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The week brought news of more closures or cancellations related to coal-fired generation. Exelon Corp. said it would permanently shut down four older units—a total capacity of 933 MW—in Pennsylvania; Progress Energy announced the closure of 11 North Carolina units in a shift to burning natural gas; and cost increases for an Ohio plant are prompting American Municipal Power to consider a combined-cycle gas plant instead.

An analysis released today by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) projects that if Congress adopts climate change legislation based on a blueprint released by the organization earlier this year, the nation’s economy would grow about 70% through 2030 despite adopting carbon emission–curbing measures.

(Web supplement to "Assessing the Earthquake Risk of Enhanced Geothermal Systems.") The future of geothermal energy will be driven by six primary technologies, but each will pose its own challenges.

Argentina has set out to complete Atucha II, a nuclear reactor it started building in 1981 and abandoned when it was 81% complete, owing to financial problems. If all goes according to plan, the country’s third reactor could go online by 2011—some 25 years behind schedule.

A £4.4 million grant by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) this September to Clipper Windpower’s Britannia project kicked up a whirlwind of interest in the supersized wind turbine—and others being developed around the world.

Anglo Coal, one of Australia’s coal mining companies this September opened a 45.6-MW power plant at its Moranbah North mine in northeast Queensland that captures methane-rich coal mine gas and uses it as a fuel to generate power instead of venting it into the air.

Marine energy prototypes in the UK are sailing ahead of entries from the rest of the world, propelled by government backing and public support.

While the overall economy is down, the effort to add renewable energy resources in the U.S. continues to push project development forward.

Assume, for the moment, that the U.S. Congress is unable to agree on legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions from industry, vehicles, and power plants (the carrot approach). Further, assume that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eventually promulgates rules that require power plants to reduce carbon emissions (the stick approach). Have you given any thought to the range of possible best available control technologies (BACT) that the EPA might require under the Clean Air Act (CAA)?

Concerns raised by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about the structural strength of Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000 reactor could cause delays for several nuclear plants that planned to use the design in the U.S. — and it raises questions for new builds started or proposed in China and the UK.