Latest
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Coal
U.S. Coal Fleet Continues Contractions Despite Looming Changes in Policy
Some of the U.S. coal market’s own product wound up in its stocking this Christmas season. Despite hope from the election of Donald Trump and a potential shift toward more coal-friendly energy policies, coal plant owners across the country continued the trend toward shutdowns and reduced operations that have marked the past few years. Coal […]
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Legal & Regulatory
Westinghouse’s Losses from Nuclear Business Deal Mount
Toshiba Corp.—the parent of Westinghouse Electric Co.—said it might book huge losses as a result of Westinghouse’s acquisition of the nuclear construction and integrated services business CB&I Stone & Webster Inc. (S&W). Westinghouse closed on its agreement with CB&I in December 2015. When the deal was made, Toshiba estimated that the amount of “goodwill” resulting […]
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Renewables
Oregon Wave Energy Center Gets $40 Million for Test Facility
Oregon State University’s Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center was awarded up to $40 million by the DOE to create a wave energy test facility in Newport.
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Coal
DOE’s First Advanced Fossil Fuel Loan Guarantee Commitment Awarded to Methanol Plant with Carbon Capture
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) first loan guarantee under an $8 billion solicitation for advanced fossil energy projects may go to a methanol production facility in Lake Charles, La., that will employ carbon capture technology for enhanced oil recovery. The DOE said in a statement on December 21 that it offered a conditional commitment to […]
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Nuclear
AECOM, EnergySolutions Joint Venture to Decommission San Onofre Nuclear Plant
After a 10-month competitive bid process, Southern California Edison (SCE) has selected a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions as the general contractor for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) decommissioning. “We are pleased to announce the selection of the AECOM/EnergySolutions team, a global joint venture with extensive commercial and government decommissioning experience around […]
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Nuclear
NRC Issues License for Duke’s Lee Nuclear Project, but Future Uncertain
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Dec. 21 that it has issued combined construction-and-operating licenses (COLs) for Duke Energy’s proposed two-unit William States Lee III nuclear plant in Gaffney, S.C. The project, named for long-time Duke executive Bill Lee, would use Westinghouse’s AP1000 design and be located adjacent to the abandoned Cherokee nuclear plant […]
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Legal & Regulatory
Obama and Trudeau Ban Oil & Gas Leasing in Arctic, Parts of Atlantic
In a joint statement on December 20, the leaders of the United States and Canada announced that they had developed a new partnership that effectively bans additional licenses for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and parts of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Legal & Regulatory
EPA Drops Proposed Model Carbon Trading Rules Ahead of Trump Takeover
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has abandoned an interagency review of draft model carbon trading rules that were issued alongside the final Clean Power Plan to make associated documents public before the Trump administration takes the reins at the agency. The agency proposed the model trading rules as components of state implementation plans that it […]
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Legal & Regulatory
DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 Nuclear Reactor Gets License to Operate for 20 More Years
Fermi 2, a 1,170-MW boiling water reactor owned by DTE Electric on the western shore of Lake Erie, in Monroe County, Mich., has garnered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) green light to operate until March 2045. DTE Electric submitted an application to the NRC to renew the 29-year-old reactor’s operating license in April 2014. The […]
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Climate change
U.S. and Canada Join Forces to Battle Cyberattacks on Electric Grid
A joint strategy released by the governments of the U.S. and Canada to thwart the growing threat of cyberattacks on the electric grid sets three priorities that the countries said would be critical to preserving energy and national security. The “Joint United States-Canada Electric Grid Security and Resilience Strategy,” released on December 15, outlines three […]