Global Monitor

Nearly a quarter-century after the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in Soviet Ukraine, Russia has been making deals with energy-starved nations all over the globe to help them build new nuclear power plants using Russian second-generation reactor technology.

While the U.S. awaits congressional action on a cap-and-trade program that could possibly be limited to just the utility sector, Canada is moving, starting in 2011, to phase out older coal power plants and replace them with natural gas–fired plants. The announcement, made this June by Environment Minister Jim Prentice prior to the G8 and G20 summits, could have serious implications for coal-fired generators in the country.

This June, AREVA installed the reactor pressure vessel (Figure 6)—the core of the unit—at the world’s first EPR project, which is under construction in Finland. Now the company will engage in a flurry of installation activities for heavy nuclear components, including lifting into the reactor the first of the four steam generators. Most of the work is expected to be completed by the end of 2012, with power production beginning in 2013.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year awarded its first Section 10 permit ever to a commercial wave-powered demonstration facility planned for installation in the Gulf of Mexico. The novel offshore platform, dubbed the SEADOG, will use a buoy and piston mechanism combined with a water wheel to generate electricity and desalinate water.

Sweden Reverses Ban, Approves Nuclear Reactor Replacements Sweden’s parliament on June 18 reversed an earlier decision and passed the center-right coalition government’s landmark proposal, made last year, that allows for the replacement of the country’s nuclear reactors at the end of their life span. The country had voted in 1980 to phase out its 12 […]

Abengoa Solar in early May began commercial operation of Solnova 1, the company’s first 50-MW parabolic trough plant. Covering 980,000 square feet with mirrors requiring an area totaling 280 acres (Figure 2), it is one of five planned concentrating solar power (CSP) plants to be built at the Solúcar Platform in Spain. All will use a technology developed by Abengoa with experience gained from a trough pilot built in 2007. Solnova 1 will also be equipped to burn natural gas if sunlight is weak.

An Australian sewage plant this April began using treated wastewater falling down a 60-meter (m) shaft to produce its own power.

The gas-rich emirate of Qatar, holder the world’s third-largest gas reserves, inaugurated another massive 2,000-MW gas power plant in the industrial city of Mesaieed, south of the capital Doha this May.

While Europe’s offshore wind sector has taken off, interest is resurging in marine energy. The UK’s Crown Estate took the major step this March, for example, of awarding leasing rights to 10 wave power projects to develop generation in Scotland’s Pentland Firth and Orkney waters of the North Sea.

Re: “Natural Gas Piping: It’s Time for Better Risk Control,” by John Puskar, PE (May 2010) Mr. Puskar’s recommendations to address the hazards associated with purging and blowing natural gas from large industrial piping systems are a significant contribution to the dialogue that is taking place on this important subject. Mr. Puskar correctly identifies two […]