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Dallas-based Luminant, Texas’ largest power generator, on September 9 filed a legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) but said the newly finalized rule that will require generators to dramatically reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants had forced it to idle two coal-fired units and reduce capacity at three other units. This decision follows a similar decision made by American Electric Power to shutter 6GW of coal-fired plants in June.

Few reasonable people can dispute that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a war against coal. If you doubt that conclusion, just look at the large number of new regulations affecting coal-fired power plants that have been proposed in rapid-fire succession by the EPA.

Experts say the cascading blackout  that put millions of Westerners in the dark in early September was no surprise: Major power outages have more than doubled in the last decade

Just two weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdrew its smog rule, the agency confirmed it would not meet a Sept. 30, 2011, deadline for issuing proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new, modified, and existing power plants. The agency did not specify a new deadline for proposing the rule.

President Obama has scuttled the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) smog rule, saying that he had underscored the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty. The decision has dealt a blow to environmental groups—which are contemplating legal action—and won the Democratic president praise from Republicans and industry groups.

Pulverizers prepare the raw fuel by grinding it to a desired fineness and mixing it with the just the right amount of air before sending the mixture to boiler burners for combustion. In Part I of this three-part report, we examined the essentials of pulverizer design and performance.  In the second part, we discuss the importance of fuel fineness. In the final article, we will discuss the importance of air and fuel measurement.

Utilizing engineering ingenuity and today’s developing computational fluid dynamics tools, a new classifier design is now available that significantly improves fineness from pulverizers without the heavy costs associated with dynamic classification or any downsides on pulverizer capacities, maintenance, and parasitic power.  Instead, operational flexibility and improved emission control options are enhanced.

Dominion, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Virginia Tech, Alstom Power, and maritime engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol last week received a two-year $500,000 grant from the DOE to seek out ways to reduce the cost of offshore wind generation by at least 25%.

Progress Energy Carolinas will officially shut down its 177-MW coal-fired W.H. Weatherspoon Power Plant near Lumberton, N.C., at the end of the month—the first such retirement under the utility’s fleet-modernization program that includes disassembly of nearly 30% of the firm’s coal generating fleet in North Carolina.

A new standard devised by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in response to the February 2010 Kleen Energy Systems power plant explosion prohibits the use of flammable gas as a cleaning agent for cleaning the interior of pipes—the practice thought to have caused the blast that killed six workers in Middletown, Conn., and injured nearly 50 others.