News

Eleven U.S. nuclear plants received a Request for Information (RFI) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday asking for analyses of the effects of “thermal conductivity degradation” for nuclear fuel developed by Westinghouse under certain postulated accident conditions.

UK power company Drax has canceled a 290-MW biomass power plant proposed for construction in North Yorkshire, citing high costs for transporting fuel to the £1.4 billion ($2.19 billion) inland plant and a lack of financial and regulatory support from the UK government.

The UK and France on Friday signed a landmark agreement to strengthen cooperation on civil nuclear energy between the two countries, reaffirming their enthusiasm for nuclear power. The agreement, made nearly a year after the Fukushima accident in Japan, seeks to help the countries achieve energy security within the European Union’s low-carbon energy policy framework.

Vermont’s attorney general on Saturday appealed a federal district court’s January decision that invalidated two Vermont statutes and ruled that Entergy could operate the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant beyond a state-mandated shutdown deadline of March 21, 2012.

Spain’s oldest nuclear reactor, Santa María de Garoña, can continue to operate safely until 2019, the country’s nuclear regulator the Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (CSN) told the government last week. The report follows a decision last month by Spain’s recently elected conservative government to overturn a decree that would have forced the plant to close by April 2013.

Commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Thursday voted 4–1 to direct staff to prepare a construction and operation license (COL) for Southern Co.’s two AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle, south of Augusta, which could become operational between 2016 and 2017. NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko, who cast the lone vote against the COL, cited the need for safety enhancements recommended as a result of the Fukushima accident last March for reasons of his dissent.

In a speech today to hundreds of Southern Co. employees at that company’s Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Ga.—the site of the first new reactors approved in the U.S. since 1978—Energy Secretary Steven Chu said federal agencies were preparing to strengthen U.S. competitiveness in the global nuclear sector by earmarking $770 million in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.

American Electric Power (AEP) may continue operating Big Sandy Unit 2, an 800-MW coal-fired power plant in Kentucky, if state regulators approve a 31% rate increase to help pay for pollution controls. The measure would trim the company’s planned coal retirements to 5,138 MW, not 5,909 MW, as the company had announced last June.

About 93% of total coal consumed in the U.S. in 2011 was used in the electric power sector, but electric sector coal consumption dropped by an estimated 40 million short tons—or 4% compared to 2010—as generators turned to cheaper natural gas instead, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) says.

A White House–commissioned independent review of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) loan portfolio concludes that the DOE could better manage its loan program and ongoing monitoring of its loan portfolio, but that the loan portfolio as a whole is expected to perform well and holds less risk than envisioned by Congress when it created and funded that program.

Eleven states filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday to induce the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promptly revise national air quality standards for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5, also known as soot) and adopt them by a certain date.

New Mexico’s Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) last week unanimously repealed a statewide cap-and-trade program adopted in 2010, when Democratic Governor Bill Richardson was in office. Current Republican Gov. Susana Martinez has been fiercely opposed to the measure.

More renewable power capacity was installed than ever before in the European Union (EU) during 2011, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says in a new report published on Monday. The EU saw a 3.9% increase in power capacity compared with 2010, much of which was driven by renewable power capacity increases. In 2011, the EU added 37.7% more renewable power capacity than in 2010.

Just two weeks after FirstEnergy Corp. said it would close more than 2 GW of six older coal-fired power plants Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland by September, the Akron, Ohio–based company today said it would retire three more plants in West Virginia. The company cited “high costs” to implement the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) recently finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).

The two-unit San Onofre nuclear power plant in the northwest corner of San Diego County, Calif., remained shut down today, more than a week after a leak from a tube in one unit released a small amount of radiation. On Thursday, regulatory officials found extensive wear on tubes in the second unit, which is offline for maintenance. Also this week, reports confirmed that a worker had fallen into and climbed out of a reactor pool at the facility.

New Hampshire’s Legislature is considering a bill that could require Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH)—the state’s largest electric utility—to divest all 12 of its generation facilities by 2013 to complete restructuring of its electric sector. At a hearing on Thursday, PSNH staunchly opposed the measure, saying the bill could have “far-reaching economic risks, and reliability consequences for all New Hampshire business and residential customers.”

As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) prepares to vote on Thursday on whether to approve a combined construction and operating license (COL) for Southern Co.’s proposed 2,234-MW expansion of its Vogtle nuclear plant, anti-nuclear activists are gearing up to oppose the decision. Meanwhile, Progress Energy is reportedly considering shelving its proposed Levy County, Fla., reactor.

A settlement reached between Dominion and conservation groups that was last week approved by a federal court makes the utility’s plans to shutter all four units at its 60-year-old Salem Harbor Station in Salem, Mass., by 2014 legally enforceable.

Renewable power prices in California surged from 5.4 cents/kWh in 2003 to 13.3 cents/kWh in 2011. However, they are slated to fall as new contract bids submitted to utilities last year were estimated at about 30% lower than in 2009, a new report from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) suggests.

A new report commissioned by the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE)—an alliance of about 70 solar companies whose rallying message declares global competition has made solar energy a reality around the world—finds that if the U.S. government imposes a 100% tariff on imported solar PV cells and modules from China, the nation could see as many as 50,000 net lost jobs over the next three years.

When then-President George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, he noted that, “New technologies will help usher in a better quality of life for our citizens.” One provision of the act required an increase in the efficiency of newly manufactured lightbulbs, starting with 100-watt incandescent bulbs in 2012.

Citing newly finalized and proposed environmental regulations that could make costs uncertain, FirstEnergy Corp. on Thursday said it would shutter six older coal-fired power plants with capacities totaling 2,689 MW in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland by September. The same uncertainties prompted a major backer of a $2 billion coal-fired power plant planned for Washington County in Georgia to pull its funding.

Using nanoparticles of a copper compound to develop an inexpensive and durable high-powered battery electrode could be the breakthrough solution to the problem of sharp drop-offs in the output of wind and solar systems, scientists at Stanford University say.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday urged owners of 62 nuclear power plants in the Central and Eastern U.S.—facilities housing 96 of the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear reactors—to reevaluate seismic hazards using a new seismic model and information from a recent report.

Turner Designs has introduced the Opti-Check Handheld Fluorometer for performing system verifications for industrial water process control applications. The Opti-Check is a small, lightweight, highly durable handheld fluorometer that is ideal for quick measurements in the field. Configurable for either PTSA or Fluorescein as well as both dyes, the Opti-Check enables monitoring of either cooling […]

A failed electrical insulator at a switchyard at Exelon Generation Co.’s two-unit Byron nuclear plant in Lisle, Ill., has been blamed for the loss of offsite power on Monday morning that automatically shut down Unit 2 and forced Exelon to declare an “Unusual Event.”

Columbia Research Laboratories’s Model VM-300 is a general purpose vibration measuring instrument designed for periodic routine checks of industrial equipment where portability and ease of use are required. Acceleration, velocity, and displacement measurement modes are provided, along with a number of value-enhancing features. Dual power allows the VM-300 to be powered from its internal battery […]

The 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) appointed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu in January 2010 to provide comprehensive recommendations for a long-term solution to managing and disposing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste released its much-anticipated final report last week.

Milan-based ATO S.r.l. has introduced a series of flexible seal rings made of KetaSpire polyetheretherketone (PEEK) resin, which is made by Solvay Specialty Polymers. KetaSpire KT-820 PEEK provides greater flexibility and elasticity than competitive PEEK grades, the company says. The parts can be folded or twisted in half and then twisted again into three or […]

A federal district court judge on Tuesday ruled that the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), must complete an environmental impact study (EIS) before any approvals or other major federal action can be taken on the $2.8 billion expansion at Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s coal plant in Holcombe, Kansas. The ruling may delay construction of the 875-MW plant, a politically controversial project in the Kansas Legislature.