Environmental

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final version of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) on Oct. 23, 2015, and within hours more than two dozen challenges were filed

From issuance of the final Clean Power Plan to mammoth mergers, 2015 will be remembered as a tumultuous year. Twelve months ago, as folks were emerging from an eventful 2014, POWER made some bold predictions, including that fuel economics will drive 2015 U.S. power markets, and the labor crunch will complicate the gas turbine arms […]

POWER‘s monthly infographic sheds light on power sector trends globally, and in 2015, it highlighted changes in plant retirements, sector revenues, rule costs, workforce, emissions technologies, and electricity costs, among other subjects. January 2015: Baseload Retirements How coal plant retirements compare with retirements of other baseload generation sources. February 2015: Power Revenues How revenues for fossil power […]

A status update and forecast for solar photovoltaic power in Greece, Croatia, and Italy.

As expected, President Obama vetoed two resolutions on Dec. 18 that would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) rules on CO2 emissions and halted the administration’s Clean Power Plan. Senate Joint Res. 23 was Congress’ attempt to nullify the EPA’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for new, modified, and reconstructed power plants, while Senate […]

North America’s reserve margins are trending downward, even though electricity demand has generally fallen, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned in a new report. The international regulatory authority established to gauge and improve the reliability of North America’s bulk power system (BPS) said in its annual long-term report that electricity demand has dropped […]

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) will remain in effect as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works on a final cost finding, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered on Dec. 15. The court noted in a two-page order that the EPA “has represented that it is on track to issue […]

Coal ash utilization, which had stalled between 2009 and 2013 as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prepared a final federal coal ash rule, increased significantly in 2014. According to the American Coal Ash Association’s (ACAA’s) most recent “Production and Use Survey,” 62.4 million tons of coal combustion products were beneficially used in 2014—up from 51.4 […]

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a decision concluding that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) use of Thunderclap—a crowd-speaking social media platform that allows a single message to be mass-shared, flash-mob style—constituted “covert propaganda,” in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition. The decision was issued in response to a request from Sen. James […]

Delegates of 195 nations, including the U.S., on Dec. 12 reached a landmark deal at the Paris COP21 conference that commits the world to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in an effort to combat the effects of climate change. Though scientists have said global temperature increases need to kept below 2 degrees C to avoid […]