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Cap and trade officially died on July 22 when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced at a news conference that the Democratic Caucus was unable to reach a consensus on any form of energy bill, even a recent short-lived version that proposed reducing carbon emissions from only the utility sector. I predict that carbon cap and trade is now dead for at least a decade, maybe longer.

What’s in a name? Would coal ash labeled as “special” hazardous waste be as easily recycled as that labeled nonhazardous waste?

The enforcement mechanisms of the environmental statutes in the 1960s were both cumbersome and ineffective.

The State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) in July put into operation the world’s first ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) superhighway when it commissioned the Xiangjiaba-Shanghai link. The ±800 kV project, completed in 30 months—a year ahead of schedule—has the capacity to transmit up to 7,200 MW from the Xiangjiaba hydropower plant in southwest China to Shanghai, the country’s leading industrial and commercial center, about 2,000 kilometers (km) away.

At the end of June, Xcel Energy fired up a demonstration project that integrates a 4-MW parabolic trough solar technology with an existing 44-MW coal-fired power plant.

Renewable energy information services provider 3TIER in July confirmed with its publication of wind performance maps what U.S. wind developers with poor generation numbers had been suggesting earlier this year: A long-lasting El Niño event paired with a North Atlantic Oscillation event caused wind speeds to slump abnormally from the fall of 2009 through spring 2010.

Spain in July inaugurated another major concentrated solar power (CSP) power station. The 50-MW La Florida parabolic solar trough plant in Alvarado Badajoz (in the west of the country), increases Spain’s solar nameplate capacity to 432 MW—beating out the U.S., which produces 422 MW from solar installations.

A £42 million marine power infrastructure project that will function as an “electrical socket” in waters 50 meters (m) deep and nearly 16 kilometers (km) off the coast of Cornwall in South West England set sail toward its proposed location this July.

GE launched what it is calling the world’s first two-stage turbocharged gas engine this June.

MHI, Foster Wheeler to Support FEED for UK CCS Project. A consortium of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd. on August 5 announced that it had received an order from E.ON UK to support the front-end engineering design (FEED) for a post-combustion carbon dioxide (CO2) capture plant proposed as part of E.ON’s […]