News

The owners of 13 reactors at seven nuclear power plants located Texas, California, Arizona, and Kansas last week formalized an alliance that they say would “leverage the strengths” of their plants and collaboratively focus on improving their operational, regulatory, and financial performances. Chief nuclear officers of the seven plants formally signed and agreed to the formation of a limited liability company, the STARS Alliance LLC.

Senate Republicans last week voted down the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 offered by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), citing concerns that the bill would burden businesses with unnecessary regulations.

Review of the TransWest Express, a 725-mile transmission line running from Cheyenne, Wyo., to Las Vegas, Nev., has been delayed at least six months, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said last week. Developers of the Tres Amigas Superstation in New Mexico are meanwhile, reportedly tackling funding troubles, while U.S. grid operator PJM Interconnection formally announced it would axe the $1.8 billion PATH transmission line.

Seven solar and wind energy projects with a total nameplate capacity of 5 GW in Nevada, California, Arizona, and Wyoming will be expedited under President Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Black Hills Corp. (BHC) is the latest power company to announce slated closures at fossil fuel–fired power plants. The company’s subsidiary Black Hills Energy/Colorado Electric will suspend operations at its 42-MW W.N. Clark coal-fired power plant in Cañon City, Colo., and natural gas–fired steam units 5 and 6 in Pueblo, Colo., by the end of 2012. Another subsidiary will shut down the 25-MW Ben French power plant in Rapid City, S.D., by Aug. 31, 2012, as well as the 34.5-MW Osage and 22-MW Neil Simpson 1 coal-fired power plants on Mar. 21, 2014. The company cited “environmental regulations” and changing energy demands as reasons for the measures.

An explosion in the B coal bunker at Kansas City Power and Light’s (KCP&L’s) 651-MW Iatan  Power Plant Unit 1 near Weston, Mo., on Wednesday morning required the brief evacuation of 250 personnel onsite at the facility. No employees or contractors were injured, and the fire was quickly contained, the company said.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lacks centralized information on New Source Review (NSR) permits typically issued to fossil fuel-fired power plants by states, though the agency has spearheaded enforcement efforts for noncompliance. The report, which concedes that the NSR permitting process is “complex and controversial,” also suggests that a "substantial number" of existing generating units may not have complied with requirements to obtain NSR permits.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week issued a bulletin to all holders of nuclear plant operating licenses in the U.S., alerting them to a potential design vulnerability discovered at Exelon’s Byron Nuclear Generating Station in January that it says "could have damaged the plant’s emergency core cooling system."

Progress Energy Carolinas, which recently became a Duke Energy subsidiary, on Friday said it would accelerate the retirement of its 316-MW Cape Fear coal-fired plant, located near Moncure, N.C., and the 177-MW H.B. Robinson Unit 1 coal-fired plant, located near Hartsville, S.C., due to “pending changes in the environmental regulations and other rising costs for smaller, older technology plants.”

Back-to-back transmission grid failures in India plunged nearly 670 million people—roughly 10% of the world’s population—into darkness on Monday and Tuesday, paralyzing transport networks and crippling the country’s economic ambitions. Larger than both the August 2003 North American blackout and the March 1999 southern Brazil blackout, the unprecedented Indian grid failures are among the world’s worst.

Camfil Farr Power Systems added two new products for dusty environments to its Campulse product line: Campulse GTC and GTD. Both have new, non-discharging fiber media, which are sturdy, durable, and offer high dust-holding capacity. The Campulse GTC’s smooth synthetic fibers offer low resistance to airflow and maintain a low pressure drop throughout the filter […]

Appleton, a manufacturer of products for hazardous location electrical systems, now offers a versatile line of tray cable connectors engineered for use with TC, ITC, PLTC, and other commonly used types of tray cable. Key to the success of the new connectors is a compensating displacement seal that provides ingress protection to NEMA 4X and […]

Rohrback Cosasco released three types of Cosasco corrosion under insulation (CUI) corrosion sensors for detecting corrosion under insulation: continuous insulated braid “corrosion fuse” wire (Type 1), inserted “corrosion fuse” probe array (Type 2), and the CUI Corrosometer Probe (Type 3). The three techniques offer direct corrosion detection and a much lower cost per monitoring point […]

Ingersoll Rand is offering a newly improved single-phase control scheme for its 5 and 7.5 versions of the small UP6 5-15c line of air compressors. It has added a run-on timer and load/unload and blowdown solenoids to improve the reliability and performance of single-phase units in general industrial applications up to 28 cfm. The company […]

A new compact electric pump designed for bolt tensioning applications in the wind turbine industry is now available from specialist bolt tensioner manufacturer Boltight Ltd. The standalone power pack is lightweight (19.5 kg) and portable, as the pump, reservoir, and motor are combined into one easily handled package. The 0.75-kW rated pump is driven by a 220-240 V single-phase electric […]

Endress+Hauser released the Proline t-mass 150 thermal mass flowmeter for measuring gases such as compressed air, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and argon. The flowmeter measures mass flow, gas temperature, free air delivery, and corrected volume—all without the need for pressure or temperature compensation. The t-mass 150, with its high turndown of 100:1, can reliably measure small […]

Hach Co.’s new DR 6000UV-Vis spectrophotometer was designed to fulfill any water testing needs using one spectrophotometer. It is equipped with RFID technology, integrated QA software, and more than 250 testing methods and guided procedures. The instrument is programmed to take absorbance readings of a single sample at different wavelengths or over a specific period […]

Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) on Tuesday approved restart activities at New Brunswick Power Nuclear’s (NBPN’s) Point Lepreau Generating Station, a 680-MW Candu 6 on the northern shore of the Bay of Fundy that has been offline for more than four years for a major refurbishment.

A Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) released by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday identifies 17 Solar Energy Zones (SEZs) in six southwestern states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah—totaling about 285,000 acres of public lands, as priority areas for utility-scale solar development.

Princeton, N.J.-based NRG Energy and Houston, Texas-based GenOn on Monday signed a definitive agreement to combine the two companies in a $1.7 billion stock-for-stock tax-free transaction. The merger will create "the largest competitive generator" in the U.S. with a fleet of about 47 GW and assets in the East, Gulf Coast, and West, and a combined enterprise value of $18 billion, the companies said.

A coal dust explosion late on Tuesday at Polish utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna’s (PGE’s) 2.1-GW Turow power plant near Bogatynia in the southwestern part of Poland injured four workers and set off a blaze at three of the plant’s eight units. A team of more than 100 firefighters reportedly responded to the emergency at the facility that produces nearly 7% of power consumed in Poland.

Ontario’s provincial government has persuaded the owner of an unpopular 280-MW natural gas-fired power plant that was already under construction in the City of Mississauga to relocate the project to an existing power plant site in southwestern Ontario. The agreement settles legal challenges to the government’s proposals to cancel the project.

Dr. Allison Macfarlane, an expert on nuclear waste issues and a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, was on Monday sworn in as the 15th person chosen to lead the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). She will serve a term ending June 30, 2013.

About 700 nuclear engineers on Monday joined 144 others in a strike that has lasted more than a month, after failing to reach a labor pact with Candu Energy, a subsidiary of Canada’s SNC-Lavalin Group.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday passed H.R. 5892, the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act, by a vote of 372–0. The bipartisan bill—championed by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.)—seeks to facilitate the development of small hydropower and conduit projects and direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to study the feasibility of a streamlined two-year permitting process. The legislation now moves to the Senate.

Utilities in the Canadian province of Alberta were on Monday forced to institute rolling blackouts as soaring summer temperatures drove demand for electricity to an all-time high and six generators–four coal plants and two natural gas plants–entered unplanned outages.

Mississippi Power on Monday asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to review the June 22 unanimous denial by three commissioners of the Mississippi Public Service Commission (MPSC) of the company’s request to recover financing costs for its 582-MW Kemper County Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant.

Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO)—operator of the Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear power plant under construction in Finland, a project that could be the world’s first EPR reactor but that has faced costly delays—must release €125 million ($155 million) of withheld payments to an AREVA-Siemens consortium, an international arbitration court ordered last week.

Emerson has launched the latest solution for combustion flue gas analysis, the Rosemount Analytical 6888 in-situ oxygen analyzer. The 6888 analyzer provides accurate measurement of oxygen remaining in flue gases coming from combustion processes such as boilers, incinerators, kilns, process heaters, and industrial heating furnaces. By maintaining the ideal level of oxygen in the flue […]

IDEAL INDUSTRIES released an upgraded version of its popular HeatSeeker handheld thermal imaging camera. The new model features twice the resolution of legacy models and a wider field-of-view to improve troubleshooting efficiency. Engineered with a powerful 320 x 240 2MP sensor that captures 76K pixels, the new HeatSeeker 320 can be used for a wide […]