News

The U.S. may never need new nuclear or coal-fired power plants because renewable energy and improved efficiency can meet future power demand, Jon Wellinghoff, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chair, last week reportedly said.

The UK will not permit new coal-fired power plants without equipment to capture and store at least 25% of carbon emissions from day one and 100% by 2025, when carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is expected to be technically and commercially proven, the country’s climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said last week.

Changes to a state bill that would have allowed AmerenUE to charge customers during the construction of a second nuclear plant at Callaway in Missouri last week prompted the company to pull the plug on the $6 billion project.

Executives of North American utility companies are nearly split on whether President Obama’s proposed energy initiatives will have a significant impact on the structure of the electricity sector, according to the third annual Platts/Capgemini Utilities Executive Study just released. But there is greater executive agreement that environmental regulation and electricity prices for end users will be increasing.

Spurred by New York’s target to meet 45% of its electricity needs through renewable resources by 2015, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) last week issued a call for proposals to develop offshore wind projects of up to 120 MW in New York State waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

The performance of automated systems designed to protect infrastructure from damage during severe system conditions must be addressed to limit the scope and severity of bulk power system disturbances in North America, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) told stakeholders in a letter last week.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to reconsider an air permit it awarded last July to the 1,500-MW coal-fired Desert Rock Energy Facility project proposed for construction by Sithe Global Power, LLC on the Navajo Nation tribal reservation in New Mexico.

After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed finding on Friday that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday approved the $4.5 billion acquisition of nearly half of Constellation Nuclear, the indirect owner of three nuclear power plants in upstate New York, to a wholly owned subsidiary of Électricité de France S.A. (EDF), the world’s largest nuclear power plant owner.

After 14 hearings and 15,000 comments, the Department of Energy has decided to pull the plug on any domestic involvement in the three-year-old Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which the U.S. initiated to focus on reprocessing spent commercial nuclear fuel.