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A Georgia administrative law judge has remanded an air permit for LS Power’s proposed 1,200-MW Longleaf coal-fired power plant to the state Environmental Protection Division (EPD). The judge found that the permit did not sufficiently limit pollution and ordered the regulatory body to amend the permit to include federally approved tests for five air pollutants.

Entergy Corp.’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant hit another hurdle on Tuesday as the Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) rejected a 20-year power purchase contract at below market prices.

An annual report released on Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that assesses energy and technology market trends forecasts that if current laws and regulations remain unchanged, natural gas and renewables will see strong growth in the electricity sector. The report also suggests that expected regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will have an impact on the U.S. power sector, most notably on its fleet of coal-fired power plants.

The Canadian province of Saskatchewan on Tuesday approved construction of a C$1.24 billion project that will integrate and demonstrate carbon capture and storage (CCS) at an aging Boundary Dam Power Station unit near Estevan.

The nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi could increase costs for existing and future nuclear power plants, increase scrutiny on relicensing procedures, and cause a reevaluation of the entire spent fuel management system, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said as they released a comprehensive report on the future of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Last week, lawmakers from Indiana approved a bill that could allow utilities to charge consumers costs incurred to extend the lives of nuclear reactors, and on Tuesday, Iowa legislators voted to begin the process of developing a new nuclear plant.

As much as 55% of Unit 1’s reactor core at the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is thought to be damaged; Unit 2’s core is estimated to be 35% damaged, as is 30% of Unit 3’s core, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said today. Seven weeks after the crisis began, the utility—which has also admitted damage of the spent fuel rods at Unit 4—continues all efforts to cool the affected reactors.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday announced a conditional commitment for a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to support Units 1 and 2 of Solar Trust of America’s Blythe Solar Power Project. The two-unit 484-MW concentrating solar thermal plant will be built near Blythe, in Riverside County, Calif.

Plans to build and operate the Cape Wind project nearly 5 miles offshore in Nantucket Sound, Mass., were approved on Tuesday by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE). Cape Wind Associates now says that construction of what could be the first U.S. offshore wind farm could begin as early as this fall, but the controversial project must still overcome several hurdles.