Business

The U.S. market for electricity is trifurcated. More than half the country is served by competitive generators bidding against each other in wholesale markets. Almost half is served by conventional state-regulated, vertically integrated utilities controlling generation and transmission. The rest, a much smaller portion, consists of government-owned and customer-owned utilities, some of which are generators […]

A tumultuous election year that was marked by market turmoil, the events of 2016 clearly showed that big change is afoot for the power sector. Many of POWER‘s bold predictions for 2016, such as that the near-simultaneous surge in U.S. natural gas production and recent enactment of environmental rules would reshape the U.S. power sector, […]

Some of the U.S. coal market’s own product wound up in its stocking this Christmas season. Despite hope from the election of Donald Trump and a potential shift toward more coal-friendly energy policies, coal plant owners across the country continued the trend toward shutdowns and reduced operations that have marked the past few years. Coal […]

Toshiba Corp.—the parent of Westinghouse Electric Co.—said it might book huge losses as a result of Westinghouse’s acquisition of the nuclear construction and integrated services business CB&I Stone & Webster Inc. (S&W). Westinghouse closed on its agreement with CB&I in December 2015. When the deal was made, Toshiba estimated that the amount of “goodwill” resulting […]

Although optimistic about the future of the coal industry under the Trump administration, Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., the largest underground coal mining company in the U.S., does not expect the president-elect to bring back coal mining jobs or spur new coal-fired power plant construction. “I’ve asked President-elect Trump to temper his comments […]

President-elect Donald Trump has picked former Texas governor Rick Perry to be his energy secretary

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) as his nominee to be Secretary of the Interior. There had been no official announcement as this was being written December 9, but CNBC said it had been informed of the choice by a “senior Trump official.” The Wall Street Journal and the […]

Entergy Corp. has decided to permanently close the Palisades nuclear power plant on October 1, 2018. The news comes as a bit of a surprise, because Entergy had a power purchase agreement with Consumers Energy—Michigan’s largest utility and the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy—which committed the company to buying nearly all of the power generated […]

Global demand for the 17 periodic table elements—15 within the chemical group called lanthanides, plus yttrium and scandium—has soared in recent years as they become increasingly integrated in new technologies. Some major end uses include generators for wind turbines, permanent magnets and rechargeable batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, automotive catalytic converters, fluid cracking catalysts […]

After a lengthy process of give and take, the Illinois Legislature approved the Future Energy Jobs Bill (SB 2814) on December 1, the last day of the state’s veto session. The bill will now go to Gov. Rauner (R) for his signature, which is expected. Once signed, it will take effect on June 1, 2017, […]