POWERnews

In a report released on Monday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) presents data on energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for each state by year, fuel, sector, and other breakouts for the years 2000 through 2010.

A three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) on Tuesday ruled that Southern California Edison (SCE) cannot restart Unit 2 of its shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) until the NRC holds a formal license amendment proceeding with full public participation.

Duke Energy said on May 2 that it told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) it plans to suspend its application for two proposed new nuclear units on its Harris site near New Hill in Wake County, North Carolina.

President Barack Obama said in a speech that the U.S. is likely to be a net exporter of natural gas by 2020, the Financial Times newspaper reported May 6. The newspaper said the president’s remarks, which were made in Costa Rica, are the strongest signal yet that the administration is leaning toward supporting export ventures.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Itochu Corp., along with France’s GDF Suez, will build a 4,800-MW nuclear power plant at an estimated cost of $22 billion under an agreement signed May 3.

Five companies have filed letters of intent with North Dakota’s Public Service Commission (PSC) outlining proposals to start construction this year on wind farms that would add almost 686 MW of wind power capacity.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) said on May 6 that the continuing shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) heightens reliability concerns for areas of Southern California this summer.

Domestic content requirements that require some generators to source up to 60% of equipment from the Canadian province of Ontario under its feed-in-tariff (FIT) program are inconsistent with international trade rules, officials from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) highest court said on Monday.

A bipartisan group of senators last week asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to vet just how feasible the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is, and how its costs could affect other U.S. fusion programs.

Dominion on Tuesday permanently shuttered its 556-MW Kewanee nuclear plant located about 40 miles southeast of Green Bay, Wis. The 40-year-old Westinghouse pressurized water reactor generated 148 million MWh over its lifetime.

Panelists at a House hearing today refuted varied claims concerning if and how increased natural gas and renewables generation pose widespread challenges to the reliability of the electric grid. Some pointed to ineffective rules in the restructured wholesale power market and the failure of conventional power plants as being more of a threat to grid reliability.

Edison International said that without a restart of Unit 2 at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), it could decide by the end of the year to retire both units at the California nuclear plant. The units with a combined generating capacity of 2,350 MW have been offline since early 2012, the result of unexpected erosion and tube leaks in their steam generators. Costs tied to the shutdown now total around $553 million, including $109 million spent on inspections and repairs and $444 million for replacement power.

Drought is a serious vulnerability for the power sector, witnesses testified at a full committee hearing held last week in the Senate to assess the impacts of drought on the power and water sectors. Members of the panel invited by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources offered a number of possible solutions for federal agencies and power companies that could mitigate adverse effects from drought.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruled that a partnership between NRG Energy and Japan’s Toshiba Corp. to build two new ABWR reactors at the South Texas Project (STP) outside Bay City, Texas, through the holding company Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) continues to be dominated by foreign control. Until NINA can come up with a different corporate ownership structure, the NRC said it could not approve the project’s combined construction and operation license (COL).

A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation that would effectively shift responsibility for the disposition of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to a new agency created solely to deal with nuclear waste issues.

Dominion subsidiary Virginia Power may choose to use a GE-Hitachi Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) instead of a Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Services (MNES) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) for a third nuclear unit proposed at its North Anna site in Virginia, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Friday.

ComEd’s smart grid program finally has some good news to share. In a progress report to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) this week, the utility said that 479 distribution automation (DA) devices installed in the first year of the program resulted in 82,000 fewer customer power interruptions in 2012.

Natural gas pipeline maintenance this summer could affect natural gas supplies to some power plants in the six-state New England region, but forecasts suggest that summer electricity supplies will adequately meet consumer demand under normal weather conditions, ISO New England (ISO-NE) said on Monday.

An informational notice recently issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cautions nuclear power plant operators to look out for moisture degradation of structures and components used to store spent nuclear fuel in dry casks.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hearings on issues related to natural gas and its use for electric power generation continue this month. The next hearing is set for May 16, two days after Commissioner Philip D. Moeller addresses the natural gas/electric power generation nexus in keynote remarks delivered to the 15th annual ELECTRIC POWER Conference in Chicago. POWER is a media affiliate of the conference.

Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly signed a land lease extension on April 30 for the 2,250-MW Navajo Generating Station, but not before adding several amendments to the agreement. The early lease renewal with the Navajo Nation must be in place before plant owners could consider making future investment in expensive new air quality control equipment.

Revisions proposed on Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards could set the first federal limits on the levels of toxic metals in wastewater discharges from steam electric power plants. The proposed rule would help reduce pollutants in U.S. waterways from coal ash, air pollution control waste, and other power plant waste, but they could come at a cost of between $185.2 million to nearly $1 billion a year, the agency said.

Public and private investment in solar, wind, and other renewables worldwide declined 11% in 2012 from an adjusted 2011 record of $302 billion, a new survey from Pew Charitable Trusts shows. Yet the global renewable sector still registered a record 88 GW of new nameplate capacity last year, and China reclaimed the lead in global renewables investments from the U.S., it says.

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) last week approved the construction and operation of a 1-GW transmission line that could stretch 330 miles from the Canadian border to Astoria, Queens, through Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.

Bipartisan legislation introduced on Wednesday by a bicameral group of lawmakers seeks to give renewable energy project investors access to an existing corporate structure whose tax benefits are now only available to investors in fossil fuel–based energy projects.

Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) last week said it had completed a $3 billion five-year-long extended power uprate to add more than 500 MW to its Turkey Point and St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plants in Florida.

The operator of South Korea’s 23 nuclear power plants said over the weekend that it had separated its internal computer network and plant control systems from the Internet and sealed USB ports in an effort to prevent hacking.

Reform—and the possible partial or total sale—of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the federally owned and operated but self-financed 80-year-old corporation, as proposed by the White House in its fiscal year 2014 budget, was reportedly unexpected and has been criticized by varied entities.

The carbon intensity of the global energy supply has barely budged in more than two decades despite otherwise successful efforts in deploying renewable energy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns in an annual report submitted to the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) on Wednesday.

Heavy damage to a transmission substation in San Jose, Calif., resulting from gunfire during an apparent vandalism on early Tuesday morning prompted the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to urge residents and businesses in the Santa Clara and Silicon Valley region to conserve electricity in an effort to maintain reliability.