POWERnews

An audit of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) loan guarantee program for clean energy technologies completed last week by the agency’s inspector general found that the program could not always “readily demonstrate, through systematically organized records, including contemporaneous notes, how it resolved or mitigated relevant risks prior to granting loan guarantees.”

The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday finalized a $96.8 million Recovery Act–supported loan guarantee to Neal Hot Springs, a project sponsored by U.S. Geothermal, to construct a 23-MW geothermal project in Oregon’s Malheur County.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has finished developing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions requirements for several industries as mandated by Congress, on Tuesday said it would extend the reporting deadline for companies reporting 2010 GHG data under the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule from March 31, 2011, to an unspecified date in late summer.

American Electric Power (AEP) and First Energy Corp. will withdraw applications for state regulatory approval of the $2 billion high-voltage Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) project following an announcement by regional grid operator PJM Interconnection that the project has been shelved.

California’s Senate on Thursday voted 26-11 to require the state’s investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to get 33% of their power from renewable energy sources by 2020—up from the 20% currently required. The bill, whose increased renewable portfolio standard (RPS) was set by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 2009 executive order, now goes to the Assembly, where it is expected to pass.

The New Hampshire House last week approved, by a veto-proof vote of 246-104, legislation that would withdraw the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program established in the Northeast. The bill is now headed to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s (ODEC’s) announcement on Monday that it will withdraw participation in and ownership of a third-generation reactor planned for construction by Dominion Virginia Power at its North Anna Nuclear Power Station in Louisa County, Va., will not change its plans to build the potential project, Dominion said.

The three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on Friday threw out a motion to shelve proceedings for the Yucca Mountain license case through May 20. The judges also asked the NRC to explain why it whited-out portions of a report assessing the safety of the Nevada nuclear waste repository that was released last week.

Morgan County, Illinois will host a sequestration site for carbon dioxide captured by the Department of Energy’s revamped $1.3 billion FutureGen pilot project. The FutureGen Alliance said on Monday that site best supported the overall mission of the project cost-effectively.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel dismissed the last objection filed by anti-nuclear groups and a Texas lawmaker to block expansion of Luminant Energy’s Comanche Peak nuclear plant.

A federal judge in Brazil on Friday ordered immediate suspension of a license permitting construction of the controversial 11,233-MW Belo Monte dam complex. The license was recently issued by Brazil’s environmental agency, IBAMA, and it would have allowed dam-building consortium Norte Energia to begin clearing forestland on the margins of the Amazon’s Xingu River.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday passed, with a 235-189 vote, a short-term government funding measure that cuts more than $61 billion from the remainder of the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget—including a $3 billion slash to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) budget. The continuing resolution (CR) seeks to block the EPA from implementing or enforcing statutory or regulatory greenhouse gas (GHG) rules affecting stationary sources that became effective after January 1, 2011.

In response to a federal court order, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued final Clean Air Act standards for large and small boilers and incinerators that burn solid waste and sewage sludge. The EPA said, however, that it would reconsider the rules because “certain issues of central relevance” arose after the period of public comment.

Following President Obama’s $97 million budget request last week to support research into small modular reactors (SMRs), Westinghouse introduced a 200-MW class integral pressurized water reactor modeled on the company’s third-generation AP1000 reactor. The company also said it was preparing to collaborate with the U.S. Department of Energy’s SMR demonstration program.

The past week brought important news from state legislatures regarding nuclear power plants. Minnesota voted to lift a 17-year ban on new nuclear plants; a bill that would allow utilities to recoup costs for early site permits advanced in Missouri; and the Indiana Senate is preparing, amid controversy, to vote on a key measure that could incentivize development and construction of new nuclear generation in that state.

Progress Energy’s CEO William Johnson, who last month agreed to a merger deal with Duke Energy, on Thursday told attendees at a conference that proposed nuclear power plants in Florida and North Carolina would not be operational until at least 2020.

Dominion Energy last week told ISO New England, the power grid operator for six New England states,  that it could shutter its 60-year-old 738-MW Salem Harbor coal- and oil-fired power plant in Massachusetts by June 2014 to avoid retrofitting the facility with expensive pollution controls required by federal environmental regulations.

President Obama’s $29.5 billion Department of Energy (DOE) budget for fiscal year (FY) 2012 increases priority for renewable and nuclear energy technology research while cutting subsidies to fossil fuel energy. It also calls for a $1.3 billion cut to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Connecticut, New York, and Vermont are suing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), challenging a recently effected rule that makes it legal to store used nuclear fuel on-site for up to 60 years after a plant shutdown.

Ontario on Friday said it would not approve or accept any new offshore wind projects until more scientific research has been done on the installation of turbines in freshwater lakes.

No initial evidence had been found that the Texas power market had been manipulated when grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Feb. 2 ordered rolling blackouts, but investigations would continue, Texas regulators told legislators on Tuesday. The blackouts were necessary as some 82 power plants—out of 550 on the grid—went down for various reasons while freezing temperatures caused a record-breaking demand spike, ERCOT said.

Jacksonville, Fla., municipal utility JEA last week signed an agreement with Duke Energy that gives it the option to buy up to 20% of the power generated by Duke Energy’s planned 2,234-MW Lee Nuclear Station when it becomes operational in 2021.

The rupture of a 6-inch steam pipe at Unit 1 of the 1,884-MW coal-fired Homer City Generating Station in Indiana County, Pa., last week tripped the unit and sent six workers to area hospitals with burns.

The power sector saw steady, modest growth of merger and acquisition activity during the last three months of 2010, recently released analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows. The largest 25 announced deals decreased 37% in value, to $19.3 billion, compared to $30.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, but financial buyers maintained investments in power deals in 2010 while corporate buyers continue to lead deal activity due to large amounts of cash to invest, PwC said.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday issued its first loan guarantee for a transmission project, committing $343 million to develop the One Nevada Transmission Line (ON Line) project. Jointly owned by Great Basin Transmission South and NV Energy, the proposed 500 kV AC transmission line is expected to carry 600 MW nearly 235 miles from Ely, Nev., to just north of Las Vegas.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) today announced it has signed an agreement with Lockheed Martin. The two U.S.-based companies will join forces to design and build what they say will be the world’s most advanced digital control systems and nuclear reactors.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson were questioned by panels of the House’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power this morning as part of a discussion on draft legislation that seeks to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). The legislative hearing’s witnesses also included other major players in the climate change regulatory debate, such as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Canadian companies TransAlta Corp. and TransCanada Corp. are at odds over TransAlta’s abrupt notice on Tuesday that it will close and destroy its Sundance 1 and 2 coal-fired units near Edmonton, Alberta. TransCanada, which buys power from the units under a power purchase agreement (PPA) agreement, said today it had not received validation of TransAlta’s determination that the plants were so corroded that they could not be economically restored to service.

Four investor-owned utilities and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in a high-profile “public nuisance” case in which states and environmental groups allege that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from four investor-owned utilities and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) have contributed to climate change.

State senators in Minnesota and Kentucky passed crucial legislation that could end longstanding bans in those states on the construction of new nuclear plants.