POWER

Steve Elonka began chronicling the exploits of Marmaduke Surfaceblow—a six-foot-four marine engineer with a steel brush mustache and a foghorn voice—in POWER in 1948, when Marmy raised the wooden mast of the SS Asia Sun with the help of two cobras and a case of Sandpaper Gin. Marmy’s simple solutions to seemingly intractable plant problems remain timeless. This Classic Marmaduke story, published more than 50 years ago, reminds us that an overhaul or startup may not go as planned, but it can still have a happy ending.

Combined Solar Technologies (CST) has designed, built, owns, and operates a water purification system located at the Musco Family Olive Co. facility in Tracy, Calif., that burns olive pits to purify highly saline wastewater through a distillation process while also producing electric power. For its pioneering approach, CST is the winner of POWER’s 2012 Marmaduke Award for excellence in plant problem-solving. The award is named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer and plant troubleshooter par excellence, whose exploits were chronicled in POWER beginning in 1948.

“If you build it, they will come” has proven a risky strategy for some smart grid projects. One of California’s largest investor-owned utilities faced the opposite challenge—customers whose behaviors necessitated a smarter grid. Customer involvement in and support for smart grid plans is a major reason SDG&E’s smart grid efforts continue to garner accolades, including the 2012 POWER Smart Grid Award.

Moving thousands of tons of coal per hour at high speeds through a complex handling system is a main cause of airborne coal dust in a coal-fired plant. Depending upon the coal’s characteristics, that dust can become explosive when its concentration reaches 80 g/m3 and, hence, a threat to life and property. The best option is to stop the dust from becoming airborne in the first place.

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations affecting the nation’s coal power plants are routinely in the national news. The latest proposed rule focuses on the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With a substantial amount of coal generation expected to be shut down (up to 40 GW to 50 GW in the coming years by some accounts), the new regulations are increasing the likelihood that this lost capacity will not be replaced by new coal generation.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 26 unanimously rejected all pending legal challenges against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) interpretation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) that allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). What is the EPA’s future strategy in its war on coal?

Small reactors are big news, particularly the 180-MWe Generation III++ Babcock & Wilcox mPower small modular reactor (SMR). This SMR has all the features of its larger cousins, but the entire reactor and nuclear steam supply system are incorporated into one reactor vessel, all about the size of single full-size pressurized water reactor steam generator. Expect the first mPower—and probably the first SMR—to enter service before 2022.

—Sonal Patel is POWER’s senior writer.

The world nuclear industry experienced few substantial changes in performance metrics for 2011—beyond Japan, that is. In the aftermath of Fukushima, the once–world leading Japanese nuclear industry fell to the bottom of the rankings, perhaps for good.

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which oxidize a fuel to produce electricity, have received much attention of late for the technology’s myriad benefits, including high efficiency, long-term stability, fuel flexibility, and low carbon emissions—all at a relatively low cost.

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 third chapter, “Micro-Mismanagement by Committee.” During the frenzy to manage atomic power after World War II, Congress created an executive branch agency that threatened to be too independent, too powerful, and too isolated from the rest of government. Compounding their errors, perhaps in recognition of what they had created, the solons also developed a way to insert their own power into the action. This proved to be a major mistake—blurring the lines between executive and legislative authority—causing no end of problems for the nation’s nascent atomic energy venture.

Siemens Energy in June announced it had produced the first batch of its new B75 Quantum wind turbine rotor blades, fiberglass components 75 meters (m) in length that were cast in one piece (Figure 3). The blades were manufactured to be installed this fall on Siemens’ second prototype of the German firm’s SWT-6.0 6-MW offshore […]

Camfil Farr Power Systems added two new products for dusty environments to its Campulse product line: Campulse GTC and GTD. Both have new, non-discharging fiber media, which are sturdy, durable, and offer high dust-holding capacity. The Campulse GTC’s smooth synthetic fibers offer low resistance to airflow and maintain a low pressure drop throughout the filter […]

Albania this June inaugurated its first major hydropower project since the early 1980s, bringing online Ashta I, the first of two run-of-river plants with a combined capacity of 53 MW. At the inauguration ceremony, Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha called the plant “a novelty” because it is the largest in the world to use advanced tubular turbines technology.

Appleton, a manufacturer of products for hazardous location electrical systems, now offers a versatile line of tray cable connectors engineered for use with TC, ITC, PLTC, and other commonly used types of tray cable. Key to the success of the new connectors is a compensating displacement seal that provides ingress protection to NEMA 4X and […]

A new gas-fired power generation technology that uses an oxyfuel, high-pressure, supercritical carbon dioxide cycle and produces pipeline-ready carbon dioxide for sequestration or use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), without reducing plant efficiency, garnered the interest of three new partners in June.

Rohrback Cosasco released three types of Cosasco corrosion under insulation (CUI) corrosion sensors for detecting corrosion under insulation: continuous insulated braid “corrosion fuse” wire (Type 1), inserted “corrosion fuse” probe array (Type 2), and the CUI Corrosometer Probe (Type 3). The three techniques offer direct corrosion detection and a much lower cost per monitoring point […]

FP&L to Increase Output at Turkey Point. Florida Power & Light (FP&L) on June 19 received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to increase the power generating capacity of Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Units 3 and 4 by 15%. The power uprate for the pressurized water reactors will increase each unit’s capacity from approximately 700 […]

Ingersoll Rand is offering a newly improved single-phase control scheme for its 5 and 7.5 versions of the small UP6 5-15c line of air compressors. It has added a run-on timer and load/unload and blowdown solenoids to improve the reliability and performance of single-phase units in general industrial applications up to 28 cfm. The company […]

Nobody can schedule unplanned events that will affect power generation. And no one wants to start a day expecting an emergency to occur. But when critical systems fail in the power supply system, it’s time to respond. That’s a given of power plant maintenance.

A new compact electric pump designed for bolt tensioning applications in the wind turbine industry is now available from specialist bolt tensioner manufacturer Boltight Ltd. The standalone power pack is lightweight (19.5 kg) and portable, as the pump, reservoir, and motor are combined into one easily handled package. The 0.75-kW rated pump is driven by a 220-240 V single-phase electric […]

Washington, D.C., 31 July 2012 – What to make of the two successive, horrendous electric power failures in India? The smart money avoids conclusory leaps. When the first cascading blackout hit on Monday, there was much media chatter about generating capacity. The implication was that the outage was demand-driven. But there was nothing particularly unusual […]

Washington, D.C., July 14, 2012 — A group of mainstream conservatives and representatives from Washington environmental groups have been meeting over recent weeks to revive the idea of a U.S. carbon tax as a way to combat alleged man-made global warming. The aim is to have a package of proposed laws to bring up when […]

New York’s State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) last week adopted rules that set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants as well as require new or expanding electric generating facilities in that state to evaluate the potential disproportionate impacts on nearby environmental justice communities.

In a bid to spur the construction of new power plants and offset a power crunch, the regional grid operator has forecast, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas last week voted to raise the wholesale price cap for electricity prices on Aug. 1 by 50%, to $4,500/MWh from $3,000/MWh.

A settlement to resolve alleged violations of the New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act reached between the Dairyland Power Cooperative (DPC), federal entities, and the Sierra Club will force the Wisconsin utility to invest about $150 million in pollution control technology, retire three coal units at its 210-MW Alma Station, and pay a civil penalty of $950,000.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday granted PNM a 90-day stay in the effectiveness of the federal plan that would force the Albuquerque, N.M.–based utility to install pollution controls at its 1,800-MW San Juan Generating Station by September 2016 to meet visibility requirements of the Clean Air Act in New Mexico.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) on Monday announced the release of final environmental impact statements for a proposed wind power complex in Wyoming with a nameplate capacity of 3,000 MW and publication of an environmental assessment for commercial wind leases and site assessment activities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Practically everyone would agree that the energy policy of the U.S. is in a great state of flux. Not since the introduction of commercial nuclear power some five decades ago has our country come to such an energy crossroads. No matter what your political ideology, no one can refute that conventional coal-fired power plants are being paralyzed by recent and potential U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations designed to cut the nation’s reliance on coal.

The new Luxxor Portable Video Camera quickly and easily attaches to any Hawkeye Rigid or Flexible Borescope, and most other major borescope brands as well, transforming them into a videoscope. Designed and manufactured by Gradient Lens Corp., the new Luxxor camera allows users to view internal visual inspection images on portable or benchtop video monitors, […]