Latest
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Coal
Hearing Panelists Assess Grid Reliability Challenges Posed by Nat. Gas, Renewables
Panelists at a House hearing today refuted varied claims concerning if and how increased natural gas and renewables generation pose widespread challenges to the reliability of the electric grid. Some pointed to ineffective rules in the restructured wholesale power market and the failure of conventional power plants as being more of a threat to grid reliability.
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Partner ContentGermany’s Energy Transition Experiment
Germany has chosen to transform its energy system within a few decades—an ambition that has evoked equal admiration and confusion. Has Europe’s largest economy embarked on a rational path to an energy future that will make it the bellwether for global acceptance of renewables, or will the complex array of current challenges encumber its grand transformation?
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Is There a Breath of Fresh Air in China Today?
Natural gas has significant potential to reduce air pollution worldwide, but getting there, especially in countries like China, may be more difficult than people think. -
How Much Gas Is There? (Take Two)
The “shale gale” blows on unabated, as new calculations for U.S. gas reserves point toward even greater resources than previously thought.
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Coal
Oregon Utility Weighs Gas Power Options as Coal Exports Loom
It’s not all coffee and hydropower in the Northwest, as Oregon’s largest utility looks toward natural gas to help it navigate the shifting shoals of regulation and renewable mandates. -
Coal
Summer Power Burn: Are Generators Headed Back to Coal?
Last year’s stampede toward gas in the power sector is moderating for 2013, as higher gas prices cut into the economic incentives supporting coal-to-gas switching.
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Wind
Gas Power Needs Wind Generation Too, Says Study
Gas-fired power is due to serve an important role in supporting intermittent renewable generation in the coming decades. But a new study suggests wind power may be able to return the favor—as a valuable hedging resource. -
Business
Disruptive Generation: Anxious Utilities Ponder the Threats
Cheap gas-fired power stands to upend more than the dispatch order if some new developments under way bear fruit, as utilities may soon be dealing with generation from home-based fuel cells. -
Environmental
Methanation of CO2: Storage of Renewable Energy in a Gas Distribution System
Energy storage has been the achilles heel of the renewable boom, but new technology may offer a way to join gas and renewables even more closely—by using excess renewable generation to manufacture synthetic natural gas from carbon dioxide.
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Nuclear
Disgruntled SONGS Employee “Leaks” Photo of Jury-Rig Repair to San Diego Media
The bad luck for Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) crippled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) continued this week. The local ABC affiliate in San Diego reported on April 30 that it had been given a photo of a makeshift repair to the water box in Unit 3 by a plant employee.