Latest

  • Picking the Right Technology in an RPS Market

    The complexities of operating under a broad renewable portfolio standard require careful analysis of the options when planning a new power plant. Here’s how one generator in California navigated the sea of conflicting priorities when it was time to upgrade.

  • Cost Benefits of a Cycling Analysis on a Combined Cycle Unit

    Cycling is a fact of life for most gas plants. But do you really understand the true costs of cycling operation? Not having a full picture risks leaving substantial money on the table.

  • Everett LNG Terminal at the Crossroads

    Don’t talk to New England about exporting natural gas. Without the Everett Marine Terminal, the region’s gas supply crunch would be a whole lot worse.

  • NERC Says Gas Availability Should Be Part of Reliability Assessments

    Sounding the call for new perspective, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. says it’s past time to formally consider gas availability and gas supply constraints when assessing the reliability of the bulk power system.

  • Natural Gas and Renewables Are Allies, Not Adversaries, Says Report

    Though often cast as rivals for the same slice of the generation pie, gas and renewables, according to a new study of the ERCOT market, are natural allies for the long term.

  • The Beguiling Promise of the HTGR

    It’s easy to see why technologists fall in love with high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs). These nuclear machines are remarkable inventions, at least on paper. But few have actually seen the real world for any length of time, and their real-world experience has been mixed.

  • Wind Resources Face Market and Policy Headwinds

    Natural gas prices and low wholesale electricity prices are creating headwinds for large-scale renewable projects such as wind.

  • Fighting Transformer Fires

    Transformer fires are fearsome events, perhaps the most dangerous common threats to human life—both onsite and beyond the boundaries of a power plant—that can hit an electric utility.

  • Too Dumb to Meter, Epilogue

    As the book title Too Dumb to Meter: Follies, Fiascoes, Dead Ends, and Duds on the U.S. Road to Atomic Energy implies, nuclear power has traveled a rough road. For the conclusion of POWER’s exclusive serialization of the book, we offer the “Epilogue: Some Dumb Ideas Never Die.” The first 12 installments are available in the POWER online archives.

  • New Products (July 2013)

    Robotic Torches for Single Arc, Tandem Applications ESAB Welding & Cutting Products launched the new Aristo RT line of robotic torches, designed for single arc or tandem applications. The Aristo RT range of robotic torches work with three different product setups: Standard (external cable), Hollow Wrist Helix (rotation +/–220o), and Hollow Wrist Infiniturn (endless rotation). […]