News

Wahl Instruments introduced the Heat Spy Portable Calibration Black Body, an ambient temperature black body used for single-point calibration verification and checking of thermal imaging cameras and point infrared thermometers. The easy-to-use device features an accuracy of ±0.3F (0.2C) over the entire range, and it is housed in a watertight IP67 carrying case. The Wahl […]

July 17, 1955, was the first time electricity generated by a U.S. nuclear power plant flowed into a utility grid. The experiment required Utah Power & Light to disconnect itself from the power lines to the 1,200 residents of Arco, Idaho, and plug in the Argonne National Laboratory experimental boiler water reactor, BORAX-III. The plant produced merely 2 megawatts for more than an hour, as planned, after which linemen reconnected the town’s grid to the utility. Since then, the U.S. nuclear industry has demonstrated excellence in operations, but more than 50 years after that first nuclear power supply, it is lagging far behind even developing nations in new construction.

For a larger version of this or other Platts maps appearing in POWER, please contact the Platts Store.

Electro Industries designed the Shark100 meter in response to requests within the industry for low-cost Ethernet-accessible power meters. Featuring 100BaseT Ethernet capability utilizing Modbus TCP as its standard protocol, the device offers a highly economical solution to provide multifunction metering. In addition to Ethernet TCP/IP, the Shark100 meter is a highly accurate 0.2% power and […]

The first legislative hearing on the 923-page Kerry-Boxer climate change and energy bill kicked off on Tuesday at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, with four prominent Obama administration officials making the case that failure to act now on climate change could affect U.S. standing in the global economy. Moderate committee members, meanwhile, criticized the legislation, signaling a tough battle ahead.

A settlement reached between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and health and environmental groups on Friday commits the agency to set pollution standards that limit air pollutants such as mercury and soot emissions from the nation’s coal- and oil-fired power plants by November 2011.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that 14 individuals who filed a class-action lawsuit against insurance, coal, and chemical companies can seek relief for property damages resulting from Hurricane Katrina. The court cited a Sept. 21 ruling, Connecticut v. AEP, by a federal court that allowed plaintiffs to sue coal-burning utilities for creating a “public nuisance” through their emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases. It is the second decision to allow a climate change–related public nuisance lawsuit to move past the pleading stage.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Siemens Energy Inc. last week formally commissioned a new 2.3-MW Siemens wind turbine at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center. The turbine is the centerpiece of a multiyear project to study the performance and aerodynamics of a new class of large, land-based machines—in what will be the biggest government-industry research partnership for wind power generation ever undertaken in the U.S., NREL said.

Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer last week warned that federal rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeking to limit nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions by requiring costly technological retrofits at the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station (NGS) could threaten closure of the plant and impact jobs, power supplies, and water costs to the state’s citizens.

The Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP), one of seven partnerships in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program, said today that it has successfully injected 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the Mount Simon Sandstone, a deep saline formation that is spread out across much of the Midwest.