POWERnews

The UK government on Tuesday said it would push forward with legislation to create a new independent statutory body to regulate the country’s nuclear power industry. The new agency, the “Office for Nuclear Regulation” (OCR), will carry out regulatory functions performed currently by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Department for Transport.

A strategic plan to accelerate development of offshore wind energy, released by the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Interior (DOI) on Monday, focuses on overcoming the relatively high cost of offshore wind energy; the technical challenges surrounding installation, operation, and grid interconnection; and the lack of site data and experience with project permitting processes.

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week released additional details of its “SunShot Initiative,” a program that seeks to reduce the total costs of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems by about 75% before 2020 so that costs for PV systems can compete with other forms of energy without subsidies.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of Basin Electric Power Cooperative to receive a loan guarantee to construct more than 100 wind turbines to produce 151.5 MW of electricity. The loan guarantee will provide financing for engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning of the PrairieWinds wind farm energy project in central South Dakota.

New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie (R) on Friday made effective controversial state legislation that promotes the construction of new power plants with a total capacity of up to 2,000 MW by offering developers long-term, ratepayer-subsidized energy contracts. On Monday, in response to the measure, a group of major utilities asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to protect “the integrity of competitive power markets.”

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last week voted 2-0 to approve an air permit for the 1,300-MW Las Brisas Energy Center. The approval for the $3.2 billion petroleum coke–fired project planned for Corpus Christi, Texas, comes despite objections from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and recommendations by two administrative law judges against the permit’s issuance.

A California Superior Court judge in San Francisco has provisionally ruled that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) did not adequately comply with requirements from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The tentative decision could prevent implementation of a statewide cap-and-trade program due to start next year until CARB addresses those requirements.

Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) last week completed the third and final phase of the pre-project design review for the Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR-1000), making it the first third-generation reactor in the world to have passed that milestone in Canada. The CNSC’s findings mean there are no fundamental barriers to licensing the reactor design from the crown-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), a company whose future ownership is ambiguous.

A massive winter storm on Wednesday that blustered over more than 30 U.S. states, from New Mexico to Maine, shut off the lights for millions around the country. Regional grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) instituted an energy emergency and instructed utilities to begin rotating blackouts throughout Texas to compensate for 7,000 MW of power plants that were shut down as a result of the cold snap.

Mississippi Power last week announced that its new integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant under construction in Kemper County, Miss., will be named in honor of David M. Ratcliffe, recently retired chairman, president, and CEO of its parent company, Southern Co.

The past week brought a flurry of news from across the nation about challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) measures to curb greenhouse gases (GHGs). Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) are spearheading separate measures to delay or block the EPA’s authority, and Arizona withdrew its support for the EPA in a massive legal challenge concerning its “endangerment finding.”

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, President Barack Obama set a new goal for the nation: To obtain 80% of its electricity from “clean energy” by 2035. But his definition of “clean energy” included “nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas” as well as “wind and solar.”

A federal district court judge on Thursday sided with environmental groups in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and gave the Obama administration only 30 extra days to issue Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rules for large and small boilers, and solid waste and sewage sludge incinerators—not a year, as the agency had sought.

The New Mexico Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that freshly elected Republican Gov. Susana Martinez violated the state constitution when she halted publication of cap-and-trade rules that were adopted by the state’s Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) last year.

The European Union (EU) on Tuesday said it was waiting for member countries to confirm that minimum-security requirements had been installed in their emissions registries before reactivating its emissions trading scheme (ETS). The European Commission halted spot carbon trading last week for at least seven days after hackers stole emission permits from accounts in the Czech Republic and Austria.

Massachusetts–based Beacon Power Corp. on Monday said it had energized and grid-interconnected the first 8 MW of flywheel energy storage at its 20-MW frequency regulation plant in Stephentown, N.Y., bringing in the first commercial revenue for the company.

NRG Energy last week received a $967 million federal loan guarantee for its 290-MW Agua Caliente thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar project. When the Yuma County, Ariz., project, which began construction in 2010, is complete in 2014, NRG says it will be the largest PV generation facility in the world.

The fourth unit of India’s Kaiga Generating Station, a 220-MW indigenous reactor that achieved first criticality on Nov. 27, 2010, was synchronized to the grid last week. The unit now brings India’s nuclear power capacity to 4,780 MW with 20 reactors in operation, state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) said.

The U.S. Departments of Energy and Commerce on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate further on renewable energy modeling and weather forecasting to help the renewable sector more effectively use the nation’s resources.

Uncertainty about U.S. climate policy direction means that Canada may need proceed with its own measures to mitigate climate change—including a carbon cap-and-trade system—a government-appointed advisory panel has recommended.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed smart grid cybersecurity guidelines as tasked by Congress, but major gaps still need to be addressed; furthermore, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has failed to develop a coordinated approach for monitoring if and how the standards are being followed by industry, a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.

In New Mexico, where freshly elected Governor Susana Martinez (R) passed—as one of her first acts upon taking office—an executive order placing a hold on cap-and-trade rules adopted last year by a state agency, the state’s Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments later this month on whether Martinez’s actions were legal.

A settlement over alleged Clean Air violations reached by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department with Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) requires the Merrillville, Ind.–based company to shut down a coal plant while investing about $600 million in pollution control technology at the other three plants in its 3,300-MW coal-fired fleet. In related news, Ameren Missouri strongly disputed similar allegations made in a lawsuit over modifications at a 1,200-MW Missouri coal plant.

A federal court last week lifted an emergency stay that had prevented the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from proceeding with a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) for Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permitting of greenhouse gas sources in Texas while it considered legal challenges against the agency’s authority. The court’s decision means that EPA-issued regulations can curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other large stationary sources in that state.

The second 615-MW supercritical pulverized coal unit of We Energies’ Oak Creek Power Plant went commercial last week. The first unit—a POWER Top Plant—went into service on Feb. 2, 2010, and Elm Road Unit 2’s turnover to the Wisconsin Electric Power Co. by general contractor Bechtel Power Corp. last Wednesday completed the controversial expansion of the 1,135-MW power plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week instructed staff to address a potential problem at nuclear power plants around the U.S. where the containment sump—an emergency long-term cooling water source—could be clogged by debris accumulating after a high-pressure coolant break.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting requirements for carbon dioxide as they apply to biomass-fired and other biogenic sources of power will be deferred three years so that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could have enough time to better weigh the issue, the federal agency announced today.

In its last item of business before a new General Assembly took office today, the Illinois Senate rejected—for the second time since last week—a bill that would have procured $3.5 billion from ratepayers for the construction of Tenaska’s Taylorville Energy Center, an integrated gasification combined cycle power (IGCC) plant proposed for central Illinois. The vote puts the future of the controversial coal-fired plant in doubt.

North Carolina–based utilities Duke Energy and Progress Energy agreed to an all stock merger valued at $13.7 billion on Monday. The combined company, to be called Duke Energy, will be the nation’s largest utility. It will have a $65 billion enterprise value, $37 billion in market capitalization, and 57 GW of domestic generating capacity—including the largest regulated nuclear fleet in the country.

The past week saw a spate of nuclear-related news from around the world. Brazil said it would issue approvals for four nuclear plants and a massive hydropower dam in 2011; a Minnesota House committee voted to lift the state’s 20-year ban on new nuclear power; and a Chinese firm that owns the incident-plagued Hong Kong Daya Bay nuclear plant said it would boost operational transparency to quell public concern.