News

The results of the 2010 midterm elections bode well for the struggling U.S. wind sector, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The industry group’s president, Denise Bode, made the statement during a live webcast on Friday.

DTE Energy on Monday said it would buy a significant interest in the 49.5-MW Mt. Poso Cogeneration Co. power plant near Bakersfield, Calif., and convert it entirely to biomass. After the conversion, the plant will operate on wood fuel, primarily derived from urban wood waste, tree trimmings, and agricultural residues.

Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) is to buy Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) 48% stake in Units 4 and 5 of the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington, N.M, if state and federal regulators agree. Arizona’s largest utility said on Monday that if the deal goes through, it would also shut down the plant’s “older, less efficient” Units 1, 2, and 3, and install more emission controls on the remaining units at the 2,040-MW five-unit power plant.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), a body that controls the Outer Continental Shelf, on Monday invited bids to put up wind turbines off Maryland’s coast.

Days after Entergy Corp. announced it was considering selling its 605-MW Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vt., the New Orleans–based company on Sunday temporarily shut down the plant after discovering a leak of radioactive water.

On Tuesday, while voters rejected many politicians who supported cap-and-trade legislation, the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) adopted what it said are the most comprehensive greenhouse gas regulations in the U.S.

Days after California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) released its proposed greenhouse gas cap-and-trade regulation, voters on Tuesday rejected a controversial proposition to suspend the state’s landmark greenhouse gas reduction law.

A set of common standards proposed by European Union (EU) Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger today could force utilities in the 27-nation bloc to abide by binding rules for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. The proposal chiefly calls for construction of long-term deep geologic storage repositories.

A U.S. district court judge last week ordered Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) to cease work on a small tract of land designated as jurisdictional wetlands where the utility is building the $1.7 billion John W. Turk., Jr. power plant—the nation’s first ultrasupercritical pulverized coal power plant.

Nuclear plant enriched uranium supplier USEC on Tuesday said it was in discussions with the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Loan Guarantee Program office to proceed to the next step toward obtaining a $2 billion conditional loan guarantee commitment for its American Centrifuge Plant (ACP).