Business

On August 5, President Barack Obama announced that 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects will receive $2.4 billion in funding from the Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The announcement marks the single largest investment in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles ever made. DOE funds will […]

News items of interest to power industry professionals.

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.

News items of interest to power industry professionals.

In June, California issued yet another report on renewable energy. This one, a joint effort of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Energy Commission (CEC), analyzes implementation issues related to increasing the state’s renewables portfolio standard (RPS) to 33% by 2020. The report is the latest in an increasingly growing number of assessments, policy pronouncements, and administrative decisions examining renewable energy and climate change issues.

Does your business have a communications plan to deal with a catastrophe? The lack of one could cost your business its corporate reputation and the value of your shares on the market.

If a nuclear revival is to happen, it will depend on understanding the global nature of the supply chains that support it, argues a U.S. conservative think tank.

The bill that the U.S. House passed 219-212 in late June to establish a cap-and-trade regime for control of global warming gases also includes new authority for overriding states on siting power lines. But the new authority only applies to the West.

Everything you want to, or should, know about uranium mining and processing is in a new book by Tom Zoellner, not including the terrifying threat of crocodiles in northern Australia.

Even as hype about the U.S. nuclear renaissance is quieting down—a result of economic woes and unrealistic expectations about political and regulatory developments—some developments remain. As these stories from the nation’s media suggest, the building of new nuclear plants in the U.S. may move ahead at a slower, more measured pace.

Inventory is expensive. It sucks up, and locks up, cash. How can utility managers save inventory money? Here are some possibilities from experts in inventory management.

Educating a workforce about the concept of business acumen—going beyond financial literacy and developing a true understanding of what it takes for an organization to make money—is the key to producing real, bottom-line results.

In the world of North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) Reliability Standards, each company (entity) that must comply with the standards determines for itself the scope and size of its compliance program, based on the scope and size of its operations.

News items of interest to power industry professionals.

At the opening ELECTRIC POWER 2009 plenary session, both the keynote speaker and the Power Industry Executive Roundtable participants kept circling back to the problems created by a public and lawmakers who seem to be promoting policies without an adequate understanding of energy realities. Most of the speakers acknowledged that the industry itself is partly to blame, but nobody offered a way forward.

The tension between the growing number of renewable energy projects and limited transmission capacity is reflected in Washington’s legislative agenda of establishing a national renewable portfolio standard and new transmission lines dedicated to moving renewable energy coast-to-coast. Even if those ideas become law, hurdles to the happy marriage of renewables and transmission remain.

This March, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) quietly completed development of the "J-series" gas turbine — a machine that has been extolled in the turbo-machinery world for its ability to produce one of the world’s largest power generation capacities and highest thermal efficiencies.

The intensifying spotlight on renewable energy seems to be casting a brighter light on the energy storage problem, with lawmakers, researchers, and investors scrambling to seek out the most feasible solution to bridge the intermittent nature of renewable power sources.

Many U.S. power companies are focusing their hiring efforts on military veterans. According to human resources HR experts, it makes a lot sense—beyond pure patriotism. Vets are motivated, experienced, often well-trained, and instilled with team-work. Plus, there is a great need to replace the retiring “baby boomers” generation who have populated many key industry jobs. In some cases, there’s even a financial incentive for hiring vets.

The Obama administration has unveiled its long-awaited policy on cyber security of government and private-sector communication and distribution systems. Is it less than meets the eye, as some critics argue?

Clashes between industry and the Department of Commerce on backward compatibility of standards could stifle and delay the development of a “smart” electric transmission and distribution grid.

The Obama administration has pulled the plug on the Department of Energy’s attempts to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars. (The Bush administration had been touting H-powered cars for many years, with nothing to show for the effort other than large expenditures and a General Motors concept car that cost in the millions to build.) At about the same time, the Obama administration announced it would resurrect the billion-dollar FutureGen coal-fired generating project, aimed for Mattoon, Ill.

As expected, President Obama has named Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Gregory Jaczko, an ally of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), as chairman of the NRC, almost certainly dooming the Yucca Mountain, Nev., site for disposal of spent nuclear fuel.

Gas found in shale deposits and recently discovered natural gas hydrates may be game-changers when it comes to supplying natural gas to the United States.

What makes more sense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants—a cap-and-trade regime or a carbon tax? It’s a contentious issue among those who generate power and among academic economists and policy makers.

Though Canada is rich in fossil fuels, nuclear power may fuel a significant portion of the nation’s future electrical generation needs, especially in provinces that have traditionally relied on hydropower and fossil fuels.

Turkey’s growing power market has attracted investors and project developers for over a decade, yet their plans have been dashed by unexpected political or financial crises or, worse, obstructed by a lengthy bureaucratic approval process. Now, with a more transparent retail electricity market, government regulators and investors are bullish on Turkey. Is Turkey ready to turn the power on?

Because combined heat and power (CHP) plants optimize energy use, they cut fuel costs and pollution. Even though U.S. power plants have been using CHP for decades, today’s energy experts have a newfound appreciation for its ability to promote sustainable energy use.

Carbon capture and sequestration is very likely to be a key element of any future greenhouse gas legislation. Integrated gasification combined-cycle plants now under design have provisions to separate the CO₂ at elevated pressures. Coal-fired plants have a far more difficult and expensive task — separating and compressing CO₂ from pressures just above atmospheric conditions.

When roving Contributing Editor Mark Axford attended several recent energy conferences, he found the same questions asked at each one about new U.S. generation sources and consumption patterns. Unfortunately, the experts had few good answers to those questions.