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The Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday finalized a $967 million loan guarantee for a solar photovoltaic facility in Arizona. On Tuesday, it also awarded $7 million for independent cost analyses supporting research and development for fuel cells and hydrogen storage systems.

Dynegy has restructured to create separate coal-fired and gas-fired power generation units.

On Friday, the Blue Ribbon Commission—Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s 15-member panel assigned to recommend a new plan for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle—released a draft report for public comment. The public comment period is due to end Oct. 31, 2011, and a final report is due to Secretary Chu before Jan. 29, 2012.

The city of Chicago on Thursday reintroduced an ordinance that could shut down two coal-burning power plants in the city owned by Midwest Generation, an Edison International subsidiary.

The UK plans to shutter its Sellafield Mixed Oxide (MOX) plant (SMP) as soon as it is practically feasible because the March 2011 Japanese quake and subsequent nuclear crisis at Fukushima have changed the facility’s commercial risk profile, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said today.

The Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP)—a consensus-based group of more than 675 public and private organizations created by the National Institute of Standards (NIST)—has made the first six entries into its new Catalog of Standards, a technical document that is expected to serve as a guide for smart grid–related technology.

The Yucca Mountain fracas last week became more intense as the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) joined a coalition of state and local governments in a suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The petitioners claim the agency is “unreasonably delaying” a decision on the proposed—and now-defunct—permanent spent nuclear fuel repository in Nevada.

The share of electricity generated from coal in the U.S. during the first three months of this year was at its lowest first-quarter level in more than three decades—even though the overall total level of generation in the U.S. increased by a little less than 1%, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last week.

Alberta’s provincial government last week signed a final funding agreement for a unique carbon capture and storage (CCS) project that seeks to tap a deep unmineable coalbed and turn the coal into power-generating synthetic gas—or “syngas”—while underground.

Plans have been delayed to build a small-scale coal gasification facility that would have enabled researchers from the University of Wyoming (UW) and GE Energy to understand the conversion of feedstock by gasification into syngas for use in power generation. The delay of at least 18 to 24 months stems from a lack of federal energy policy, Wyoming’s Governor Matt Mead said on Friday.