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  • Two Deals Shake Up Northeastern Power Landscape

    TransCanada—a leading North American energy company—has struck deals to sell its U.S. Northeast Power business. LS Power will acquire three principally natural gas–fired power plants and a wind farm from TransCanada, while ArcLight Capital Partners will buy 13 hydropower facilities located in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. “The sale of our merchant U.S. Northeast Power […]

  • GE-Hitachi and Southern Nuclear to Pair on Fast Reactor Design Advancement 

    GE-HItachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Southern Nuclear Energy will collaborate to study the development and licensing of GEH’s PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactor design. Southern Nuclear Development, a subsidiary of Southern Co. company Southern Nuclear Operating Co. signed a memorandum of understanding to study the high-energy neutron reactor design, as well as to work together toward […]

  • New England’s Drive to Boost Gas Supplies Hits Roadblock

    For several years, states in the northeastern U.S. have been in the midst of a major shift away from coal and nuclear power toward natural gas. As aging coal plants shut down on environmental concerns, and several of the region’s nuclear plants have been prematurely retired or faced with challenging economics, developers of natural gas–fired […]

  • Elon Musk: ‘The Future Is Bright for Utilities’

    Although many observers consider Elon Musk—the visionary entrepreneur who leads Tesla Motors and SpaceX—to be a disruptive force threatening the conventional power industry, he believes power companies have a bright future, if his goal to expand the use of electric cars and install vast numbers of rooftop solar systems is achieved. Speaking during a presentation […]

  • TOP PLANT: Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant Unit 4, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia

    Owner/operator: Rosenergoatom Fast-neutron reactors are pivotal to Russia’s ambitious nuclear power plans. The successful construction, grid-connection, and testing of the country’s first BN-800 reactor at its Beloyarsk nuclear plant is a major achievement in the right direction. Since the Soviet Union began its first experimental nuclear power projects in the 1940s, Russia has embraced nuclear’s […]

  • TOP PLANT: Ningde Nuclear Power Plant, Fujian Province, China

    China is on an epic build-out of its nuclear generating capacity, and developing indigenous expertise and technology is central to that goal. The first completed plant leveraging the nation’s CPR-1000 design

  • Advanced CFB Technology Gains Global Market Share

    Circulating fluidized bed (CFB) technology is taking a growing share of the international coal-fired power generation market, particularly in the Pacific Rim and China. Indigenous designs are also growing in

  • Next-Generation FGD Wastewater Bioreactor Technology Introduced for ELG Compliance

    Compliance with one of the latest federal environmental regulations, the Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG), can be both costly and complicated. A newly available option offers features and capabilities that may make it a more attractive alternative than conventional approaches. In September 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a new rule affecting flue gas […]

  • Ultra-High-Pressure Cavitation Peening Offers New Way to Maintain Components in Operational Nuclear Reactors

    To power generation professionals, the word “cavitation” typically has negative connotations, but a new process offers a way to control this normally destructive effect and deploy it as a cost-effective life-extension technique. As operators of commercial nuclear energy facilities consider subsequent license renewals and life extensions, finding new ways to safely maintain reactor components remains […]

  • Pushing the Ultra Envelope: Advanced Power Technologies Are Mainstream in China

    China, which continues to build more new coal plants than any other nation, is also on the forefront of deploying the most advanced coal plant technologies. However, these advanced units could face