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Xcel Energy wants to retire its last two coal-fired power plants (Units 3 and 4) at the Black Dog power plant in Burnsville, Minn., and replace them with natural gas–fired units. Black Dog Units 1 and 2 were converted to natural gas combined-cycle operation in 2002. Xcel says the conversion would be “more economical” than alternatives.

New York City and six states have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide on whether state and local governments have the right to sue private power companies under a common-law tort of public nuisance for their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The specter of meltdown and widespread radiation grows ever-more terrifying at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. Soon after a devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake shook northeastern Japan on Friday, March 11, at 2:48 p.m. JST, the government declared an emergency as a precaution. Events have dramatically escalated since then, with four explosions and two fires afflicting four of the plant’s six reactors.

As U.S. lawmakers and energy experts urged federal regulators to delay decisions on reactor designs and new builds, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Gregory Jaczko said there was no need for concern about U.S. nuclear power. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday astonished the opposition and suspended an unpopular coalition decision made last fall to extend the lives of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants. Merkel also ordered seven nuclear plants that began operating before 1980 to shut down until at least June. Switzerland took similar measures.

A new survey from Microsoft Corp. released at the CERAWeek 2011 conference in Houston, Texas, last week suggests that only 8% of utilities are progressing past smart grid planning into implementation. The survey also suggests that generally, budgets to support smart grid efforts are on the rise.

License applications for Dominion’s proposed North Anna reactor in Virginia and Luminant’s two proposed reactors at Comanche Peak, in Texas—the two U.S. facilities that have chosen Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI’s) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR)—will be delayed by more than 18 months. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said structural changes made by MHI to its reactor design require a lengthened review time.

Alberta-based TransAlta and Washington State’s Gov. Chris Gregoire over the weekend reached an agreement to shut down the last coal-fired power plant in the Pacific Northwest. The first boiler of the company’s 1,460-MW plant in Centralia, Wash., will be closed in 2020 and the second in 2025.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), the body representing the interests of state public utility commissions before the federal government, on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Department of Energy (DOE) for not suspending fees associated with the now-defunct Yucca Mountain nuclear spent-fuel repository.

Of the 104 nuclear reactors operating in the U.S., 89 made the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) highest performance category last year, said the federal body on Tuesday.

Committees in Minnesota’s House and Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed matching bills that lift a four-year-old state law banning new coal-fired power plants of 50 MW or more. If the bills become law, they could also allow utilities in that state to import power from coal plants outside the state.