POWERnews

By 2035, renewables will hold a 30% share of the global power mix but just 1% of the world’s fossil fuel–fired power plants will be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS), reports the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its newly released World Energy Outlook (WEO-2013). The annual report presents a central scenario in which global […]

Legislative efforts to establish a federal renewable electricity standard (RES) kicked up last week with the separate introduction of two bills by Senate Democrats. Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on Oct. 29 introduced the Renewable Electricity Standard Act of 2013 (S.1595), a bill that would create a national standard of 25% renewable energy […]

Eighteen carbon capture projects across the U.S. have been chosen to receive $84 million in federal funding to help improve the efficiency and drive down costs of carbon capture processes for new and existing coal power plants. The Department of Energy (DOE), which announced selection of the projects today, said funded research will focus on […]

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G) announced the completion of another major construction milestone at its V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County, S.C. Having completed the first new construction nuclear concrete pour just seven months earlier, SCE&G finished the nuclear island basemat for Unit 3 on Nov. 4. “This successful basemat placement is […]

ABB and its consortium partner, Bondfield Construction, announced on Nov. 5 that they have won an order from Canadian Solar Solutions to supply a 100 MW turnkey photovoltaic (PV) solar project for the Grand Renewable Energy Park in Haldimand County, Ontario, southeast of Toronto. Ontario is in the final stages of a decade-long plan to […]

U.S. House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) unveiled draft legislation on Oct. 28 to address Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules affecting electricity generation. The bipartisan legislation is intended to ensure America can maintain a diverse and affordable electricity portfolio, which includes the use of coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and renewables. Whitfield […]

The Imperial Solar Energy Center South facility, one of the largest commercially financed solar plants in the U.S., commenced commercial operations on Nov. 1 near El Centro in California, just north of the Mexican border. The 130 MW project, which was developed by Tenaska Solar Ventures, began construction in December 2011 and consists of nearly […]

Duke Energy’s drive to reorient its fleet away from coal took another step on Nov. 4 when it announced demolition plans for its 84-year-old Riverbend Steam Station in Gaston County, N.C. The 454-MW plant was one of Duke’s oldest fossil assets, having come online in 1929. It was retired in April, two years ahead of […]

An executive order signed by President Obama today requires federal agencies to promote the “dual goals” of a greater resilience to climate change and a removal of barriers to carbon-curbing measures, including carbon sequestration. Climate change impacts that include “prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, an increase in wildfires, more severe droughts, permafrost thawing, […]

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A revised technical guidance released by the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday to bolster a key facet of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) declares an end to U.S. support for multilateral development bank (MDB) funding for new overseas coal projects except in “narrowly defined circumstances.” The updated guidance document is designed to be incorporated […]

Former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, made a pitch for the use of thorium in nuclear power generation at the Thorium Energy Conference 2013, which concluded this week at the Globe of Science and Innovation at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. The Swedish diplomat was the first […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued orders on Oct. 28 prohibiting two former employees of the Dresden Nuclear Power Station in Morris, Ill., from participating in nuclear work under its jurisdiction. The two were implicated in an incident involving violations of the Behavioral Observation Program. Even without the order, the workers in question are unlikely […]

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a formal order today giving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 60 days to set a deadline for issuing revised coal ash regulations, agreeing with a coalition of environmental groups that the agency has failed to timely complete its review process in accordance with provisions of the Resource Conservation […]

In recent years, the potential popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles has had utility executives up nights worrying about spikes in demand at the end of every workday as EV owners all began charging their cars upon returning home. Now, a new study from Austin, Texas–based Pecan Street Research (PSR) suggests that […]

Norwegian energy company Statoil last week canceled its $120 million project to put four 3-MW wind turbines on floating spar-buoy structures 12 miles offshore of Maine’s Boothbay Harbor. The Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) had in January 2013 approved terms of Statoil’s proposed Hywind Maine project, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last year […]

NRG Energy will buy nearly 8,000 MW of generation capacity across the U.S. from bankrupt power firm Edison Mission Energy (EME) for $2.6 billion. The company entered into a plan sponsor agreement to acquire almost all EME’s assets, including EME’s generation portfolio and Edison Mission Marketing and Trading, a proprietary trading and asset management platform. […]

EDF Group and the UK Government have reached an agreement in principle on the key commercial terms for an investment contract for the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Finalization of this agreement and construction of the plant are subject to a final investment decision. The government and EDF will work together to address […]

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power plants plunged 10% in 2012 largely due to the coal-to-gas switch and a slight decrease in power production, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported similar findings. The EPA’s 2012 data from its GHG Reporting Program, which collects annual […]

FirstEnergy Corp. announced that two new steam generators have arrived in Oak Harbor, Ohio, for the company’s 900-MW Davis-Besse nuclear plant. The new steam generators are scheduled for installation during the plant’s refueling outage next spring. Fabrication began in 2009 at Babcock and Wilcox’s nuclear equipment manufacturing facility in Cambridge, Ontario. The 74-foot-long, 12-foot-wide steam […]

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today unanimously established an energy storage target of 1,325 MW that California’s largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, must meet by 2020. The decision will help California optimize the grid with measure such as peak reduction, contribute to […]

Utility roles are changing rapidly, and the utility of the future will need to be ready for a much more diversified, secure, and decentralized grid. That was one message at the Minnesota Utility Investors (MUI) 23rd Annual Meeting in Brooklyn Center, Minn., this week. MUI is a grassroots organization representing the interests of individuals and […]

South Korea in the past week indicted 100 people—including officials from the state-run nuclear power plant operator—of corruption in a scandal over forged nuclear safety certifications. It is now also considering freezing ambitions to maintain nuclear’s 29% share in its total power mix—which means scrapping a previous goal to increase it to 41% by 2035. The scandal […]

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a narrow challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources, including power plants. In a mixed bag for groups fighting the EPA’s GHG regulation, the high court on Tuesday accepted for review six petitions—which were consolidated for oral […]

CPS Energy announced that its 420-MW Deely Unit 1 power plant was returned to service on Oct. 12. The plant had been shutdown since Sept. 10, 2013, when it was taken offline following an explosion that resulted in damage to the cascade building, which houses the conveyor system that feeds coal into the plant. The […]

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has gone cold for good, but the dispute between Southern California Edison (SCE) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) over who’s responsible for the ill-fated steam generator replacement that led to the plant’s retirement is starting to heat up. On October 7, SCE president Ron Litzinger “formally demanded” that […]

Following up on a similar decision in Maryland last month, a federal court threw out New Jersey’s attempt to spur construction of new power plants outside of PJM’s capacity auctions, saying that it was an unconstitutional state attempt to interfere with the wholesale power market. New Jersey’s Long-Term Capacity Pilot Project (LCAPP), enacted in 2011, […]

Late last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report on climate change and carbon emissions, which noted that “atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide . . . have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years.” The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) […]

Though a stalemate on the federal budget endures in Congress, and the federal government continues to be partially shut down, the Supreme Court began its new term on Oct. 7 by announcing that it had accepted two cases seeking a review of the invalidated Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). The two CSAPR cases, EPA, […]

The Supreme Court of the state of Kansas last week invalidated a controversial air pollution permit granted in 2010 by state regulators to Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s proposed 895-MW coal-fired Holcomb 2 plant. The court ruled in favor of environmental group the Sierra Club, which claimed that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) erroneously […]