Features

Once you synthesize all the elements of the Golden State’s clean energy strategy and extrapolate current trends, it’s easy to see that an impending break with the traditional power generation paradigm is coming, intended or not.

Retrofit projects are often very time-consuming, both for the engineers who must take numerous field measurements to produce drawings and for the contractor that must fabricate each assembly on site. A more cost-effective approach is to begin with a highly accurate set of as-built 3D models produced by laser scanning technology.

Coal used for power generation has been the cornerstone of economic development, social progress, and a higher quality of life around the globe and is now fueling the 21st-century economic miracle rapidly unfolding in China. Meanwhile, China is leading the world in coal-fired plant efficiency and the deployment of clean coal technologies.

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. In this POWER exclusive, we present the eighth, ninth, and 10th chapters, “Flightless Birds and Flying Elephants,” “The Devil Flies Nukes,” and “Flatulence in Space,” the concluding chapters of the “Up in the Air: Flights of Radioactive Fancy” section.

Electricity produced from solar energy is being added to the grid—before and after the meter—in greater amounts each year. The uniqueness of this resource is pushing utilities, developers, users, and regulators to develop new and innovative interconnection rules and to rewrite some old rules that balance the costs and rewards among stakeholders.

China’s 12th Five-Year Plan calls for expanding the use of renewable energy in all forms throughout the country. From solar and wind to biomass gas and briquettes, China has a true “all of the above” renewable energy policy.

The de facto U.S. energy policy is to burn more gas, much of it produced using “fracking” technology. Huge volumes of low-priced natural gas have caused coal plant shutdowns, slowed renewable development, and undercut new nuclear plant development. Using more gas has also sent the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions into a downward spiral. Is the glut of natural gas too good to be true?

The U.S. Department of Energy contracted Shaw AREVA MOX Services LLC to design, construct, and operate a Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at its Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The MFFF will convert depleted uranium and excess weapons-grade plutonium stockpiles, equivalent to approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons, into MOX fuel assemblies that will be used in U.S. nuclear power plants by 2018.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency efforts to regulate mercury emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants have spanned nearly two decades. In February of this year the agency promulgated the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, but changes to the standards continue.

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. In this POWER exclusive, we present the sixth and seventh chapters, “The Bomber to Nowhere” and “The Road to Jackass Flats,” which begin the “Up in the Air: Flights of Radioactive Fancy” section.