Coal

In the next 25 years, the world will turn increasingly to renewables and natural gas to meet energy demand, turning away from coal, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) World Energy

The project to build one of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery storage systems started out as a bet—on Twitter. Last March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted to Australian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering drafting a replacement of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The agency on December 18 published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) soliciting comments from the public on how the replacement should look. The ANPRM is separate from the agency’s current effort to repeal the current rule. […]

A Michigan utility will build a $500 million natural gas-fired power plant on the site of an existing coal-fired plant in Lansing, and plans to retire the coal plant and another coal-fired facility in the town in the next few years. Lansing’s Board of Water & Light (BWL) announced the project December 18. The city-owned […]

A utility group on December 18 agreed to keep a coal-fired power plant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, open for at least a few more years, and its members said they are prepared to move forward with distributed generation and could import power to make up for the eventual retirement of the Martin Drake Power Plant. […]

Global coal demand fell nearly 2% in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Coal 2017 Analysis and Forecasts report, released December 18. “Demand for coal has now dropped by 4.2% since 2014, almost matching the fall of 1990-1992, which was the largest two-year decline recorded since the IEA started compiling statistics more than […]

A test plant that will be part of research into producing cleaner-burning coal for power plants is set to begin operation next year in Wyoming, with the company behind the project saying global demand for coal makes the project viable even as the U.S. reduces its reliance on coal for electricity production. Clean Coal Technologies […]

A report released December 14 by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) says power generation from natural gas-fired units and renewable sources such as solar and wind will provide enough electricity to offset the closures of U.S. coal-fired and nuclear power plants in the next decade. The agency’s 10-year outlook, part of its 2017 […]

Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles—which are inching closer to commercial applications for waste heat recovery, concentrating solar power, nuclear, and fossil energy—offer higher thermal efficiencies and power density than conventional steam Rankine and Air Brayton cycles in use today for power generation. But to realize these potentially game-changing cycles, common challenges associated with turbomachinery must […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has granted a 30-day extension sought by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Kevin McIntyre last week to give the regulatory agency more time before it acts on the controversial proposed Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule. In a strongly worded letter, however, he told FERC to act expeditiously to allay reliability threats to […]

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt told House lawmakers on December 7 that the agency will introduce a rule to replace the Obama administration’s legacy Clean Power Plan. Pruitt told Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) in a brief exchange, during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Environment held on Thursday […]

Kevin McIntyre, freshly sworn in as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), has asked the Department of Energy (DOE) for a 30-day extension for the commission to act on the proposed Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule. FERC is required to take final action on Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s September 28-issued notice of proposed rulemaking […]

Kevin McIntyre was sworn in as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on December 7, just more than a month after his nomination to the post was approved by the Senate. He takes over from interim chair Neil Chatterjee, who will remain at FERC as a commissioner. The agency that regulates transmission and wholesale […]

General Electric (GE) said December 7 it will cut 12,000 jobs in its power unit as the company continues to struggle with changes in the global power market. The company in a statement said the staff reductions will save $1 billion in 2018. “Traditional power markets including gas and coal have softened,” the company said, […]

 The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week reportedly closed an investigation concerning costs and delays at Mississippi Power’s now-abandoned Kemper integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project without recommending an enforcement action. Mississippi Power on December 1 also reached an amended settlement agreement with key stakeholders on the remaining costs associated with the $7.5 billion […]

Fuel, operations, and plant design all affect the overall efficiency of a plant. This quiz is designed to test your knowledge of heat rate and efficiency fundamentals. Create your own user feedback survey To learn more about coal plant efficiency, frequent problems that reduce efficiency, and some solutions for improving operation and reducing generation costs, read “Understanding Coal […]

WEC Energy Group continues to move away from coal-fired power in its portfolio. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based utility in November gave WEC investors more details about the plan for Wisconsin Public Service (WPS), a WEC subsidiary, to close the Pulliam Power Plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, as early as next fall. WEC subsidiary We Energies last […]

In a November report, The Global CCS Institute said carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the only technology able to decarbonize the industrial sector. To reach the Paris Agreement’s target to keep global atmospheric temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius, 2,500 CCS facilities will need to be operational by 2040, with 14% of cumulative […]

Construction Set to Begin on First Nuclear Plant in Turkey. Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister, in mid-October said construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant would

Power plants have been blowing soot using essentially the same method for decades. However, technological advances now offer boiler operators a much-improved technique. Rather than running sootblowing systems

Associated Electric Cooperative has spent a decade building a pulverizer performance program for its Thomas Hill Energy Center. The effort, combined with a sharp focus on maintaining proper air/fuel ratios

Cross-border trade in energy—electricity, natural gas, and oil—has been an unanticipated boon to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, exceeding $140 billion in 2015. The Trump administration’s antipathy toward

When it comes to the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the tables have turned, but the arguments are largely the same. On November 28 and 29, during the Trump administration’s only public hearing on its plan to repeal the CPP, an Obama-era regulation aimed at reducing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, old arguments for and […]

The bell has tolled for another U.S. coal-fired power plant. WEC Energy Group on November 28 said it would shutter its Pleasant Prairie facility in Wisconsin, another victim of energy market dynamics that include low natural gas prices, falling demand for electricity, and the continuing move by utilities toward renewable power generation sources such as […]

A U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2015 from U.S. coal consumption shows 43 states recorded lower emissions year-over-year, with just four states showing increased levels, while three states and the District of Columbia had little to no emissions. On the whole, the EIA report released in mid-November comparing […]

Weak earnings associated with General Electric’s (GE’s) underperforming $10.1 billion investment in Alstom have prompted the giant conglomerate to rejigger its power business and lean more heavily on other segments. GE Power, the company’s long-standing and lucrative business unit that has installed 1.6 GW of the world’s installed capacity over its 125-year history, has also […]

U.S. utilities continue to announce closures of financially troubled and older coal-fired power plants even as government officials work on a bailout plan to keep them operating. Owners of a coal plant in Montana that has only been online since 2006 informed the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) last week of plans to shutter the […]

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Chairman Neil Chatterjee, who has said he is “sympathetic” to a rule that would help prop up struggling U.S. coal and nuclear power plants, apparently is ready to move forward with an interim plan to keep financially troubled plants operating while his agency continues to consider a market-changing cost […]

Virginia regulators are ready to consider a proposal to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the Northeast, becoming the 10th state in the nation’s largest carbon-trading market. The move comes as newly elected governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, prepares to take office in a state where the Republican-led legislature has shot down previous […]

Utilities across the country are gearing up for an attack on the power grid November 15 and 16. Thankfully, it’s only a drill. But in the event of an actual emergency, a real physical and cyberattack on the U.S. electricity infrastructure, GridEx IV—a biennial exercise conducted by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC)—will help […]