POWERnews

In a major breakthrough at the crisis-stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant, engineers who had been desperately struggling to contain radioactivity at the plant’s units today managed to stop highly radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) says, however, that it will continue to pump contaminated water into the sea for lack of storage capacity, and efforts are under way to begin injection of nitrogen into the primary containment vessel of Daiichi 1.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday proposed a rule—granting a Clean Air Act petition filed by New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)—to limit sulfur dioxide emissions from a 420-MW coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania that it alleged was adversely impacting air quality in four New Jersey counties.

Progress Energy Carolinas will shut down its 170-MW W.H. Weatherspoon coal-fired power plant this fall, several years ahead of the originally announced retirement schedule. The decision follows an evaluation of system resource needs.

Dominion Virginia Power on Friday announced it would convert three 63-MW Virginia coal-fired peaking plants to biomass. The Dominion subsidiary said that while the switch would provide a boost to the local economy, it would also reduce nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and particulate emissions to “meet stringent new emission standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s proposed 895-MW Kansas coal-fired power plant suffered another legal setback last week as a federal district court judge ruled in a lawsuit filed on behalf of environmental group Sierra Club that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) violated federal law by providing approval and financial assistance to the project without environmental review and pubic involvement.

The first Clean Energy Progress Report released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that while “impressive progress” has been made in developing clean energy technologies in recent years, demand for fossil fuels has continued to surge. Coal has met 47% of global new electricity demand over the past decade, “eclipsing clean energy efforts made over the same period of time,” the agency says.

An internal study released by the Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday found that the federal body overseen by the Department of the Interior (DOI) could generate up to 1 million MWh more power annually from 70 of its existing facilities in 14 states. The report was followed by an $26.6 million funding announcement by the DOE and DOI on Tuesday for research and development projects to advance hydropower technology, including pumped storage.

Rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act on Monday call for flexible technology standards, determined on a case-by-case basis, for more than 670 power plants across the nation that pull in at least 2 million gallons per day of cooling water. The EPA said the proposal, which seeks to protect aquatic life, establishes a “common sense framework, putting a premium on public input and flexibility.”

The Senate is expected to vote on Thursday on an amendment introduced by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to small business legislation that could permanently block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from promulgating climate change rules.

Nearly 20 Senate Democrats asked President Obama in a letter today not to agree to spending plans passed by the GOP-controlled House last month that would block funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) implementation of greenhouse gas rules.

As chief executives of 34 renewable energy companies urged congressional Republican and Democratic leaders to support the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, a study released by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) suggests grants are a simpler and more effective way to help finance projects than tax credits.

With geothermal power being produced in nine states—and with 123 projects across 15 states under development—the U.S. leads the world in geothermal energy production, a new report from the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) shows.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) on Thursday said they had begun a process to offer Bluewater Wind Delaware the first commercial wind lease off the coast of Delaware under the “Smart from the Start” Atlantic Offshore Wind program.

California’s Assembly on Tuesday passed a renewable energy mandate that would require the state’s power companies to generate 33%—up from the current 20%—of their power from renewable sources by 2020. The mandate is the most ambitious in the U.S.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week completed a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) for a limited work authorization (LWA) and the combined construction and operating licenses (COLs) for Southern Co.’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4 proposed for construction near Waynesboro, Ga.

Incidents unfolding at the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan has led governments to take extraordinary safety measures around the world. Last week, European Union (EU) ministers agreed to re-check the safety of Europe’s 143 reactors, and in the U.S., regulators are expected to conduct seismic assessments on 27 reactors at 17 plants.

Sept. 30, 2011, is the revised final deadline for reporting 2010 data under the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting Program. The agency also last week delayed the release of proposed rules that would govern cooling water intake systems at nuclear and coal plants until March 28.

A week after a U.S. House committee passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) in the House and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in the Senate, Sens. Inhofe and Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) introduced a bill that would require an interagency federal panel to undertake a “cumulative economic analysis” of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday said the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) would hold four competitive lease sales from May through August for Powder River Basin coal tracts in Wyoming. The tracts, covering 7,441.25 acres, hold an estimated 758 million tons of low-sulfur coal.

AC power is now available at Units 1, 2, and 4 of the six-reactor quake- and tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, according to recent updates; however, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) still believes “the overall situation remains of serious concern.”

Georgia Power last week said it would seek the Georgia Public Service Commission’s approval to decertify two coal-generating units totaling 569 MW. The decision was based on “a need to install environmental controls to meet a variety of existing and expected environmental regulations,” the company said.

Sempra Generation last week officially dedicated the 48-MW Copper Mountain Solar facility, a project located adjacent to the company’s 10-MW El Dorado Solar installation in Boulder City, Nev., about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Sempra is calling the facility “the largest photovoltaic solar plant in the U.S.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed what it described as the “first-ever” national standards for “toxic air pollution” from power plants. The new rules—which will replace the court-vacated Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR)—will require new and existing coal- and oil-fired plants to install pollution control technologies to curb emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and acid gases.

A federal judge in Birmingham, Ala., on Monday dismissed all claims in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lawsuit that alleged Southern Co. subsidiary Alabama Power built or made modifications to existing coal-fired power plants in Alabama that were in violation of New Source Review (NSR) regulations under Prevention of Significant Deterioration provisions of the Clean Air Act.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) yesterday established a new rule that puts demand response (DR) on a par with power generation. The rule requires organized wholesale energy market operators to pay DR resources the market price for energy, known as the locational marginal price (LMP), when those resources have the capability to balance supply and demand as an alternative to a generation resource and when dispatch of those resources is cost-effective.

Xcel Energy wants to retire its last two coal-fired power plants (Units 3 and 4) at the Black Dog power plant in Burnsville, Minn., and replace them with natural gas–fired units. Black Dog Units 1 and 2 were converted to natural gas combined-cycle operation in 2002. Xcel says the conversion would be “more economical” than alternatives.

New York City and six states have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide on whether state and local governments have the right to sue private power companies under a common-law tort of public nuisance for their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The specter of meltdown and widespread radiation grows ever-more terrifying at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. Soon after a devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake shook northeastern Japan on Friday, March 11, at 2:48 p.m. JST, the government declared an emergency as a precaution. Events have dramatically escalated since then, with four explosions and two fires afflicting four of the plant’s six reactors.

As U.S. lawmakers and energy experts urged federal regulators to delay decisions on reactor designs and new builds, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Gregory Jaczko said there was no need for concern about U.S. nuclear power. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday astonished the opposition and suspended an unpopular coalition decision made last fall to extend the lives of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants. Merkel also ordered seven nuclear plants that began operating before 1980 to shut down until at least June. Switzerland took similar measures.

A new survey from Microsoft Corp. released at the CERAWeek 2011 conference in Houston, Texas, last week suggests that only 8% of utilities are progressing past smart grid planning into implementation. The survey also suggests that generally, budgets to support smart grid efforts are on the rise.