POWER

Steam turbines have to be warmed slowly to avoid excessive differential expansion of the various components, rotor stress, and potentially reduced service life. For that reason, startup times must be extended

Legal battles to stall the 11-GW Belo Monte hydroelectric dam—being built on the Xingu River in Amazon forest for one of the world’s largest power plants—are raging on in Brazil (Figure 1). In January

Tremors in China’s economy rattled its power sector last year. For the first time since the Cultural Revolution in 1968, the country’s power generation dropped from the previous year—modestly, by 0.2%

Regulatory attention is rarely welcome in the best of times. When the attention is focused on a practice that has been standard operating procedure for more than a century—especially a practice that has left

Gas power technologies set new benchmarks over the past few months as gas turbine “gorillas” Siemens, General Electric (GE), and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas (MHPSA) all reported new

The world’s first 1,400-MW Advanced Pressurized Reactor (APR1400), a South Korean Generation III design, has now been connected to the grid. Nearly eight years since construction kicked off in October

At the ballyhooed Paris climate conference last December, a little-noticed event occurred that could lead to important developments for electric generators. At the Paris meeting, some 80

Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition) was adopted as policy beginning in September 2010, some six months before the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, and full legislative support was

In late 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published new regulations governing wastewater discharge from steam electric power plants. These new regulations, or effluent limitation guidelines

There may be multiple closed-loop cooling systems at your power plant. Chances are good that they cool or control temperature on some very critical components. The two that are most likely to exist are the

Utility holding company Xcel Energy, headquartered in Minneapolis and with large electric and gas operations in eight states in the upper Midwest, the Rocky Mountain West, and Texas, has ambitions to be the

Generating companies wondering if concerns about cybersecurity are overblown got some rude wake-up calls this winter. The first call came when Ukrainian media reported that a December 23 blackout that left

In a growing number of regions, power plants are competing with many other users for scarce freshwater supplies, and the situation is likely to get worse. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently

Many combined cycle and cogeneration plants with heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) were originally intended as baseload power sources or steam producers. In recent years, however, some have been

Nuclear ambitions fostered by some countries were tested by a variety of events at the end of 2015. Work Continues on Turkey’s Russian-Built Akkuyu Plant. Reports that Russia has halted construction of

Combined heat and power (CHP) is hot again—in more ways than one. After a surge in capacity during the 1980s, kick-started by the 1978 federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) that was designed

Use of natural gas for power generation in the U.S. is skyrocketing. From 2005 to 2015, the share of energy produced from gas has increased over 80%, with gas now comprising about 35% of the fuel mix. This

The identification and containment of coal ash has risen to the top of the priority list for plant managers across the U.S. after inadvertent releases of coal ash into unintended areas resulted in adverse

Drax Power Station, a 3,960-MW six-unit facility located in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest power plant in the UK. It was constructed in two stages, with the first three units completed in 1974 and

Since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its “new source performance standard” on August 3, 2015, requiring new coal power plants in the U.S. to emit no more than 636 kg (1,400 lb) of

Advances in firing biomass, including bagasse, in Cuban sugarcane operations.

A summary of POWER’s legal affairs conference on power industry regulations.

Shell-and-tube heat exchangers have been around longer than anyone reading this article. The heat exchanger offers many advantages. It can be used in condensing, boiling, or single-phase applications; it can

When it comes to a transition away from coal, TransAlta Corp. is playing political defense. The Canadian province of Alberta contains among the richest fossil energy resources in the world, including oil (and

You’ve heard that Nothing in life is free , yet this magazine is free for the vast majority of readers—both in print and online. That’s only because of the continued support of our advertisers. No media

When we undertook an initiative at Granite Ridge Energy (GRE) to identify, prioritize, and assess components that were due for their 10-year assessments, we didn’t know quite what we were taking on or how to

RWE Abandons Hard Coal Construction Project. RWE scrapped plans to complete the 800-MW Block D of the Hamm hard coal plant in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on December 18, citing damage and delays

In its recently released Energy Technology Perspectives 2015, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted that innovation in the energy sector differs from progress in other sectors in that it tends to move

A unique wind funnel–based power generating system that is quickly garnering interest from investors could see first construction kickoff in the first quarter of 2016. The INVELOX (short for “increased