News

Columbia Research Laboratories has introduced the Model VM-300 vibration meter, 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 […]

Reaching a major milestone, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Thursday granted a final Design Certification Amendment to Westinghouse’s AP1000 pressurized water reactor design, paving the way for utilities in the U.S. to build nuclear plants using the third-generation reactor design.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) issuance of its final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS)—a rule that will mandate all coal- and oil-fired power generating units limit emissions of heavy metals and acid gases using “maximum achievable control technology” (MACT)—last week provoked a range of reactions, including renewed concerns about its costs and impact on grid reliability.

In a key settlement that will resolve all environmentally based legal challenges against its 600-MW ultrasupercritical John W. Turk Jr. power plant under construction near Texarkana, Ark., Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) on Thursday agreed to several conditions, including phasing out a 528-MW coal-fired unit in Texas, building 400 MW of renewable power, and limiting new transmission lines in natural areas.

Exelon Corp. and Constellation Energy Group must sell three electricity generating plants in Maryland before the companies can proceed with their proposed $7.9 billion merger to level competition for wholesale electricity in the mid-Atlantic region, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said last week.

A report released on Thursday by the Department of Energy (DOE) examining the role that rare earth metals play in the manufacture of wind turbines, electric vehicles, and photovoltaic (PV) thin-film solar cells finds that these clean energy technologies may see supply disruptions for five rare earth metals (dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium, and yttrium) in the short term, though risks will generally decrease in the medium and long term.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) stunned officials of Duke Energy and Progress Energy on Thursday when it refused to unconditionally approve a $13.7 billion merger deal of the two companies that would have created the largest U.S. electric utility. The regulatory body cited concerns about the merger’s impact on power markets in North and South Carolina—where both companies are based—for its decision.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued its final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which will require about 40% of all coal-fired power plants in the U.S. to deploy pollution control technologies to curb emissions of mercury and other air pollutants such as arsenic and cyanide within three years. The regulation has been called the “most expensive order” aimed at companies that has been considered by the Obama administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week issued a final rule amending its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) to include five more states in the ozone season nitrogen oxide (NOx) program. The final rule adds Oklahoma to the CSAPR program (for its ozone-season NOx emissions only), bringing the total number of states covered by the rule to 28.

Nine months after the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture was rocked by a magnitude 9.0 quake and an ensuing massive tsunami that plunged it into the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, 25 years earlier, Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, on Friday said in a televised address that the plant’s four afflicted units have been brought to a state of cold shutdown. However, the crisis is far from over, he said.