News

The Department of Energy last week finalized a $117 million loan guarantee for a 30-MW Hawaiian wind power plant, and this week it said it would offer a $17.1 million loan guarantee to support construction of a 20-MW energy storage system using lithium-ion batteries.

The cover of the July 5 special History Issue of TIME magazine features Thomas Edison holding a glowing bulb. A series of articles celebrate Edison’s many inventions and closes with this: “Edison’s laboratories were the forerunners of the interactive technological think tanks of Apple, Google, and Microsoft.” Though the sentiment lauds Edison, I think it’s an overstatement.

Sweden Reverses Ban, Approves Nuclear Reactor Replacements Sweden’s parliament on June 18 reversed an earlier decision and passed the center-right coalition government’s landmark proposal, made last year, that allows for the replacement of the country’s nuclear reactors at the end of their life span. The country had voted in 1980 to phase out its 12 […]

A national R&D program has been under way to develop materials technology for constructing boilers and turbines capable of operating at advanced ultrasupercritical steam conditions in pulverized coal plants. The large-scale, multiyear, joint government/industry project seeks to increase the efficiency of power plants by increasing their steam conditions up to 1,400F (760C) at 5,000 psi (35 MPa). The ongoing project has already identified the materials and processes for successful operation at these higher steam conditions.

ABB’s new 266 series is an optimized pressure transmitter family that combines modern electronic pressure measurement with the company’s unique human machine interface (HMI) in one common product series, providing base accuracy from ±0.025% to ±0.06%. The series offers the industry’s best draft range, ABB claims. For combustion airflows, this means exceptional resolution with tighter […]

HD Electric Co.’s Phase Rotation Meter (PRM) is used to determine the leading phase of any two phases in a three-phase conductor system. The PRM is a dual-range 0 to 5 kV and 0 to 15 kV device that can be used as high as 45 kV when optional resistor sticks are added. It consists of two […]

The SEL-734P Portable PQ Meter is a new metering solution from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) that addresses the need for complete and portable power quality monitoring. In addition to the meter, the kit includes three-phase voltage and current inputs, voltage leads, and split-core CTs, all secured in a ruggedized case. ACSELerator QuickSet SEL-5030 software, included […]

A new family of Rotating Line Moles (RLM) from NLB gives users more than 40 choices for cleaning pipes and tubes with high-pressure water. Designed for tubes with diameters from 0.5 inch to 1.5 inches (1.27 cm to 3.81 cm), the family features operating pressures of 10,000 psi or 20,000 psi (700 bar or 1,400 […]

LUDECA has introduced VIBXPERT II, the latest addition to its PRUEFTECHNIK family of portable route-based vibration data collectors. VIBXPERT II is rugged and lightweight and combines the advantages of a rapid processor with an energy-efficient color VGA display. Enhanced with an Fmax of 51KHz and up to 102,400 lines of resolution, all machinery problems can […]

Heise precision pressure instruments provide the high-accuracy measurements required for critical test, calibration, and process applications. The unique blend of product configurations includes the Heise 0.1% precision dial pressure gauge, the modular PTE-1 handheld calibrator, and high-accuracy digital pressure indicators and transducers. With ranges from 0.25 inches of water to 100,000 psi and accuracies to […]

In “Dry Injection of Trona for SO3 Control” (May 2010), NH4HSO4 is ammonium bisulfite. In the June “Focus on O&M,” the engines shown in Figure 6 each have eight cylinders. June’s “Competition for Offshore Turbine Market Heats Up” stated that drive or gearless turbines accounted for 14% of the world’s installed offshore capacity in 2009. […]

A federal appeals court on Monday reversed a January 2009 ruling by a North Carolina U.S. District Court that had declared emissions from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) coal plants in eastern Tennessee and Alabama a public nuisance in North Carolina and ordered the nation’s largest public power provider to install expensive control technologies. The appeals court said the ruling was “flawed for several reasons.”

The $3.5 billion Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), a proposed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant with carbon capture and storage (CCS), has been awarded a $417 million investment tax credit under a program jointly administered by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Treasury Department. The tax credit is believed to be the largest ever granted to a single project.

PPL Montana will reportedly ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review an order from the Montana Supreme Court that requires it to pay “rent” for use of the riverbeds on which the company’s hydroelectric dams are built.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Monday legally challenged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) disapproval of the state’s flexible permits program, a system which allows power plants, factories, refineries, and other industrial plants to exceed emission limits in certain areas as long as they stay within overall limits.

Hoosier Energy, an Indiana-based rural cooperative, on Friday reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to resolve alleged New Source Review (NSR) violations of the Clean Air Act.

Tampa Electric said on Monday it is participating in two DOE-funded demonstration projects at the company’s Big Bend and Polk Power Stations. The projects are designed to advance carbon dioxide capture technologies and could lead to the development of technologies on a large scale.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) failure to systematically assess development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies renders it unable to gauge their maturity and to provide resources required to move these technologies toward commercial demonstration, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a report released to the public last week.

With only about 13 days remaining before the U.S. Senate’s month-long summer recess is scheduled to begin, concerns are mounting about whether it may be too late to delve into an “energy-only bill,” let alone a “utility-only” carbon-curbing bill.

At least four militants reportedly stormed into a hydropower plant in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region early this morning, shooting dead two security guards before detonating four bombs in a turbine hall and shutting down the plant.

The International Energy Administration (IEA) alleges, based on preliminary data, that China has overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s largest energy user. But China on Tuesday rejected that report, saying the IEA’s data is unreliable. The IEA said that China consumed 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2009—4% more than the 2.17 billion […]

A project piloting underground coal gasification (UCG) technology in Australia was last week shut down for tests by the Queensland Government for carcinogenic chemicals in nearby water bores.

GE on Tuesday invited technologists, entrepreneurs, and start-ups all over the world to enter a $200 million challenge that seeks ideas to create a smarter and cleaner power grid while also accelerating the adoption of more efficient grid technologies.

Babcock & Wilcox subsidiary Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy Inc. (B&W NE) and Bechtel Power Corp. today announced they have entered into a formal alliance to design, license, and deploy a Generation III++ small modular nuclear power plant based on B&W mPower small modular reactor (SMR) technology. The new alliance will be known as Generation mPower and could deploy its first units by 2020.

The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday filed a 48-page appeal asking the five-member board at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to set aside an application for the Yucca Mountain waste repository project. The agency said that Energy Secretary Steven Chu had the authority to halt the project.

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) on Tuesday approved a San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) 120-mile transmission line from remote areas in southern California’s Imperial Valley to residences and businesses in the San Diego area.

Italy’s Enel on Monday inaugurated its hydrogen-fueled combined-cycle power plant at Fusina, near Venice. The €50 million project, the first industrial-scale facility of its kind in the world, uses 1.3 metric tons of hydrogen per hour to generate 60 million kWh a year of electricity as well as heat. It reportedly has an overall efficiency of about 42%.

Shaw Group, Toshiba Corp., and Exelon Corp. unit Exelon Nuclear Partners on Monday announced an agreement to jointly pursue opportunities to design, engineer, build, and operate new nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia.

China is reportedly looking to build 10 nuclear reactors using AP1000 technology, including the four under construction at Sanmen in coastal Zhejiang province and at Haiyang, Shandong province.

AREVA and the Canadian province of New Brunswick last week signed a letter of intent to develop a clean energy park near the Point Lepreau nuclear station. The project would include a midsize third-generation reactor—and it wouldn’t be a prototype, AREVA has reportedly said.