News

The latest attempt by Exelon Corp. to save two of its struggling Illinois nuclear power plants passed a critical hurdle late last week: the Future Energy Jobs Bill—known as SB 2814—was introduced in the Illinois state General Assembly, after passing the House Energy Committee by a 9–1 vote. Exelon claims the bill would save and […]

Canada’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change on November 21 announced regulatory actions to accelerate the phase-out of coal generation that lacks carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) across the country within the next few decades. The measures announced by Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna are part of a larger transition from “traditional” […]

RESOLVED: Retaining nuclear capacity is necessary to secure a reliable, cost-effective, low-emissions supply of electric power in the United States. That was the proposition for a debate between two high-profile opponents in “A Square-Off on Nuclear Policy” on November 16, the last day of the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) annual meeting in La Quinta, […]

A new feature at the annual meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) this year is an opportunity to test drive a variety of electric vehicles (EVs). State regulators and others attending the event could sign up to test drive electric models from Tesla, BMW, Nissan, and GM. Between noon and 2:30 […]

Meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, during the most recent United Nations climate change conference (COP22), Mission Innovation countries—a group of nations whose stated mission is to accelerate the pace of clean energy innovation—launched seven innovation challenges, designed as a global call to action for the research community, industry, and investors. The challenges are: Smart Grids Off-Grid […]

“We’re at a very challenging time,” said former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Tony Clark at the annual meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) on November 14. We have a “need for infrastructure, but it’s more difficult to get it sited and built than ever before.” Clark’s comment, which he […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said on November 14 that it has sold the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant at auction to a private holding company for $111 million. The two-unit Bellefonte plant sits on approximately 1,600 acres on a peninsula in the Tennessee River near Hollywood, Alabama. TVA began construction in 1974, but it halted the […]

While GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) confirmed it hasn’t made a formal decision to proceed with licensing or construction of a laser enrichment facility at Paducah, Ky., the Department of Energy (DOE) announced it has agreed to sell depleted uranium to the company over a 40-year period to help produce nuclear power plant fuel. The […]

The Vietnamese government has canceled the Ninh Thuan Nuclear Power Plant project, after cost estimates for the plant nearly doubled, according to the Hanoi-based news agency dtinews. Le Hong Tinh, vice chairman of the National Assembly Committee for Science, Technology, and Environment, in an interview conducted with dtinews on November 10, said costs for the […]

FirstEnergy Corp.—one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric utilities, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York—has made the strategic decision to exit the competitive power business. “We have made our decision that over the next 12 to 18 months we’re going to exit competitive generation and become a fully […]

Donald Trump’s stunning victory in the U.S. presidential election portends enormous changes in U.S. energy and environmental policy, and a nearly complete turnover of the men and women who will administer that policy for the next four years.

The November 8 election yielded surprising results for controversial energy-related measures in three states. In Florida, voters rejected Amendment 1, a measure backed by utilities to curb the expansion of resident-owned solar rooftop installations. In Washington, the nation’s first state attempt to impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels and power generated from fossil fuels fell […]

Russia and China have agreed to expand cooperation on nuclear energy, with Russia to build another two reactors in China in addition to expanding cooperation on fast-reactor technology and floating nuclear plants, Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom said in a November 8 statement. The two nations, which share a 4,200-kilometer-long border, have worked together on […]

Southern Co. has once again moved back the in-service date for the Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant under construction in Mississippi, this time to December 31, the company said in its quarterly report released on November 4. Though the plant has experienced ongoing construction delays for a variety of reasons, the most […]

TransCanada—a leading North American energy company—has struck deals to sell its U.S. Northeast Power business. LS Power will acquire three principally natural gas–fired power plants and a wind farm from TransCanada, while ArcLight Capital Partners will buy 13 hydropower facilities located in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. “The sale of our merchant U.S. Northeast Power […]

GE-HItachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Southern Nuclear Energy will collaborate to study the development and licensing of GEH’s PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactor design. Southern Nuclear Development, a subsidiary of Southern Co. company Southern Nuclear Operating Co. signed a memorandum of understanding to study the high-energy neutron reactor design, as well as to work together toward […]

For several years, states in the northeastern U.S. have been in the midst of a major shift away from coal and nuclear power toward natural gas. As aging coal plants shut down on environmental concerns, and several of the region’s nuclear plants have been prematurely retired or faced with challenging economics, developers of natural gas–fired […]

Although many observers consider Elon Musk—the visionary entrepreneur who leads Tesla Motors and SpaceX—to be a disruptive force threatening the conventional power industry, he believes power companies have a bright future, if his goal to expand the use of electric cars and install vast numbers of rooftop solar systems is achieved. Speaking during a presentation […]

Europe’s first megawatt-size fuel cell went online in September. The 1.4-MW power plant put online by E.ON and FuelCell Energy Solutions in Mannheim, Germany, will provide power over the next 10 years, at least, for production processes of materials specialist FRIATEC. The plant was installed in only nine months as a joint project by E.ON […]

Vattenfall to Convert Berlin Coal Plants to Natural Gas. Sweden’s state-owned power company Vattenfall is phasing out the use of coal in Germany’s capital Berlin. The company on September 28 said it would

Four 1.5-MW tidal stream turbines that will make up the first phase of the massive MeyGen project proposed for installation in the Pentland Firth, have been fully assembled. Three of the turbines were built by Andritz Hydro Hammerfest. Tidal power generation firm Atlantis Resources, which owns 85% of the MeyGen project, built the remaining one, […]

In July 2016, the German parliament approved three major pieces of legislation specifically laying out the future of the celebrated Energiewende: the 2017 revision of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, the Electricity Market Act, and the Act on the Digitization of the Energy Transition. “These three pieces of legislation will ensure that the transition of […]

This September, Puerto Rico suffered an island-wide blackout that left 1.5 million utility customers without power for more than 50 hours and reportedly resulted in multimillion-dollar losses for its already troubled economy. The blackout in the U.S. territory with a population of about 3.5 million occurred on September 21, when a blaze erupted in a […]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a request for information to assess the future role of private consolidated interim storage facilities in the agency’s plans for an integrated nuclear waste management system. The DOE noted in an October 27 notice published in the Federal Register that since it unveiled a strategy for the […]

In yet another sign of China’s overcapacity problem, especially in its coal sector, the central government has reportedly ordered a halt to construction on at least 30 coal-fired plants totaling 17 GW of capacity. A continuing slowdown in China’s economy has thrown its power-sector planning into chaos, as estimates of future demand growth made in […]

Idaho Power—co-owner with NV Energy of the two-unit 522-MW North Valmy Generating Station near Battle Mountain, Nevada—filed a request with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (IPUC) last week seeking to accelerate the depreciable life of the power plant from 2031 for Unit 1 and 2035 for Unit 2 to 2025 for both units. In Idaho […]

FuelCell Energy and ExxonMobil will test a novel fuel cell carbon capture technology at a Southern Co. 2.7-GW coal- and gas-fired power plant in Alabama, the companies said on October 27. The technology under development by the companies uses carbonate fuel cells to concentrate and capture carbon dioxide streams from power plants. A pilot plant […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will provide $3.6 billion in loans to fund 82 projects in 31 states to finance new transmission and distribution lines, smart grid technologies, renewable projects, environmental improvements, and energy efficiency. The agency said on October 26 that the loans will be provided through the Electric Program of […]

Nuclear power’s future—and its much-needed contribution to U.S. decarbonization efforts—may be hampered if eight pressing issues aren’t addressed within the next five years, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said at a recent event held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The issues Moniz outlined in his keynote speech at a six-hour event titled […]

After more than 43 years of service, the Fort Calhoun Station—a single-unit 478-MW nuclear power plant, which was the smallest operating reactor in the U.S. fleet—came offline for the final time at 12:55 p.m. CDT on October 24, 2016. Some said the mood at the plant was subdued, but professional. Many workers and other plant […]