Climate change

A pioneering GE aeroderivative gas turbine project to demonstrate hydrogen combustion as part of a retrofit at an existing U.S. natural gas power plant has successfully utilized blends of 5% to 44% hydrogen with natural gas—some of the highest volumes of hydrogen blended into a commercially operating gas turbine. The project spearheaded by New York […]

Countries throughout the world have set carbon emission reduction targets in an effort to limit the effects of climate change. Many are striving to achieve net zero in coming decades. Yet, governments also want to maintain, or even improve, living standards for their citizens, which means keeping power affordable and reliable. This poses some potentially […]

Michigan’s governor has asked the Department of Energy (DOE) to support Holtec International’s efforts to “save” the 800-MW Palisades nuclear power plant, marking a potential turnaround for the facility in Southwest Michigan, which was taken offline for the final time on May 20, 2022, after 50 years of operation. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s in a […]

Paris & Rueil-Malmaison, 7 September 2022, DORIS and Axens have entered in a partnership to jointly develop integrated Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) services. The main objective of this collaboration is to provide consulting, engineering and EPCm services for CCUS projects based on Axens technologies. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between DORIS and […]

California’s lawmakers have passed Senate Bill 846, effectively offering Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) a pathway to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open until at least 2030. The bill, authored by Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham, a Republican from San Luis Obispo, and Democratic state Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa, passed the California Assembly by 69–3 […]

Japan’s ambitions to install up to 10 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 have made rapid progress over the past month, driven partly by accelerated action to address a supply and demand mismatch. Weeks after

While hydropower provides about 16% of global electricity generation today, climate change is predicted to drive various changes in hydrology that could translate into a spectrum of risks for hydropower production. A recent study published in the journal Water estimates 61% of all global hydropower dams will be in basins with very high or extreme […]

The threat of climate change is no longer a threat—it’s here and it’s impacting everyone. However, in New Jersey, 10 years after Superstorm Sandy, communities are better prepared than ever to handle

President Biden’s signing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) should provide further impetus for growth of U.S. renewable energy, coming on the heels of a report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that installations of solar and wind power accounted for more than two-thirds of new domestic utility-scale generation in the first six months […]

The U.S. House on Aug. 12 passed a bill with major implications for the power generation industry, joining the U.S. Senate in supporting the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The bill, which now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature, includes major provisions to combat climate change, including support for a variety of clean energy […]

American Electric Power’s (AEP’s) long-serving chairman, president, and CEO, Nick Akins, will step down as CEO on Jan. 1, 2023, and has already passed the company’s presidency to Julie A. Sloat, AEP executive vice president, and chief financial officer (CFO). Sloat, 53, will become the power generating company’s CEO in January, making her the first […]

A Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) survey suggests U.S. utility members expect to add up to 90 GW of new nuclear generation by the 2050s, including more than 300 new small modular reactors (SMRs) in the U.S. over the next 25 years. The nuclear industry group’s survey, unveiled on July 29, sought to gather input from […]

JOHNSTON, R.I., USA—Policyholders of FM Global, which include one of every three Fortune 500 companies and similar size organizations worldwide, will collectively receive approximately US$300 million in a first-of-its-kind ‘resilience credit,’ providing them with additional means to invest in climate resilience solutions. The credit has the potential to help those organizations reduce total loss expectancies […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is readying a regulatory sweep targeting more stringent limits on traditional pollutants that could accelerate coal power plant closures. A coal trade group estimates that even without new rules, 86 GW of coal generation is slated to retire by 2030. While the U.S. Supreme Court in June curtailed the EPA’s […]

High temperatures in river water are reportedly forcing Electricite de France SA (EDF) to cut power generation at some of its nuclear plants. The news is particularly troubling as several European nations struggle to cope with an energy crisis caused by gas cuts made by Russia in retaliation against sanctions placed on it due to […]

The world’s nuclear power plants generated a total of 2,653 TWh of energy in 2021, up 100 TWh from 2020. It was the third-highest total ever for global generation from nuclear, just 4 TWh short of the output in 2019 and 7 TWh less than the record set in 2006. The results were reported by […]

The City of White Plains, New York, enlisted DSD Renewables to design, engineer, develop, construct, and finance a nine-site, 6.8-MW community solar and 1.7-MW/8-MWh energy storage portfolio. The

German energy giant RWE will in September acquire Vattenfall’s 1.4-GW Magnum combined cycle gas-fired power station, a project in the Netherlands where work is underway to explore converting one of the three

The U.S. Supreme Court has curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) options for limiting emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) from power plants, an important environmental decision that could impact the federal government’s authority to enforce other regulations. The court in a 6-3 vote, with conservatives in the majority, on June 30 said the EPA does […]

California’s State Legislature has passed a bill that could extend the operating lives of existing generating facilities slated for retirement, potentially providing a new lifeline for the 2,240-MW Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP), which has a premature closure date in 2025. Both houses on June 29 passed AB-205 Energy, an energy trailer bill that Gov. […]

ABB’s automation, electrification and digital solutions to be used in carbon capture project in Norway Project to help accelerate industrial decarbonization and CO2 removals by providing transport and permanent storage of CO2 in reservoirs 2,600 meters under the seabed Plans to store over five million tons of CO2 per year, equivalent of taking one million […]

Climate and extreme weather are increasingly impacting energy systems around the world. Whether it is prolonged, extreme cold in Texas, wildfires in California, high winds in the Midwest, or the recent prediction for an above-normal 2022 hurricane season, it is clear extreme weather events are testing the resilience of the North American grid. Changes in […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) first official loan guarantee for a new clean energy technology project since 2014 will go to the Advanced Clean Energy Storage 1 project in Utah—one of the world’s largest renewable hydrogen energy projects.  The DOE on June 8 announced it closed on the $504.4 million loan guarantee for the first […]

Versatile and plentiful, hydrogen could go a long way toward helping the world meet its climate targets. Already, it’s a component in all eight of the European Commission’s (EC’s) net-zero emissions scenarios for 2050. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Department of Energy has initiatives that will spur significant investment in the hydrogen economy—efforts boosted by […]

Drought in California could nearly halve the state’s hydroelectric generation this summer, pushing up wholesale power prices in the West, and forcing the state to rely on natural gas generation and out-of-state imports, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects in a new analysis. The EIA suggests in a supplement to its May 2022–released Short-Term Energy Outlook […]

A landmark project to test fuel blends of up to 25% volume of hydrogen mixed with natural gas in reciprocating internal combustion engines (RICEs) has launched at WEC Energy Group’s 56-MW A.J. Mihm power plant in Michigan. If successful, the pilot—one of the first of its kind in the U.S.—could provide key insight into how […]

At least 42 nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement as of December 2021 indicate governments plan to utilize carbon capture and storage (CCS), hydrogen and ammonia, and

As coal plants are retired, power companies must decide what to do with sites. Some old plants have been added to the National Register of Historic Places and repurposed as commercial or office space, while

The current geopolitical crisis spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine should provide a rude awakening in the West to our misguided and flawed policies toward energy development by government and major

The potential deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan gained a boost with a cooperation agreement between GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH’s) Canadian subsidiary GEH SMR Technologies Canada and the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Supplier’s Association (SIMSA). GEH SMR Canada on May 26 said a memorandum of understanding […]