News

Australia’s First ERF Carbon Abatement Auction Results Surpass Expectations. Australia held its first Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) auction under the Abbott government’s Direct Action plan on April 15 and

The Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) approved Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s operational safety programs for Sendai Nuclear Power Station Units 1 and 2 on May 27. The approval is the last of three needed by the company to verify that the plant complies with new regulatory requirements implemented as a result of the Fukushima disaster. […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a state implementation plan (SIP) call action to 36 states directing them to correct specific startup, shutdown, and malfunction provisions in their SIPs to ensure they are fully consistent with the Clean Air Act (CAA). The action comes in response to a petition for rulemaking filed by the […]

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP) will cut power CO2 emissions to levels not seen since the 1980s in addition to giving a big boost to renewables at the expense of coal, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said this week. In its “Analysis of the Impacts of the Clean Power Plan” […]

South Mississippi Electric (SME), an electric cooperative that has been Mississippi Power Co.’s (MPC’s) long-time backer in the development of the Kemper energy facility, has pulled out of the project, citing delays in project schedule and increased participation costs as reasons for its withdrawal.  The cooperative that generates and transmits electricity for 11 member cooperatives […]

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz lauded the wind industry’s immense growth since 2008 at the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA’s) WINDPOWER 2015 Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Fla., but he cautioned that more was needed for a long-term low-carbon future.  “Wind generation has more than tripled in the U.S. in just six years, exceeding 4.5% of […]

Taller wind turbines and longer blades could increase the technical potential for wind deployment in the U.S. by 54%, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said today as he unveiled a new report from the Department of Energy (DOE).  The report, “Enabling Wind Power Nationwide,” essentially posits that if advanced turbine concepts with hub heights of 110 […]

Duke Energy announced on May 19 that it will construct a new 650-MW natural gas–fired combined cycle power plant (CCPP) and retire its 375-MW Asheville coal power plant by early 2020. The plan also includes the addition of solar generation at the site as well as construction of a new substation and 40-mile transmission line […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) on May 14 announced $60 million in funding for 23 new projects to foster new technologies in dry cooling and fusion power. The Advanced Research In Dry cooling (ARID) initiative, one of ARPA-E’s newest projects, will provide $30 million to support 14 project teams developing […]

A group of Illinois state lawmakers are proposing legislation to discourage the import of Powder River Basin (PRB) coal into the state, making locally mined coal more appealing to power plants. The coal competitiveness plan being proposed would modify regulations that allow electric utilities to pass through the cost of transportation to customers. According to […]

At Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), repeated generation transitions have marked the giant public power utility’s long history, from hydro, to coal, to nuclear. The latest resource plan points to natural gas, along with renewables and energy efficiency, as the basis for the agency’s generating future. At the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), generation transitions are nothing […]

“You can’t take a clean source of energy off the table.” That was the conclusion that a panel of four experts came to as they discussed the role that nuclear power should play in the battle to fight climate change. The panelists met on May 14 as part of the 62nd Annual Industry Conference and […]

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the Eastern Interconnection States Planning Council have released a resource guide to help states overcome institutional barriers and coordinate on Clean Power Plan compliance.  The Multistate Coordination Resources for Clean Power Plan Compliance guide—which was funded by the Energy Department—includes a multi-state planning checklist, a legislative […]

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), the manufacturer of more than 60 of the world’s 81 existing boiling water reactors (BWRs), is making a foray into the pressurized water reactor (PWR) services field.  The Wilmington, N.C.–based company announced on May 12 that it has begun offering refueling services to PWR operators. Under a recent agreement, its […]

Siemens AG has completed a company reorganization to respond to the “persistently difficult environment” in the global power generation market. The global technology company, which had around 357,000 employees in 2014, said it would cut 4,500 jobs worldwide as part of efforts to streamline administrative functions. Siemens announced 7,800 jobs cuts earlier this year. Along […]

Biomass combustion should not be an approved compliance method under the Clean Power Plant because burning trees is not carbon neutral, both senators from Massachusetts told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday. In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) said that treating bioenergy as having […]

A fire in one of the Indian Point nuclear plant main electrical transformers resulted in the forced shutdown of Unit 3 at the facility on May 9. The fire started at 5:50 p.m. local time on Saturday and it was quickly extinguished by an automated sprinkler system, along with the action of trained onsite personnel. […]

A Canadian joint review panel issued an environmental assessment report on May 6 for a deep geologic repository (DGR) for long-term management of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (L&ILW), concluding that the project is “not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.” Ontario Power Generation (OPG) proposed the DGR, intending to locate the facility at […]

In his May 6 appearance on Comedy Central’s Daily Show, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz addressed both the military and civilian energy issues that the Department of Energy is responsible for. His discussion with host Jon Stewart ranged from the recent negotiations with Iran over that nation’s capability to enrich fissile material to domestic energy […]

Attorneys general from three states—Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia—stepped forward on May 5 to present their objections to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed Clean Power Plan. During testimony before the Senate Environmental and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey presented three specific problems he sees […]

California will seek to reduce its greenhouse gases (GHG) by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, a new executive action by Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. orders.  Executive order B-30-15 issued on April 29 comes ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year. California is one of 20 U.S. states (plus the District of […]

A new bill unveiled on May 6 by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) champions a general right to neutrality of the interconnection of distributed energy resources (DER) and seeks to establish a set of national parameters for how DERs are governed. The day 30 on clomid no period Free Market Energy Act of 2015 would amend […]

An interdisciplinary study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initiative concludes, among other things, that “state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requirements should be replaced by a uniform nationwide program.” The report—released on May 5—focuses on the future of solar energy, suggesting that a massive expansion in solar capacity to “multi-terawatt scale” is […]

Unless you’ve been in a cave the last 24 hours (or at least off the internet), you’ve no doubt heard about Tesla’s move into the battery storage field. I attended the event last night and reported on it for POWER in the wee hours afterward. (The announcement came at night so Tesla CEO Elon Musk […]

Ending several months of speculation, electric vehicle firm Tesla Motors officially moved into the energy storage market on April 30 with the announcement that it would begin marketing two new battery products, the home-based Powerwall and the larger, utility-scale Powerpack. Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the two batteries at a flashy ceremony at the Tesla […]

With plans for a “permanent” solution for storing waste from nuclear power generating plants permanently stalled, some are hoping that an “interim” site can be developed that would enable the removal of spent nuclear fuel from plant sites. Today, Holtec International and two New Mexico counties announced a memorandum of agreement to build such a […]

With 38 tri-fuel engines and a combined capacity of 573 MW, IPP3—a plant constructed near Amman, Jordan—is now the world’s largest internal combustion engine–based power plant. The facility was inaugurated on April 29 in a ceremony attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein. The plant was constructed by an engineering, procurement, and construction […]

Progress has been slow on finding a permanent disposal solution for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., but an interim solution seems more palatable to developers in a couple of southwestern states. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz on April 11, informing him of […]

Multinational energy giant GDF Suez will henceforth be called “Engie,” a name that reflects the global transition to a decarbonized, renewables-rich, energy-efficient, and digital economy, the company said on April 24.  “As the world changes, all energies change with it,” the largest independent power producer in the world said in a statement announcing the rebranding […]

A Japanese court has rejected a petition to halt the restart of two reactors at the Sendai nuclear power plant, putting the country on course again to revive its long-stalled nuclear power sector.  The Kagoshima district court in southwest Japan rejected claims by residents that nearby volcanoes pose risks to the Sendai plant, and that […]