News

Sixty projects in 25 states were awarded a total of $156 million on Thursday under the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) agency. They focus on accelerating innovations in clean technology while increasing America’s competitiveness in rare earth alternatives and breakthroughs in biofuels, thermal storage, grid controls, and solar power electronics.

Global Training Solutions Inc. released an interactive, self-paced, and fully customizable electronic training program to achieve compliance with the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s (NERC’s) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) security standards. The company designed its NERC CIP Information Security E-Learning Series on open-web standards, sharable content object reference model (SCORM) compliance, and advanced technical concepts. […]

The new NLB 605 series of water jet pump units from NLB Corp. gives users a powerful combination of ultra-high pressure and high horsepower in a rugged unit they can convert to a variety of operating pressures. The range of the NLB 605 Series has been expanded to include eight operating pressures from 4,000 psi […]

The BelGAS division of Marsh Bellofram Corp. introduced Type P627, a high-performance, spring-loaded, direct-operating high-flow gas regulator that is designed to control both low- and high-output pressure in oil and gas applications. Designed for maximum durability, Marsh Bellofram BelGAS Type P627 regulators are compact and offered in multi-position body and spring case configurations. Units offer […]

BeamCap’s signature product, the BeamCap, prevents dust accumulation on I-beams, structural steel members, pipes, cable trays, and other difficult-to-clean areas. BeamCap pieces completely enclose the structures, eliminating horizontal surfaces where dust consistently builds up. This eliminates the need for cleaning in hard-to-reach places and greatly reduces the potential for fires and secondary explosions. The aluminum […]

Aqua-Vu, a provider of portable underwater viewing systems, introduced the Claw 360, a device designed for the detection and removal of objects in an underwater environment. The Claw 360 incorporates a Sharp 520 color camera that can rotate 360 degrees to scan the environment. Lighting is provided by high-intensity LEDs that rotate with the camera. […]

Advance Products & Systems’ new Kleerband Flange Protectors and Radolid Protection caps protect bolts, nuts, and flange faces on raised-face or full-face flanges in conditions where extreme corrosion occurs, such as at gas plants, pump stations, and above- and below- ground installations. Kleerband is a patented transparent polymer band with grease injection fittings and a […]

Siemens Gets $1 Billion Order to Build Gas Power Plants in Thailand. Siemens on Aug. 17 said it received two orders worth $1 billion from Thailand for the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of combined cycle power plants. The firm will build Chana Block 2 in the province of Songkhla and Wang Noi Block 4 […]

Progress Energy Carolinas will officially shut down its 177-MW coal-fired W.H. Weatherspoon Power Plant near Lumberton, N.C., at the end of the month—the first such retirement under the utility’s fleet-modernization program that includes disassembly of nearly 30% of the firm’s coal generating fleet in North Carolina.

A new standard devised by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in response to the February 2010 Kleen Energy Systems power plant explosion prohibits the use of flammable gas as a cleaning agent for cleaning the interior of pipes—the practice thought to have caused the blast that killed six workers in Middletown, Conn., and injured nearly 50 others.

In a major development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of the Inspector General (IG) today said a key document underpinning the agency’s so-called “endangerment finding”—the determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and legally supports agency rules that regulate carbon dioxide emissions—required a “more rigorous peer review than occurred.”

Just days before the Energy Department’s advanced energy loan guarantee program funded under 2009 stimulus law is set to expire—and amid an investigation of Solyndra, the California-based solar manufacturer that received the Obama administration’s first loan guarantee—the DOE today finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for the development of a 110-MW concentrating solar power tower facility in Nevada.

The DOE on Friday finalized a partial guarantee for up to a $350 million loan guarantee to support a geothermal power project sponsored by Ormat Nevada. The 113-MW project comprises three geothermal power facilities and could increase Nevada’s geothermal power production by nearly 25% the DOE said.

The renewed flurry of loan guarantees from the DOE this past week included a finalized partial guarantee for a $168.9 million loan to Granite Reliable Power for a 99-MW wind generation project that is expected to become New Hampshire’s largest wind farm.

The Energy Department on Tuesday issued a Record of Decision (ROD) that could allow $450 million of federal funding to be used to help build Summit Texas Clean Eneryg’s 400-MW integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant planned for construction just west of Midland-Odessa,Texas.

Dominion, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Virginia Tech, Alstom Power, and maritime engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol last week received a two-year $500,000 grant from the DOE to seek out ways to reduce the cost of offshore wind generation by at least 25%.

Kansas on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging new regulations that the state says will require utilities to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new emissions control equipment before Jan. 1, 2012— a timeline the state’s utilities say is impossible to meet

Duke-American Transmission Co. (DATC) is moving ahead with plans to fill gaps in the existing grid first set, unveiling seven new transmission line projects in five Midwestern states last week. These projects will improve electric system reliability and market efficiency, and provide economic benefits to local utilities, Duke’s transmission arm said.

World electricity generation is projected to increase 84% from 19.1 trillion kWh in 2008 to 35.2 trillion kWh in 2035—growth that will be driven by increasing demand in developing countries, the Energy Information Agency’s (EIA’s) recently released International Energy Outlook 2011 shows. Much of this growth will be from renewables and natural gas, though coal generation will also increase in developing countries, and particularly, in China and India.

In a Congressional hearing last week, commissioners from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Public Utility Commissions of several states differed in their views of just how many coal plants could be shut down and how this may affect grid reliability if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implements several rules it has already finalized or proposed.

Just two weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdrew its smog rule, the agency on Thursday confirmed it would not meet a Sept. 30, 2011, deadline for issuing proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new, modified, and existing power plants. The agency did not specify a new deadline for proposing the rule.

The installed cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the U.S. plunged 17% in 2010 compared to the year before, and by an additional 11% within the first six months of 2011, a new report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Thursday said 27 rural electric cooperative utilities would receive $603 million in loans for generation and transmission projects, distribution facilities, and smart grid technologies. The loans are expected to finance rural electric utility improvements in 18 states.

The U.S. House of Representatives could by Friday vote on a measure that could delay the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) and the recently proposed utility MACT rule by more than a year.

Dallas-based Luminant, Texas’ largest power generator, on Friday filed a legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) but said the newly finalized rule that will require generators to dramatically reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants had forced it to idle two coal-fired units and reduce capacity at three other units. The decision follows talks between the company and the EPA, in which the agency suggested the closures are not the “only path forward.”

A worker was killed and four people were injured at EDF’s Centraco site near the Marcoule nuclear research center in Codolet, Southeast France, on Monday when a furnace dedicated to melting scrap metal from nuclear plants exploded and triggered a fire.

Dominion Virginia Power last week told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that hundreds of tests and inspections have revealed no damage to safety-related equipment at the company’s North Anna Power Station from the Aug. 23 5.8-magnitude quake whose epicenter was only five miles away from the twin-reactor station in Mineral, Va.

Pennsylvania has reportedly withdrawn from five federal environmental lawsuits filed during former Gov. Ed Randell’s (D) administration, including four cases the state joined last year supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) “endangerment” rule and a 2008 federal suit challenging the EPA’s 2008 smog rules as too lenient.

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week said it was considering transferring to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) its authority to conduct congestion studies and establish a process for designating “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors” (NIETCs). But the move, which has been touted as a means to remove transmission-development barriers, could inhibit new power lines by creating uncertainty, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has countered.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday split 2–2, neither upholding nor rejecting a decision by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) last year that had ruled the Energy Department could not withdraw its license application for the Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear waste repository in Nevada. In a written decision, however, the NRC directed its licensing board to close out work on the project by Sept. 30, citing funding constraints.