News

It’s here—the 59th annual event to encourage students to consider engineering careers while building public understanding and appreciation of engineers’ contributions to society. Created in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers, National Engineers Week is backed by more than 100 professional societies, major corporations, and government agencies, with the goal of ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday agreed to reconsider a memorandum issued by the Bush administration’s EPA chief that directed agency officials not to consider carbon dioxide emissions when weighing applications for new coal power plants. The decision could portend the potential reversal of that Bush policy.

The industry last week saw the postponements of several more fossil-fueled power plants. Subsidiaries of American Electric Power (AEP) reportedly delayed construction of two integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) plants in West Virginia and in Ohio, NV Energy stalled plans for a 500-MW coal-fired facility in Nevada, and Consolidated Energy put off construction of a 109-MW pet coke power plant in Utah.

Nuclear energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment can help the U.S. reduce carbon emissions and bolster energy security, a new report coauthored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Idaho National Laboratory has shown.

A new study says that a climate action plan promoted by several U.S. Western governors could prolong the economic recession, weaken already overburdened Western power grids, and deliver a temperature “benefit” of only one ten-thousandth of a degree Celsius even after a century of operation.

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).

Michigan’s Gov. Jennifer Granholm last week said in her state of the state address that she had directed the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to evaluate, along with the Public Service Commission (PSC), “feasible and prudent alternatives” before giving coal-fired power plants in Michigan the green light.

A decade after Texas lawmakers passed sweeping legislation to deregulate the Lone Star State’s retail electricity market, a report by a coalition of 103 municipalities and other political subdivisions shows that Texas power prices have soared well above the national average—and more than in any other deregulated state. The report also alleges serious abuses in the wholesale power market and reduced profits for businesses as a result of deregulation.

The Joint Coordinated System Plan (JCSP’08), the first step of a transmission and generation system expansion analysis of the majority of the Eastern Interconnection, estimates the electricity sector will need over $80 billion in new transmission infrastructure to obtain 20% of the region’s electricity from wind generation.

Exelon has halted construction of a 650-MW natural gas–fired power plant it planned to build to meet electricity needs in southern Pennsylvania because demand has tapered off on the back of a slow economy.