Research and Development

Strained water resources across the world necessitate innovative ways for power plants to more efficiently use, and reuse, the water that is available. At the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National

It’s energy that has been around forever, used for years as a heating source across the world, particularly in areas with volcanic activity. Today, geothermal has surfaced as another renewable resource, with

ThorConIsle is an offshore 500-MWe thorium molten salt reactor constructed inside a ship’s hull, ready to provide power from navigable waterways. The ThorCon “pot” operates at a pressure of 3 bar gauge

Check out how US major electricity and natural gas provider in the US Midwest detected ppb-level chloride and sulfateions accurately in their cycle chemistry and avoided plant shoutdown. Start monitoring your water-steam on-line and react quickly to any excursions.

In a significant technical triumph, GE has completed first installation of a new gas-fired power plant technology that it says can reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions to 5 parts per million (ppm).  GE on April 11 completed combustion upgrades on nine GE 9E gas turbines at five power generation enterprises in Shenzen, a major industrial […]

Niskayuna, NY – The Northeast Hydro Think Tank sponsors–GE Renewable Energy, Brookfield Renewable, New York Power Authority and the Hydropower Foundation–are pleased to announce that the competition begins May 20. The sponsors believe that hydro industry real-world problems can be tackled by the next generation of leaders through education and hands-on experience. This intense four […]

Testing of the Demonstration Begins at the Coso, California, Geothermal Field  Emeryville, California – April 16, 2019 – GreenFire Energy Inc. today announced the completion of construction and the beginning of testing of the world’s first field-scale demonstration of a closed-loop geothermal power system. The project uses an inactive well in the Coso, California, geothermal […]

The world’s first complete advanced nuclear fuel test assemblies containing accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) have been installed at Southern Co.’s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant’s Unit 2 in Georgia.  Nuclear giant Framatome delivered four GAIA lead fuel assemblies containing enhanced ATF (EATF), including both pellets and cladding, to the plant owned by Georgia Power in […]

Framatome delivered the industry’s first full-length Enhanced Accident Tolerant Fuel (EATF) concept containing both pellets and claddings to Georgia Power’s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant. Southern Nuclear, operator of Plant Vogtle, inserted the GAIA lead fuel assemblies containing EATF during the Unit 2 spring refueling outage. Framatome delivered the fuel to the plant in […]

A project to demonstrate a novel power cycle that promises to produce low-cost, reliable, and flexible power from natural gas—while generating no atmospheric emissions, and fully capturing carbon dioxide—is inching closer to commissioning. Its developers are now actively assessing siting for the first commercial-scale 300-MW NET Power facility. NET Power’s 50 MWth Demonstration Plant in La […]

While conventional power plant cycles produce power from turbines using water or steam as the working fluid, supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles use CO2 that is in a supercritical state—at a temperature and pressure above its critical point where liquid and gas phases are not distinguishable.  CO2 has a relatively low critical pressure of 7.4 megapascal […]

A widespread misconception persists that nuclear plants can only function as inflexible baseload sources of power—and it’s hurting prospects for the nuclear sector’s role in the world’s future power

When the blades of individual Kaplan turbines are not continuously adjusted to achieve peak efficiency, the result is non-optimal performance and unnecessarily high mortality of downstream migrating fish

Creating a faster-than-real-time Energy Management System (EMS) is a huge challenge for the power industry. In order to be considered faster-than-real-time, the EMS must be capable of executing within a

The right level instrumentation is key to keeping boilers on an even keel. Guided-wave radar offers a critical combination of capabilities. If asked to make a short list of factors able to improve heat rate

Comparing the costs of differing electric generating technologies has become popular among advocates for particular technologies and those seeking to find the optimal approach to new generation. While getting

A wide-ranging bill introduced by a large group of bipartisan U.S. senators on March 27 seeks to cement the role advanced nuclear reactors will play in the nation’s future power mix.  The “Nuclear Energy Leadership Act” (NELA), aims to “reestablish U.S. leadership in nuclear energy,” which has been lost to state-sponsored development in Russia and […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) is funding a project that would prepare Westinghouse’s 25-MWe eVinci micro-reactor for nuclear demonstration readiness by 2022.  The agency on March 27 said it will provide $12.9 million of the estimated $28.6 million Westinghouse needs for a project to prepare the micro-reactor for a demonstration, including for design, analysis, licensing […]

Depending on the deployment location and competing energy prices, photovoltaic solar panels are among the most cost-effective power solutions being added to the grid today, often without subsidies and other incentives. The revelation came during a panel discussion—which included several CEOs from the power sector—that took place at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Summit […]

THE WOODLANDS, Texas, March 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — ROCKWOOL Technical Insulation, a subsidiary of ROCKWOOL Group, today announced it has been awarded the Materials Performance Corrosion Innovation of the Year Award for its patent-pending WR-Tech™ (Water Repellent Technology) by Materials Performance magazine, a publication of NACE International. The awards celebrate cutting-edge technologies that are at […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 22, 2019) – The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $36 million in awards for 18 projects as part of the High Intensity Thermal Exchange through Materials and Manufacturing Processes (HITEMMP) program, as well as the final OPEN+ Cohort, High Temperature Devices. These project teams seek to develop new approaches and technologies for the […]

When U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), he unintentionally ignited the worldwide deregulation of electricity markets, which in turn began a worldwide technology race between two distinct types of power plants: the newly created, industrial-scale plant that PURPA dubbed “cogeneration” and the traditional, utility-scale power […]

DNV GL launches Joint Industry Project to analyse damage caused to wind turbine blades from the high-speed impacts of foreign objects Group of industry experts will jointly develop Recommended Practice for designing a protection system against rain erosion, to be published in 2020 Project partners include Vestas, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, LM Wind Power, Ørsted, […]

As the world grapples with climate change concerns, carbon capture and storage could be the holy grail for continued fossil fuel use. Projects have come online that prove its feasibility, but costs can be

Battery storage technology has moved in fits and starts, but today experts note that rapid advances make it difficult for safety standards to keep pace. Developers of storage systems are designing projects to

Gas turbines come in a variety of sizes. While large combustion turbines seem to get the bulk of the publicity, with the likes of Siemens, GE, and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems making the most noise

The source of energy for driving wind turbines is the wind, and in this context, it is important to remember the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on February 28 said nuclear power and the use of clean coal technology are the way to combat climate change and reduce emissions from the energy sector. Perry, speaking at a joint press conference in Washington, D.C., with Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said, “We believe […]

ASSESS: Analysis, Simulation, and Systems Engineering Software Strategies to enable a significant increase in usage and benefit of these technologies Clarkesville, GA ASSESS Initiative, a broad reaching multi-industry initiative to facilitate a revolution of enablement that will vastly increase the availability and effectiveness of Engineering Simulation is proud to announce that Convergent Science is a […]

Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), two giant Japanese companies with substantial stakes in the world’s power sector, are separately rethinking future business directions as sizable disruptions shake up prospects for traditional market growth. In recent months, Hitachi refined its business model to prepare it for explosive demand in  digitalization solutions, focusing heavily on grid […]