Latest

  • Ormat Shuns $330M in Loan Guarantees, Cites Permitting “Uncertainties,” Costs

    Ormat Technologies last week said it would not proceed with Part II of a loan guarantee application for three geothermal projects in California and Nevada, shunning the opportunity for up to $330 million in federal funds. The Reno-based company said it had instead decided to “explore” commercial financing, citing uncertainties in the project permitting process and transaction costs associated with the program.

  • German 1.1-GW Staudinger Coal Plant Gets Green Light

    The German state governing council of Hesse last week partially approved a 1.1-GW coal-fired power plant proposed for construction by Germany firm E.ON at its Staudinger site. If E.ON receives clearance for actual operation of the plant, the plant will be the sixth block at the site, replacing three older units built in the 1960s and 1970s.

  • Project Demonstrates Removal of Water from Ultrafine Coal Waste

    A novel technology that could help release some currently unusable energy in an estimated 2 billion tons of coal waste in the U.S. has been demonstrated by a Department of Energy–supported project, the federal body said on Tuesday.

  • NRC Publishes Savannah River MOX Facility Safety Evaluation Report

    The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week said it had published its final Safety Evaluation Report (SER) for the Mixed-Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River.

  • FERC Approves Constellation’s $1.1B Acquisition of BostonGen Plants

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last month approved Constellation Energy’s $1.1 billion acquisition of BostonGen’s five power plants in the Boston area, which have a combined capacity of 2,950 MW. The approval marks closing of the sale of the third-largest generating portfolio in the New England region.

  • Look Before You Leap into the Cloud

    Given cloud computing’s potential to lower operating costs and increase flexibility, it’s no wonder that it is on the cusp of sending the corporate world into a paradigm shift.

  • The Pitfalls of Pollution Allowance Trading

    The process of banking allowances under the existing schemes for creating markets for pollution reductions has created a set of difficult problems as those programs have changed, wiping out significant value from the allowances.

  • A Really Basic Checklist for Employee Benefits in Mergers and Acquisitions

    As mergers and acquisitions in the power sector heat up again, questions arise about how employee benefits are affected by these complex business deals.

  • The Art of Ruthless Focus

    A million possibilities and distractions are in the business environment. Tom Hall and Wally Bock, authors of the new book Ruthless Focus, say the companies that win in the long term are the ones that can drown out the background noise and keep dancing with the strategy that brought them to the party.

  • Double A Energy Policy

    With climate legislation dead in the U.S., it is worthwhile to take a look at how discussions of energy and environmental policy ebb and flow in the country, generally without reaching serious resolution.