Technology

Chinese state-owned manufacturer Dongfang Electric announced the company has completed production of a 26-MW offshore wind turbine, continuing a trend of ever-more-powerful turbines from that country. The turbine’s nacelle, shown dwarfing company workers in a photo posted to social media on October 12, now ranks as the world’s largest. Dongfang said it has been designed […]

President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in 2022. The IRA is the largest public investments in renewable energy in American history and created more than 20 different tax incentives for renewable energy and related manufacturing. Certain Republic politicians have directed vitriol at the IRA. However, even if Republicans win the White […]

UPDATED (Oct. 11): The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has upgraded its G4-level “severe” geomagnetic storm watch to a G3-level “strong” geomagnetic storm warning after an anticipated coronal mass ejection (CME) arrived at Earth at 11:15 a.m. EST on Thursday, traveling at nearly 1.5 million miles per hour. The G3-level warning is now in […]

In a significant breakthrough for the development of supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycles, the 10-MWe Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant in San Antonio, Texas, has wrapped up Phase 1 testing, demonstrating the commercial readiness of its next-generation indirect sCO2 Brayton cycle. The $169 million project—the largest of its kind in the […]

The Nanko Power Plant in Osaka, Japan, will be upgraded with new gas turbines from GE Vernova. The 1,800-MW station, which was commissioned in late 1990, is replacing three boilers and three steam turbines in an effort to increase the efficiency of the facility and reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide. GE Vernova on October […]

Energy analysts have said the increasing need for reliable baseload power generation means natural gas-fired power plants will become even more important as demand for electricity increases. Several experts who have spoken with POWER noted the availability of natural gas—the U.S. leads the world in natural gas production, far outpacing second-ranked Russia—will drive continued construction […]

Voters in Kazakhstan reportedly have approved a plan that would bring the country its first nuclear power plant. Election officials said 70% of voters in a referendum held October 6 support the strategy promoted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who has said nuclear power is a way to move the country away from reliance on coal-fired […]

A U.S. bank that supports technology exports to international groups is committing $98 million toward development of a small modular reactor (SMR) project in Romania. The board of directors of EXIM, the U.S. export-import bank, on October 2 announced approval of a final commitment for a loan for pre-project services for the SMR, which would […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded capacity contracts of up to $1.5 billion to four major transmission lines under its Transmission Facilitation Program (TFP) to aid the transfer of 7.1 GW of new capacity throughout Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO) on Oct. 3 also released its […]

The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is transforming our world, but it comes with an insatiable surge in data centers that are powered by an ever-growing appetite for energy. As AI and high-performance computing (HPC) applications proliferate, the tech industry faces a growing challenge: building the next generation of data centers and finding suitable locations with […]