POWERnews

The proposed 2014 federal budget that President Obama submitted to Congress on Wednesday includes increases for the Department of Energy in general and for DOE-sponsored research and development (R&D) in particular. It also shows a slight decrease in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a preliminary finding released on Wednesday, staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) found that Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) request for a license amendment that would allow limited operations at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) this summer, does “not involve an increased risk of an accident or create the possibility of a new or different accident from those previously evaluated for its license.”

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) canceled plans to buy power from two planned BrightSource Energy Inc. 250-MW solar thermal plants on the same day that BrightSource asked regulators to suspended permitting for the $2.7 billion project in California’s Inyo County.

Southern Co. has withdrawn plans to seek a $1.5 billion federal loan guarantee for the 582-MW lignite-fired integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant its Mississippi Power Co. unit is building in Kemper County.

An accident at Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One station near Russelville, Ark., left one worker dead and eight injured Sunday morning. The accident involved the 836-MW Unit 1, which was in a refueling and maintenance outage at the time. The 987-MW Unit 2 was operating but tripped offline and was reported to be in a stable mode. No nuclear material was released.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Monday that Dominion Energy has agreed to pay a $3.4 million civil penalty and spend approximately $9.8 million on environmental mitigation projects to resolve Clean Air Act (CAA) violations.

The Wyoming state Industrial Siting Council has approved an amended permit for the $800 million, 300-MW Two Elk coal-fired power plant, which was first proposed in 1996 but has yet to break ground.

The 3,600-MW Vuhlehirska Thermal Power Plant in Svitlodarske, Ukraine, was heavily damaged on Mar. 29 by a fire that killed one worker and seriously injured at least eight others. Four units at the seven-unit coal-fired plant were destroyed, and the region was temporarily without power and heating.

In its 2013 report on the state of U.S. infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives the energy sector a grade just shy of failure. In its previous report, in 2009, the ASCE also gave energy a D+.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 28 finalized updates to emission limits for new power plants under the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). The rule includes emission limits for mercury, particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), acid gases, and certain individual metals.

Apparently, deciding that half a loaf is better than none, Southern California Edison (SCE) on Monday submitted a draft proposal for a voluntary license amendment to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), in hopes of salvaging its plan for a five-month limited-power restart test. The move appeared to be in response to pressure from local groups seeking to keep the reactor shut down.

Three workers were injured by an arc flash while working in the switchyard at the Callaway Energy Center in Missouri on April 2. Ameren Missouri said the accident, which happened outside the nuclear plant’s protected area, did not affect power generation.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week directed San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) to procure up to 298 MW of local generation beginning in 2018, and authorized the utility to enter into a purchase power tolling agreement with Wellheads’ Escondido Energy Center. It declined, however, to let the utility enter into similar agreements with two gas generators, because they were bound to be delayed.

NuScale on Wednesday announced it would seek federal funding to accelerate deployment of the company’s small modular reactor technology, saying it would submit a letter of intent in response to a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) earlier this month.

A reliability plan approved by the board of directors of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) on Friday concludes that additional transmission and generation resources will be needed during the study period (2013–2022) to meet system reliability criteria, but several factors could raise new impacts on reliability. These include retirement of more generation units for economic or environmental reasons, or if the Indian Point reactor’s licenses were not renewed.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) on Tuesday rejected challenges by environmental groups to Progress Energy’s application to license two new nuclear plants in Levy County, Fla.

Seven European Union (EU) member states exceeded the EU National Emissions Ceiling (NEC) Directive air pollutant limits in 2011, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said last week. The European Commission is reportedly considering initiating infringement proceedings against the countries for exceeding emissions limits for nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and ammonia.

Southern California Edison (SCE) on Friday released a new technical evaluation that concludes steam generators at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Unit 2 can safely be operated at 100% power. The evaluation reinforces a more conservative plan proposed by the company to federal regulators to operate the unit, which has been shut down since January 2012, at 70% for five months.

A dozen environmental groups on Wednesday called on the U.S. Trade Representative to reconsider a World Trade Organization (WTO) challenge to domestic content rules and subsidies in India’s national solar program, urging it instead to agree to a solution that allows India to support and build its domestic solar industry.

Despite a sharp decrease of Chinese solar module shipments that are now subject to U.S. tariffs, solar photovoltaic (PV) prices continued to fall and installations nationwide grew 76% over 2011 to reach a total nameplate capacity of 3,313 MW in 2012 and an estimated market value of $11.5 billion, a new report from industry group Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) shows.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday delayed approving a recommendation made by technical staff that calls for upgrades or replacements of "hardened" venting systems at the nation’s 31 Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactors (BWRs), giving staff a year instead to assess other options and produce a "technical evaluation" on the proposal.

In a letter to President Obama last week, four Senate Democrats expressed "continued concern" about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) plans to issue greenhouse gas (GHG) new source performance standard (NSPS) rules for new fossil fuel-fired power plants. The proposed rules could ban "new state-of-the-art" plants from being built and hamper advancements that could benefit the nation’s coal power sector, the senators argued.

An explosion caused by a steam pipe rupture at the natural gas-fired AES Alamitos Generating Station rocked a neighborhood in Long Beach, Calif. on Wednesday morning. No injuries were reported.

Responding to a recent claim by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that the Entergy’s Palisades nuclear power plant is at risk of pressurized thermal shock., the Louisiana-based company said the plant "is a safe and secure facility [and has a] license to operate … through 2031."

On the second anniversary of the 9.0-magnitude Great Tohuku Earthquake that killed more than 25,000 people and set off the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years, Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) devastated Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 through 4 were in cold shutdown and set to be abolished. All Japan’s nuclear reactors remain shuttered for safety inspections, and the rattled nation has yet to finalize a future energy roadmap. Meanwhile, as panelists at the IHS CERAWeek noted, the world’s global nuclear sector seems to have made a slow but determined recovery.

A new draft carbon-pricing bill that solicits feedback on how much industrial sources burning fossil fuels should pay per ton of carbon dioxide emitted was released by a bicameral group of Democrats on Tuesday. The bill diverges from a previously introduced measure to levy carbon taxes at the point of production or sale of a fossil fuel and applies instead at the “point of emissions”—which includes coal, oil, and natural gas generators.

The commercial license agreement for a frequency-responsive technology that tells an electric vehicle’s (EV’s) battery charger when to start and stop charging based upon existing conditions on the electric grid has been reached between developer Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and AeroVironment Inc. The technology could boost widespread adoption of plug-in EVs and support the integration of variable renewable sources while alleviating concerns about grid stability.

On Monday, the Department of Energy issued a new funding opportunity announcement designed to help U.S. industry design and certify innovative small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This follow-on solicitation to the cost-share agreement with Babcock & Wilcox for its mPower SMR technology, announced in November 2012, is open to other companies and manufacturers and is focused on furthering SMR efficiency, operations, and design.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates final regulations curbing greenhouse gas (GHG), mercury, and air toxics emissions from new sources could appear in the Federal Register over the next six weeks. Also forthcoming are final cooling water intake rules and proposed effluent guidelines. The coal ash rule, which has no target date for a final rule, may not be issued this year, the agency said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Monday denied a petition from Unistar Nuclear Operating Services to review an August 2012 decision by the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) that found the company was ineligible to obtain a construction and operation license (COL) for its proposed—and then abandoned—Calvert Cliffs 3 EPR because it was completely foreign-owned.