past several years. I then graded myself against the actual events of the year and presented the results at the end of that year. My grades over the past three years ranged from mid- to high-B, which wasn’t bad […]

A land of lakes and rivers, Quebec benefits today from an abundance of clean and green energy, vastly generated by means of hydro power, which is increasingly complemented by the province’s eastern wind energy farms. Download a pdf of this report.

By 2035, renewables will hold a 30% share of the global power mix, but only 1% of the world’s fossil fuel–fired power plants will be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS), reports the

The Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) each year since 2000 honors one or two plants that burn PRB coal for “innovation and implementation of best practices and continual improvements in areas

Thanks to sustained and rapid development of China’s economy, demand for natural gas has been increasing. From 2000 to 2010, China’s demand for natural gas increased from 24.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) to

NLB’s new NCG-286A Series of high-pressure water jet lances increase operator comfort while making hose or fitting failures less likely. The new models reduce stress on the inlet hose connection and feature

Now more than ever, the power generation business is a global business. Supply chains are more international than in the last century. Thanks to more easily retrievable reserves of shale gas, the prospect of

A tidal wave of pent-up federal regulations could surge across much of the electricity industry in 2014. In recent years, Congress has been unable to enact new laws in energy, which has led a frustrated

If you read the environmental press, clean tech media, or even the New York Times, you might conclude that America is on the cusp of a distributed generation (DG) revolution. “Solar power and other

Black & Veatch expects sustained growth across global energy markets in 2014 with several ongoing themes continuing. Key market drivers supporting power infrastructure spend remain the same, centering on

The business environment for generating companies worldwide continues to become increasingly complex, and not just as a result of regulations. Even in the U.S., the concerns and constraints faced by generators

Now more than ever, we see the U.S. power market sharply focused on maximizing return on investment. We see power producers responding to economic uncertainty, high costs for new emission controls, and a

The U.S. power generation market is experiencing a unique set of transitional drivers, the biggest being the current economics within the energy market. U.S. Market Drivers A significant portion of the U.S

This is expected to be the year when modest economic growth at last returns to a recession-hit Europe. Recent depressed power demand from industry has already allowed the 27 countries of the European Union

In the early 1980s, a man named George Mitchell, who owned an independent oil and gas company in Houston, began to see a distressing trend in his company’s future. Mitchell Energy supplied natural gas to a

The Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) recognized TransAlta’s two-unit, 1,340-MW Centralia Complex with its 2013 Plant of the Year (Large Plant category) award at its 2013 Annual Meeting

Australia’s freshly elected prime minister, Tony Abbott, introduced a bill in November to scrap the nation’s controversial carbon pricing plan, which is slated to transition to an emissions trading scheme

Jordan Picks Russian-Built AES-92 For First Reactor. Jordan in early November chose Rosatom’s reactor export subsidiary AtomStroyExport to supply AES-92 nuclear technology for its first nuclear power plant