Environmental

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has identified four breakthrough technologies and funded them through its Strategic Research and Development Portfolio. EPRI expects to accelerate development of these innovations because they are likely to have significant effects on how electricity is generated and delivered.

European carbon trading is gradually pushing down coal-fired capacity factors, and operating costs are rising. The U.S. may not have a carbon market, but increasing regulatory requirements are having the same effect on coal-fired generation capacity factors and operating costs. In the meantime, gas-fired assets are enjoying increased usage and lower unit costs.

For more than a decade Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group Inc. and Air Liquide have been developing oxyfuel technology with the goal of using it to concentrate CO₂ from pulverized coal-fired power plants and achieve up to 90% CO₂ capture and storage. This technology was recently selected for demonstration as part of FutureGen 2.0.

It’s been almost three years since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued its decision vacating the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Revision Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule. Since then, the utility industry has been in a holding pattern with respect to the control of hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions.

A long-awaited Clean Air Act regulatory guidance document released by the Environmental Protection Agency recommends that state air regulators strongly emphasize energy efficiency in determining the most cost-effective and technically feasible greenhouse gas control technologies that must be used by utilities and other major industrial emitters when expanding existing facilities or building new ones.

With utilities already alarmed by looming federal regulations that could force construction of expensive cooling towers that would sharply increase water use, a report by the Energy Department’s Argonne National Laboratory warns that nearly 350 U.S. coal-fired power plants are vulnerable to potential water demand or supply conflicts over the next 20 years stemming from increased competition for dwindling water resources—particularly in the Southeast.

While U.S. coal production has been stagnant in 2010, demand for coal in China and India has sharply risen this year and could represent the early stages of a "long-term supercycle" for the global coal industry, according to Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company.

Energy efficient and environmentally responsible dry bottom ash technologies will soon be required by regulation. Progressive companies will bring their plants into compliance early because it’s a good business strategy. Here are your compliance options.

Much like the shape-shifting substance it regulates, the mercurial enforcement rule that governs mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants has changed unpredictably several times in recent years.

The University of California, San Diego has been accumulating awards for its savvy use of a constellation of power generation and energy-saving technologies. The campus already controls a fully functioning microgrid—including a cogeneration plant—and, as befits a research institution, is constantly looking for new ways to make its energy system smarter. This “living laboratory,” as campus leaders like to call it, demonstrates what it takes to build a smarter grid and why the effort is worth it.