POWERnews

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has vowed to clean up the 5.4 million cubic yards of wet coal ash—enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep—that spilled last week when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, failed.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week admitted it would not finalize two air pollution rules that would have eased restrictions on coal power plants before the incoming administration takes office on Jan. 20.

Steven Chu, the 1997 Nobel physics laureate who now directs the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, will be President-elect Barack Obama’s energy secretary. Lisa Jackson, chief of staff for New Jersey’s governor, will head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los Angeles, will lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday approved by a 5-0 vote the licensing and installation of the nation’s first commercial hydrokinetic power station.

A subsidiary of Germany’s RWE Group, the UK’s Peel Energy, and Denmark’s DONG Energy have formed a joint venture partnership to develop a carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration project in the UK.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), a global alliance of GE and Hitachi that was formed last year, said on Monday it had notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of its intent to renew design certification for its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR).

The U.S. coal power industry saw a spate of important announcements this week.

South Africa, reeling from a power crisis caused by a lack of generating capacity, on Friday canceled a plan to build a nuclear plant for about $12 billion, saying it was “not in a position to invest in nuclear.”

The U.S. Supreme Court last week heard oral arguments in Entergy v. EPA, a case that questions an appellate court decision that said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot conduct a cost-benefit analysis in regulating how power plants use cooling water from rivers and lakes. Power companies and the EPA—pitted against environmental groups led by […]

Alstom and Polish company PGE Elektrownia Belchatow S.A. on Monday announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop and implement carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at the 4,440-MW Belchatow power plant in Poland—Europe’s largest conventional power station. In the first phase of the Polish project, Alstom will design and construct a […]

Constellation Energy announced on Monday that its board of directors had authorized the company to begin talks with Électricité de France (EDF), following the French nuclear giant’s unsolicited proposal earlier last week to buy 50% of Constellation’s nuclear generation and operation business for $4.5 billion. The Baltimore company’s board had in mid-September approved an acquisition […]

American Electric Power (AEP) said last week it is evaluating the feasibility of building a multistate, extra-high-voltage transmission project—more than 1,000 miles long—across the Upper Midwest to support the development of renewable energy. The utility has proposed building the first 765-kV extra-high-voltage transmission lines (PDF) to connect major wind developments in the Dakotas and surrounding states […]

TransGas Development Systems LLC (TGDS) plans to build a coal-to-liquids plant in West Virginia, company officials announced yesterday during the West Virginia Energy Summit. The New York–based company filed a permit to build the $3 billion facility in Mingo County. Projected to be operational by 2013, the plant will be built in the region’s new […]

The Scottish government last week outlined criteria and officially launched the grand Saltire Prize Challenge, a marine energy innovation contest to unleash the region’s massive renewable energy potential.

Current U.S.-supported methane-recovery projects worldwide, when fully implemented, will deliver estimated annual emissions reductions of more than 24 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, tripling the reductions achieved in 2006.

A feasibility study released Nov. 27 by Ontario’s Bruce Power has concluded that nuclear energy could add 1,000 MW of electricity to the Saskatchewan power grid by 2020. The company considered three reactor designs during the feasibility study: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s ACR-1000, Westinghouse’s AP1000, and Areva’s EPR.

On Nov. 25, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it had docketed, or accepted for review, a combined construction and operating license (COL) application for a new reactor at the Fermi site in Michigan. Detroit Edison’s application, submitted Sept. 18, is the 12th COL request the agency has accepted for review.

American Electric Power Co. said on Monday that a unit at one of its nuclear power plants damaged in September will not return to full service until 2010. The company also estimated the cost of repairing and replacing the damaged turbine rotors in Cook Nuclear Plant’s Unit 1 at up to $332 million. AEP figures to recover most of the cost through insurance and warranties.

Everyone knows that China is building coal-fired power plants at a furious rate in China, but less well-known are its construction projects abroad, including in India and Indonesia. And on Dec. 1, CIC Energy announced that it had selected China’s power station builder Shanghai Electric Group Co. Ltd. (SEC) to be the EPC contractor for a 1,320-MW power plant at its $3 billion Mmamabula coal mine and electricity generation plant in Botswana.

On the day after Thanksgiving, four federal agencies released a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Final PEIS) proposing to designate more than 6,000 miles of energy transport corridors on federal lands in 11 western states.

New ways of squeezing out greater efficiency from solar photovoltaic cells are emerging from computer simulations and lab tests conducted by a team of physicists and engineers at MIT.

The Marine Corps wants its base at Kaneohe Bay to become energy self-sufficient by 2015. One step toward that goal involves building a sizable solar power array around Kansas Tower Hill, which could be operating by next fall.

Power producers in politically unstable regions of the world are finding that generating capacity is useless unless they can ensure the reliable delivery of fuel to run their power plants. Such was the dark lesson in both Nigeria and Gaza in the past week.

A recent ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board to block a permit that the agency last year granted the Deseret Power Electric Cooperative for a new coal-fired unit could have far-reaching implications for as many as 100 coal-fired power plants seeking air permits in the U.S. The Sierra Club had asked the […]

Two days after NRG Energy flatly rejected Exelon Corp.’s acquisition offer, saying the $6.2 billion proposal “grossly” undervalued the company, Exelon launched a hostile bid for the Princeton, N.J., company, taking its offer directly to NRG shareholders. The U.S. power giant has also filed suit against NRG’s directors, and it has reportedly threatened to expand […]

California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday signed an executive order to clear the red tape for renewable projects and streamline permitting and siting of new plants and transmission lines. The order will speed up that state’s adoption of a mandate to supply 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020, Schwarzenegger said. California already […]

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) on Thursday approved an agreement that allows a 1.2-mile portion of the controversial 37.2-mile transmission line proposed in that state by the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Co. (TrAILCo). The commission stayed the rest of Allegheny’s proposal for further consideration. The regulatory body voted 4-1 to adopt a motion (PDF) that […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has granted the last of seven large-scale carbon sequestration project awards to the Big Sky Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, an effort led by Montana State University-Bozeman. The $66.9 million award will allow the partnership to conduct a large-volume test in a Wyoming sandstone formation to demonstrate if it is possible […]

Citing high construction costs and carbon dioxide emissions, the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin last week denied a plan by Alliant Energy Corp.’s Wisconsin Power and Light (WP&L) to build a new 300-MW coal-fired electric generation facility. The PSC unanimously decided that the $1.26 billion project was too costly when weighing it against other […]

British Petroleum (BP) has reportedly withdrawn all plans to build wind farms and other renewable projects in the UK, and it has dropped out of a government competition to build a carbon capture and storage plant. The Guardian reports that the company will instead concentrate its $8 billion renewable program on the U.S., attracted to […]