News

All 12.6 million allowances offered at the first U.S. carbon dioxide emissions auction sold on Sept. 25, 2008. The permits were bought by 59 participants from energy, financial, and environmental sectors at a clearing price of $3.07 per allowance, states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) said Monday.   RGGI said on its […]

New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. on Thursday submitted a combined construction and operating license (COL) application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), selecting GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s next-generation ESBWR reactor design.   Entergy, the nation’s second-largest nuclear plant operator, is seeking to reserve the option to build a potential new reactor at its River Bend […]

A majority of supporters of John McCain and Barack Obama largely agree on how to deal with both the country’s energy needs and the problem of climate change, a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll shows.   WorldPublicOpinion.org, an international research project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, surveyed 1,174 Americans […]

Charlton Heston’s legacy will surely rest on his iconic performance as Moses in The Ten Commandments and his unwavering support of the Second Amendment. I had the privilege of watching a classic Heston performance at the 2000 National Rifle Association convention in Charlotte, N.C., when he raised a handmade Brooks flintlock above his head and […]

The 1940s and 50s are considered the golden age of science fiction literature. After my kids saw the movie, I, Robot, a few years ago, they were surprised to learn that Isaac Asimov—a giant of the genre with more than 500 books to his credit—had written a series of nine short stories with the same […]

September 1886 Four years after this magazine was launched, the editors reviewed the latest improvements to industrial boilers, beginning with the Backus furnace (Figure 1). 1. The Backus furnace. “This furnace is provided with a brick arch placed just back of the fire-doors, that is intended to deflect the currents of air that are admitted […]

August 1886 POWER reported on one of the first twin-cylinder "Otto" natural gas–fired engines that had recently appeared in the U.S. power market. The report notes that "engines of 100 horsepower are being now economically used where gas is low in price, as in England and other European countries" (Figure 1). 1. A twin-cylinder "Otto" […]

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to override state and local opposition to the construction of interstate transmission lines if the agency determines that they will reduce system congestion. In April, the Department of Energy designated two regions that might qualify for such treatment as "national […]

June 1886 POWER reported on the art and science of water treatment and its effect on boiler performance in the cover story this month. "Dr. J.G. Rogers, an authority on steam generation, is quoted as stating that one-sixteenth of an inch of scale in a boiler will require the extra consumption of 15% more fuel; […]

  In 1882, Americans talked of John L. Sullivan, the bare-knuckles boxing heavyweight champion of the world, as horse-drawn carriages jingled along city streets. The spidery cables of the Brooklyn Bridge spanned the East River and hundreds of workmen scrambled to complete the great project. Railroads crossed the continent, but sporadic Indian warfare still plagued […]

April 1884 POWER reported on the latest offering from Philadelphia-based Southwark Foundry and Machine Co. (Figure 1) as its lead story. "This is a self-contained, high speed auto­matic cut-off engine. It has been designed with special reference to simplicity, and solidity of parts, and to heavy and continuous work. 1. The Southwark engine was the […]

March 1886 POWER reported on the latest development of a new and improved engine: "The chief feature of the Corliss engine [from Kendall & Roberts, Cambridgeport, Mass.] is the valve gear, which consists of four cylindrical valves, two each for admission and exhaust, operated from a central swing or stud plate; the steam valves being […]

February 1885 The cover story examined the latest in reciprocating engine technology: the Greene automatic cut-off engine (Figure 1). Here is how the editors described it: "The engine has a girder frame; guides case separate and dowelled and bolted to the bed plate; four-part main boxes; Porter governor. There are two steam and two exhaust […]

January 1885 The cover story of this issue reviewed the latest power generation technology then entering the market. "The Fishkill vertical direct acting condensing engine . . . has a heavy bed-plate of box form, with pillow-block for main journal cast on. The upright frames are A-shaped, with hollow cylindrical legs, which rest on the […]

—Dr. Robert Peltier, PE Editor-in-Chief During every summer hot enough to break peak demand records, the rhetoric heats up as well, with calls to rid the U.S. bulk-power system of bottlenecks. As the eternal optimist, I see large transmission projects showing signs of life and grid reliability improving. But not everyone is happy about that. […]

  Learning theorists tell us that one of the key reasons we don’t learn from our mistakes is that we don’t or won’t recognize them as such. We attribute good outcomes to our skill and intelligence and blame bad ones on others or on just plain bad luck. This unhealthy mind-set can be tolerated for […]

On the following pages, we introduce the magazine’s 12 Top Plants of 2006. Among this year’s winners are two solar energy plants and another that marries fuel cells with heat and waste gas recovery. As those projects make clear, a plant doesn’t have to be big to earn kudos from us. What we typically like […]

I couldn’t help but marvel at the synchronicity of two unrelated events over the past few weeks. The first, on January 12, was the rare cancellation of a major military acquisition program with problems called "too expensive to fix." It takes an Act of Congress to kill most military contracts due to the pork flowing […]

Southern California Edison (SCE, Rosemead, Calif.) closed the 1,580-MW coal-fired Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., on December 31. In a filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), SCE said it expects the plant to remain off-line for four years—the time it will take for the utility and the plant’s other owners to battle […]

Fluor Corp. (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) has finished building and commissioning the 620-MW Jack County power plant (Figure 2) near Jacksboro, Texas, for Waco-based Brazos Electric Cooperative Inc. The natural gas–fired, combined-cycle plant officially came on-line on February 1. 2. Texas 2 x 1 step. The gas-fired, 620-MW, combined-cycle Jack County Generation Plant was built and […]

The Russian Federation plans to start building a floating nuclear power plant this year. According to the country’s atomic energy agency (Rosatom), the first plant will be small (3 MW) but could lead to the development of offshore plants with capacities of several hundred megawatts. The pioneering plant will be sited off the coast of […]

A new, mile-long submarine transmission cable in Pearl Harbor (Figure 3, p. 10) will facilitate the U.S. Navy’s plan to renovate and expand historic Ford Island. Honolulu-based Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. (HECO) recently laid two new 46-kV lines beneath the bridge connecting the island to Oahu. The trickiest part of the installation was avoiding the […]

One of the distinguishing characteristics of deregulated power markets is variable demand. The ability to operate efficiently at partial loads can determine whether a plant is profitable or not. This need creates special challenges for hydroelectric turbines, because at partial loads they often exhibit strong swirl in the draft tube at the outlet of the […]

My New Year’s resolution was to try to be optimistic about 2005—and why not? The past few years have been a roller-coaster ride for the generation industry, with a quick turn here and a negative-G drop there. Although the ride was a bit gut-wrenching the first few times, the ups and downs are now expected […]