News

Panelists at a House hearing on Tuesday held to examine steps the federal government and private sector are taking to bolster the nation’s critical infrastructure security shed light on the extent and variety of possible cyberattacks and called for flexible solutions. The hearing was held days after the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its initial analysis of hundreds of comments submitted in response to President Obama’s February 2013 cybersecurity executive order.

AES Corp.’s subsidiary Dayton Power & Light (DP&L) plans to retire six coal-fired units representing about 390 MW at its 414-MW Hutchings coal-, gas-, and oil-fired plant in Miamisburg, Ohio, by June 2015 as a result of existing and expected environmental regulations, including the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). The news comes on the heels of Indianapolis Power & Light Co.’s (IPL’s) announcement that it plans to retire 600 MW of coal-fired capacity to comply with environmental rules.

Plans to build an 873-MW natural gas peaking facility at FirstEnergy’s Eastlake Plant in Ohio have been frozen on uncertainties that affect project financing—including the federal "sequester"—its developers FirstEnergy and American Municipal Power (AMP) said last week.

Sempra U.S. Gas & Power dedicated the first 150-MW phase of the 4,000-acre Mesquite Solar facility in Maricopa County, Ariz., on Friday. Potential to build out up to 700 MW of nameplate capacity could make the photovoltaic (PV) complex one of the biggest in the U.S.

In a report released on Monday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) presents data on energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for each state by year, fuel, sector, and other breakouts for the years 2000 through 2010.

A three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) on Tuesday ruled that Southern California Edison (SCE) cannot restart Unit 2 of its shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) until the NRC holds a formal license amendment proceeding with full public participation.

Westinghouse and China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. (SNPTC) have teamed to further develop a supply chain within China for power plant equipment and components to be used in global AP1000 nuclear power plants.

A software algorithm developed by researchers from North Carolina State University promises to detect and isolate cyber attacks on networked control systems.

A three-judge panel at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit that alleges carbon dioxide emissions by several power companies contributed to global warming that intensified Hurricane Katrina.

In an apparent legal victory for developers of new nuclear power plants in the U.S., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied complaints from environmental groups that federal approval of Southern Co.’s two new reactors under construction in Georgia did not address lessons learned from the Fukushima accident.

In an effort to create more jobs, the Obama administration is launching competitions to create three new manufacturing innovation institutes with a federal commitment of $200 million across five agencies: Defense, Energy, Commerce, NASA, and the National Science Foundation.  The energy-related institute will focus on next-generation power electronics manufacturing.

Air Products and Chemicals hydrogen production facilities in Port Arthur, Texas, have successfully begun capturing carbon dioxide from industrial operations and are now using that carbon for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The $431 million project, supported by $284 million from the Department of Energy (DOE), is being touted as a milestone in carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS) for progressing beyond demonstration to industrial scale.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced on May 9 that it will hold a commission meeting on May 16 to address the difficulties posed by inadequate alignment between how natural gas and electricity markets operate.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) said on May 6 that the continuing shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) heightens reliability concerns for areas of Southern California this summer.

Domestic content requirements that require some generators to source up to 60% of equipment from the Canadian province of Ontario under its feed-in-tariff (FIT) program are inconsistent with international trade rules, officials from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) highest court said on Monday.

A bipartisan group of senators last week asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to vet just how feasible the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is, and how its costs could affect other U.S. fusion programs.

Dominion on Tuesday permanently shuttered its 556-MW Kewanee nuclear plant located about 40 miles southeast of Green Bay, Wis. The 40-year-old Westinghouse pressurized water reactor generated 148 million MWh over its lifetime.

Panelists at a House hearing today refuted varied claims concerning if and how increased natural gas and renewables generation pose widespread challenges to the reliability of the electric grid. Some pointed to ineffective rules in the restructured wholesale power market and the failure of conventional power plants as being more of a threat to grid reliability.

Duke Energy said on May 2 that it told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) it plans to suspend its application for two proposed new nuclear units on its Harris site near New Hill in Wake County, North Carolina.

President Barack Obama said in a speech that the U.S. is likely to be a net exporter of natural gas by 2020, the Financial Times newspaper reported May 6. The newspaper said the president’s remarks, which were made in Costa Rica, are the strongest signal yet that the administration is leaning toward supporting export ventures.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Itochu Corp., along with France’s GDF Suez, will build a 4,800-MW nuclear power plant at an estimated cost of $22 billion under an agreement signed May 3.

Five companies have filed letters of intent with North Dakota’s Public Service Commission (PSC) outlining proposals to start construction this year on wind farms that would add almost 686 MW of wind power capacity.

The bad luck for Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) crippled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) continued this week. The local ABC affiliate in San Diego reported on April 30 that it had been given a photo of a makeshift repair to the water box in Unit 3  by a plant employee.

A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation that would effectively shift responsibility for the disposition of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to a new agency created solely to deal with nuclear waste issues.

Dominion subsidiary Virginia Power may choose to use a GE-Hitachi Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) instead of a Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Services (MNES) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) for a third nuclear unit proposed at its North Anna site in Virginia, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Friday.

ComEd’s smart grid program finally has some good news to share. In a progress report to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) this week, the utility said that 479 distribution automation (DA) devices installed in the first year of the program resulted in 82,000 fewer customer power interruptions in 2012.

Natural gas pipeline maintenance this summer could affect natural gas supplies to some power plants in the six-state New England region, but forecasts suggest that summer electricity supplies will adequately meet consumer demand under normal weather conditions, ISO New England (ISO-NE) said on Monday.

An informational notice recently issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cautions nuclear power plant operators to look out for moisture degradation of structures and components used to store spent nuclear fuel in dry casks.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hearings on issues related to natural gas and its use for electric power generation continue this month. The next hearing is set for May 16, two days after Commissioner Philip D. Moeller addresses the natural gas/electric power generation nexus in keynote remarks delivered to the 15th annual ELECTRIC POWER Conference in Chicago. POWER is a media affiliate of the conference.

Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly signed a land lease extension on April 30 for the 2,250-MW Navajo Generating Station, but not before adding several amendments to the agreement. The early lease renewal with the Navajo Nation must be in place before plant owners could consider making future investment in expensive new air quality control equipment.