News

Senate Democrats today unveiled the long-awaited 821-page discussion draft of the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” a bill touted as “tough on corporate pollution”—but which will “improve the way the nation generates and uses energy,” without raising the “federal deficit by one single dime.”

Exelon Corp. is the third utility to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the past week, following moves by California utility PG&E Corp. and New Mexico–based PNM Resources. Exelon, the largest nuclear operator in the U.S. cited the “organization’s opposition to climate legislation” for its decision, an allegation the business federation refuted on Tuesday.

Dozens are feared dead after a 330-foot chimney under construction at a 1,200-MW coal-fired power plant collapsed last week in India’s Chhattisgarh state. Teams have so far retrieved 46 bodies from the debris.

A federal appeals board has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will have to reconsider a long-contested air permit for the $3 billion Sithe Global Desert Rock coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Reservation, saying that the agency abused its discretion by not considering integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology in its analysis of best available pollution control systems for the plant.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has joined American Electric Power (AEP) and Alstom in a validation of advanced carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies at AEP’s Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, W.Va. The $76 million project is being watched closely around the world because it will be the first to capture carbon dioxide from a pulverized coal-fired power plant as well as inject it into a permanent storage site more than 7,800 feet underground.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday issued a final rule that will require—for the first time—most large emitters of greenhouse gases to begin recording data under a new reporting system starting in 2010.

The week brought several developments concerning climate change legislation. A Republican senator is considering introducing an amendment to a fiscal appropriations bill that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources. Meanwhile, as reports emerged that Senate hearings on climate change legislation could begin next month, Texas Governor Rick Perry railed against the Waxman-Markey bill, and China pledged to slow growth of its carbon emissions.

Working Mother magazine has selected American Electric Power (AEP) as one of the 100 best companies for working mothers. AEP is the only electric utility and the only Ohio-based company on the 2009 list.

Southern Co. plans to implement an advanced integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) technology developed in conjunction with the Energy Department, KBR Inc., and other partners at an Alabama federal research facility at an existing fuel oil–fired power plant in China, the company said on Thursday.

The Department of Energy last week announced the award of 11 projects worth $75.5 million to conduct site characterization of promising geologic formations for carbon dioxide storage.