In This Issue
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Renewables
Redefining Priorities for Quebec’s Hydro Power Cluster
A land of lakes and rivers, Quebec benefits today from an abundance of clean and green energy, vastly generated by means of hydro power, which is increasingly complemented by the province’s eastern wind energy farms. Download a pdf of this report.
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O&MUpgrading a Wired Public Address System with a Wireless Option
The management at a 1,094-MW coal-fired power plant in the Midwest sought to augment their hardwired public-address (PA) system. With hundreds of employees working in varied conditions, a means of
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BusinessNew Products (January 2014)
NLB’s new NCG-286A Series of high-pressure water jet lances increase operator comfort while making hose or fitting failures less likely. The new models reduce stress on the inlet hose connection and feature
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EnvironmentalBlack & Veatch Foresees U.S. and Global Opportunities
Black & Veatch expects sustained growth across global energy markets in 2014 with several ongoing themes continuing. Key market drivers supporting power infrastructure spend remain the same, centering on
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CommentaryHow U.S. Power Generators Are Preparing for 2014
The business environment for generating companies worldwide continues to become increasingly complex, and not just as a result of regulations. Even in the U.S., the concerns and constraints faced by generators
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O&MDay & Zimmermann Focuses on Flexibility
Now more than ever, we see the U.S. power market sharply focused on maximizing return on investment. We see power producers responding to economic uncertainty, high costs for new emission controls, and a
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CommentaryBurns & McDonnell Sees U.S. Market in Transition While Asian Market Grows
The U.S. power generation market is experiencing a unique set of transitional drivers, the biggest being the current economics within the energy market. U.S. Market Drivers A significant portion of the U.S
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Legal & RegulatoryEurope Faces Capacity and Cost Challenges in 2014
This is expected to be the year when modest economic growth at last returns to a recession-hit Europe. Recent depressed power demand from industry has already allowed the 27 countries of the European Union
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GasShale: The Rock That Rocked the World
In the early 1980s, a man named George Mitchell, who owned an independent oil and gas company in Houston, began to see a distressing trend in his company’s future. Mitchell Energy supplied natural gas to a
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CoalTransAlta’s Centralia Plant Earns PRBCUG Award
The Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) recognized TransAlta’s two-unit, 1,340-MW Centralia Complex with its 2013 Plant of the Year (Large Plant category) award at its 2013 Annual Meeting
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RenewablesA Novel Solar-Fossil Hybrid Power Plant
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing a promising solar-fossil hybrid power system for integration with a conventional combined-cycle power plant. The hybrid system uses concentrated
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CoalFuture of Australia’s Carbon Pricing Scheme Hangs in the Balance
Australia’s freshly elected prime minister, Tony Abbott, introduced a bill in November to scrap the nation’s controversial carbon pricing plan, which is slated to transition to an emissions trading scheme
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NuclearMilestones for Major Nuclear Projects
Several new nuclear plant construction milestones were recorded worldwide in October and November. CPR-1000. On Nov. 23, China’s 18th large reactor, Hongyanhe 2, was connected to the grid. The $8.2 billion
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Renewables
POWER Digest (January 2014)
Jordan Picks Russian-Built AES-92 For First Reactor. Jordan in early November chose Rosatom’s reactor export subsidiary AtomStroyExport to supply AES-92 nuclear technology for its first nuclear power plant
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Commentary
Global Change Agents
Now more than ever, the power generation business is a global business. Supply chains are more international than in the last century. Thanks to more easily retrievable reserves of shale gas, the prospect of
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NuclearEPRI Plans High-Burnup Spent Fuel Demonstration
A study proposed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) could shed more light on how safe it is to store high-burnup used nuclear fuel in dry casks. In an August 2013–released draft test plan
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Commentary
Financial Performance – Based Utility Bonuses: Unnecessary Exposure
A series of derivative lawsuits has recently been filed against the officers and directors of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) based on the explosion of a PG&E gas transmission line in San Bruno
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RenewablesIEA’s World Energy Outlook 2013: Renewables and Natural Gas to Surge Through 2035
By 2035, renewables will hold a 30% share of the global power mix, but only 1% of the world’s fossil fuel–fired power plants will be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS), reports the
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Legal & RegulatoryA Rising Tide of Regulation and the “Kick-the-Can” Gambit
A tidal wave of pent-up federal regulations could surge across much of the electricity industry in 2014. In recent years, Congress has been unable to enact new laws in energy, which has led a frustrated
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CoalOPPD’s North Omaha Station Takes PRBCUG Honors
The Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) each year since 2000 honors one or two plants that burn PRB coal for “innovation and implementation of best practices and continual improvements in areas
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CommentaryIs Distributed Generation Really the Future?
If you read the environmental press, clean tech media, or even the New York Times, you might conclude that America is on the cusp of a distributed generation (DG) revolution. “Solar power and other
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GasChina’s Shale Gas Development Outlook and Challenges
Thanks to sustained and rapid development of China’s economy, demand for natural gas has been increasing. From 2000 to 2010, China’s demand for natural gas increased from 24.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) to
