News

Member states of the European Union (EU) will get a few more months to complete tests on their 147 nuclear power plants, and a final stress test report will be completed this fall—not this summer as initially expected— before any new nuclear safety laws are proposed, EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said last week.

It promises to be the most widely and easily distributed power generation technology to date: heat, captured in fabric. Work at Wake Forest University in North Carolina has led to the creation of a thermoelectric fabric called Power Felt that can turn theoretically any form of heat (body heat, waste heat from a car, or heat from any other source to which the material can be attached) into sufficient electrical current to help power devices or the systems the material is in contact with.

Magnalight.com announced the addition of the EPL-QP-1X150-100—a quad-pod mounted light tower designed to provide operators in hazardous locations with a powerful lighting solution—to its extensive line of explosion-proof lighting equipment. The portable tower and removable lamp assembly design of this tower provides versatile operating options, and a simple halogen lamp provides effective yet economical illumination. […]

Siemens Industry Inc. introduced two new SIMATIC Burner Management Systems (BMS) to give end users greater flexibility to cost-effectively comply with revised 2011 burner standards. Designed with TUV-certified hardware and customizable software, the compact BMS300F and BMS151F systems comply with NFPA, IEC, and ANSI/ISA standards for single- or dual-fuel applications with single or multiple burners. […]

Spade drill bits are routinely used by electricians who do wiring and cabling, especially for drilling holes in wood for conduit runs. But traditional spade bits sometimes vibrate badly and dull after just a few uses. The new IDEAL Power-Spade spade bit helps eliminate these problems to provide an increased level of performance, whether the […]

What do iPads, flat screen TVs, Chevrolet’s plug-in Volt, and Raytheon’s Tomahawk cruise missiles have in common? Each uses one or more of the 17 rare earth elements in their manufacture, and over 95% of those elements come from China.

An agreement reached on Tuesday by Public Service Co. of Oklahoma (PSO) and the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma State, and the Sierra Club will force the American Electric Power (AEP) subsidiary to eventually retire two coal-fired generating units at its Northeastern Station in Oologah, Okla.

About 46% of power company executives in Europe and North America recently surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predict an increased risk of blackouts up until 2030, citing worries about the affordability and the pace of infrastructure investment, and future energy security.

Coal generation, as a percentage of total power output in the U.S., declined steadily to 39% at the end of 2011 from about 51% in 2002, while generation from natural gas–fired combined cycle plants grew to more than 20% from 10% over the same period, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said on Friday as it released its annual assessment for U.S. energy markets.

The latest in a string of nuclear plants beset by technical troubles is PPL Corp.’s Susquehanna Nuclear Plant in northeastern Pennsylvania. The company said on Tuesday that a follow-up inspection of the Unit 1 main turbine at that two-reactor facility revealed “indications of cracks in blades” that are similar to damage discovered and repaired in 2011.

Activity kicked up in Washington in the past week, where members of the House of Representatives introduced a number of energy bills and passed a key amendment that could give states—not the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—control over coal ash regulation.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) on Wednesday voted 2–1 to approve Mississippi Power’s $2.4 billion integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project proposed for Kemper County, saying it continued to find that the 582-MW project was the “best alternative” to meet the state’s future power demand. The state’s Supreme Court had reversed the PSC’s previous approval of the plant in March, ruling that it did not cite detailed evidence for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on Wednesday approved primary contract terms of power purchase agreements (PPAs) for Ocean Renewable Power Co.’s (ORPC’s) 4-MW Maine Tidal Energy Project in Washington County and directed three investor-owned utilities to negotiate 20-year PPAs with ORPC. Those deals could be the first long-term PPAs for tidal energy in the U.S.

During the Clean Energy Ministerial in London over the next few days, the U.S. and the UK will agree to collaborate in the development of floating wind technology designed to generate power in deep waters currently off limits to conventional turbines, but where the wind is much stronger, the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced this week.

PPL Montana on Monday filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block it from releasing information about its 2,094-MW coal-fired Colstrip power plant to environmental groups that had requested the data via the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday finalized the first federal standards that will curb smog-forming chemicals and other substances that may be released into the air during fracking, the increasingly popular drilling technique that promises to revolutionize natural gas production.

In a move that has been seen as the first step toward partially re-regulating Maryland’s power market, state regulators last week ordered CPV Maryland to build a new $500 million gas-fired power plant in the Charles County town of Waldorf and directed three of the state’s largest power companies to buy power produced from the plant.

Last week saw the release of three reports from influential wind industry groups. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) foresaw annual global market growth rates of about 8% for the next five years, though it cautioned of a “substantial dip” in 2013. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) urged congressional renewal of wind tax credits, and the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) called for more binding post-2020 policies to ensure sector growth in the European Union.

More than 2,500 dams in the U.S. provide 78 GW of conventional and 22 GW of pumped-storage hydropower. But the nation also has more than 80,000 dams that do not produce electricity—facilities that, if outfitted with hydroelectric power plants, could generate an estimated 12 GW and increase existing U.S. conventional hydropower capacity by roughly 15%, the Department of Energy (DOE) says in a new report,

Passage of the a federal Clean Energy Standard (CES) or Renewable Energy Standard (RES) in the near future is highly unlikely given the current political climate and upcoming election cycle, an analysis from research consulting firm Wood Mackenzie shows.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) quietly took effect on Monday, kicking off the three-year compliance period mandated under the Clean Air Act. Several more groups filed suit before the filing deadline for legal challenges on April 16, including the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), Colorado’s Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, and the American Public Power Association (APPA).

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday heard oral arguments in a case challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). A decision in the case—which stayed implementation of the first phase of the rule on Jan. 1—is expected as early as June or July.

Southern California faces a grim summer with electrical generation capacity stretched to the limit, as any prospects for a quick restart of the idled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) now appear all but dead.

Completion of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) second Watts Bar reactor will cost nearly double the $2.49 billion price estimated in 2007 and take much longer than the projected 60-month completion timeframe, a construction review undertaken by the federally owned corporation has revealed. TVA management pointed to mismanagement and faulty execution as reasons for the discrepancy.

Under a settlement agreement reached between environmental groups on Tuesday and Power4Georgians, the consortium of four electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) in Georgia will continue development of its $2.1 billion coal-fired Plant Washington but will shelve plans for its proposed 850-MW supercritical Ben Hill plant.

Oklahoma’s Attorney General Scott Pruitt last week filed a motion with a federal appeals court on behalf of the state, Oklahoma’s largest generator Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E), and Oklahoma Industrial Energy Consumers to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) regional haze rule.

A new joint venture between American Electric Power (AEP) and Kansas City–based Great Plains Energy seeks to reap advantages from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) Order 1000 and develop competitive transmission projects in the PJM Interconnection, Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and Midwest ISO transmission regions.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Wednesday announced a $30 million research competition intended to improve the performance and safety of energy storage devices, including hybrid energy storage modules being developed by the Department of Defense for military applications.

A report released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) on Tuesday examining the underlying technical factors leading to the loss of critical systems at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors concludes parameters set for tsunami flood protection were inadequate and that this led to the eventual loss of all practical cooling paths for the reactors.

China’s state-owned China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) on Monday announced it had fully completed and commissioned the fourth unit of the Qinshan Nuclear Power Phase II expansion nearly 60 days ahead of schedule.  The domestically engineered unit is China’s 15th operating nuclear power reactor.