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For the past few years, the North Dakota oil boom has run far ahead of the state’s ability to ship its oil and gas out of producing areas because of a lack of gathering pipeline infrastructure. While excess oil can be shipped by rail, the low price of natural gas has led producers to flare […]

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power plants plunged 10% in 2012 largely due to the coal-to-gas switch and a slight decrease in power production, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported similar findings. The EPA’s 2012 data from its GHG Reporting Program, which collects annual […]

FirstEnergy Corp. announced that two new steam generators have arrived in Oak Harbor, Ohio, for the company’s 900-MW Davis-Besse nuclear plant. The new steam generators are scheduled for installation during the plant’s refueling outage next spring. Fabrication began in 2009 at Babcock and Wilcox’s nuclear equipment manufacturing facility in Cambridge, Ontario. The 74-foot-long, 12-foot-wide steam […]

The oldest power plant in South Korea is making way for something so new that no one has even attempted it before. Korea Midland Power Corp. (KOMIPO) announced earlier this year that Seoul Thermal Power Station, built in the 1930s, would be replaced with a new 800-MW two-unit combined cycle power plant—one that will be built […]

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today unanimously established an energy storage target of 1,325 MW that California’s largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, must meet by 2020. The decision will help California optimize the grid with measure such as peak reduction, contribute to […]

Utility roles are changing rapidly, and the utility of the future will need to be ready for a much more diversified, secure, and decentralized grid. That was one message at the Minnesota Utility Investors (MUI) 23rd Annual Meeting in Brooklyn Center, Minn., this week. MUI is a grassroots organization representing the interests of individuals and […]

South Korea in the past week indicted 100 people—including officials from the state-run nuclear power plant operator—of corruption in a scandal over forged nuclear safety certifications. It is now also considering freezing ambitions to maintain nuclear’s 29% share in its total power mix—which means scrapping a previous goal to increase it to 41% by 2035. The scandal […]

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a narrow challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources, including power plants. In a mixed bag for groups fighting the EPA’s GHG regulation, the high court on Tuesday accepted for review six petitions—which were consolidated for oral […]

CPS Energy announced that its 420-MW Deely Unit 1 power plant was returned to service on Oct. 12. The plant had been shutdown since Sept. 10, 2013, when it was taken offline following an explosion that resulted in damage to the cascade building, which houses the conveyor system that feeds coal into the plant. The […]

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has gone cold for good, but the dispute between Southern California Edison (SCE) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) over who’s responsible for the ill-fated steam generator replacement that led to the plant’s retirement is starting to heat up. On October 7, SCE president Ron Litzinger “formally demanded” that […]