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Bobcat’s launch of the new 700 Series compact loaders adds three new models to the company’s family of new-generation loaders. The new loaders, all with vertical lift path design, offer several new features and enhancements that significantly extend the range of applications for compact loaders, Bobcats says. The 700 Series comprises a new skid-steer loader […]

The recent tensions in the Middle East and their impact on oil and gasoline prices remind us that the U.S. remains heavily dependent on foreign nations—some of them unstable—to meet many of our energy needs. Of course, oil will continue to have an important place in our energy mix, and expanding our domestic reserves makes sense.

I recently outlined the top four regulatory obstacles facing existing U.S. coal-fired power plants in the coming years. That list, although not comprehensive, covered issues that owners of coal plants should be concerned about in the near term. However, in the long term, there is one regulatory development that dwarfs all others.

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard invited Jill Duggan, of the European Commission Directorate General of Climate Action and the UK government’s head of international emissions trading, to help bolster Gillard’s push for support of a carbon tax early in March. However, when interviewed on a morning show, Duggan was unable to estimate either the cost or the benefits of the UK’s program. In fact, the interview was a complete disaster.

One of the largest returns on investment a plant can achieve is the improved condenser performance that results from an effective condenser tube cleaning. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate your choice of cleaning technologies, establish an optimal cleaning schedule, and add routine air and water in-leakage surveys to your plant’s maintenance schedule.

Because refractory is out of sight inside the gas flow path of a steam generator and its auxiliaries, it’s also often out of mind. That is, until the refractory fails and causes a forced outage.

Efficient boiler operation requires boiler auxiliary equipment to operate in harmony. In this third and last installment of our Power 101 series, we examine ways to decrease the auxiliary power requirements of boiler auxiliaries.

In an anti-climactic markup that featured little new debate and no amendments by opposing Democrats, the House Energy and Power Subcommittee approved Republican legislation to block Obama administration action on climate change by stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of its Clean Air Act authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

In an unusual ultimatum, the Environmental Protection Agency said that it is proposing to take over visibility portions of the Oklahoma Clean Air Act implementation plan to require three coal-fired power plants in the state either to switch to natural gas or install sulfur dioxide scrubbers within three years.

Anticipated clean air regulations could force the retirement of as much as 19,000 MW of coal capacity in the Mid-Atlantic—or 11% of the region’s generation—unless power prices rise to levels that make operation of the plants profitable, according to the independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection.