News

Two revolutionary mobile power stations, developed separately by companies in Russia and Germany, could soon be afloat. Russian investment management company United Industrial Corp. (Russian acronym OPK) said last week it is on track to launch the world’s first floating nuclear power station by 2010, while German power generation giant RWE could soon pilot a combined-cycle gas turbine “power barge,” deploying it at continental shores where electricity is most needed.

Talks have begun to resolve key differences between the U.S. House’s $819 billion economic stimulus plan and the $838 billion approved by the Senate this week. Among these differences are that the Senate bill includes $50 billion for loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors and clean coal plants.

A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) team of regional partners has begun injecting carbon dioxide (CO₂) into coal seams in the Central Appalachian Basin to determine the feasibility of CO₂ storage in unmineable coal seams and the potential for enhanced coalbed methane recovery.

The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday heard the testimony of five witnesses in its review of a draft federal renewable electricity standard that could require that 20% of the nation’s power be produced by renewable energy sources by 2021.

Sweden has proposed to lift a nearly 30-year-old ban on nuclear power and annulled its nuclear phase-out. The country said on Thursday that nuclear power would be an important source of electricity while it acts on a new sustainable energy and climate policy.

Kentucky Utilities (KU) last week agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty and spend approximately $135 million on pollution controls to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The 250-MW Highwood coal-fired power plant doggedly pursued by the Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative (SME) has not been scrapped, as has been widely reported by other media sources. It has been put on hold while the cooperative pursues a more expeditious route to meeting power demand by building a 120-MW combined-cycle natural gas–fired plant and erecting at least 6 MW of wind turbines.

Five electric utilities in the U.S. and Canada are hosting Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) studies of the impacts of retrofitting advanced amine-based post-combustion carbon dioxide capture technology to existing coal-fired power plants. In addition to the five host site companies, 15 other companies and organizations, including six from Canada and one from Australia, have joined the project.

French nuclear giant AREVA has had a spate of good news lately. Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would be going ahead with the construction of a second EPR. On Tuesday, the company said it had won a deal of more than €5 billion to enrich uranium from French power giant Électricité de France (EDF), and on Wednesday, it signed a major agreement in India to build two of six planned EPRs in Maharashtra state.

Last year, the U.S. passed Germany to become a world leader in wind power installations, while China’s total capacity doubled for the fourth year in a row, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said last week. Total worldwide installations in 2008 were more than 27,000 MW, dominated by the three main markets in Europe, North America, and Asia.