POWERnews

As of May 16, the Department of Energy (DOE) will no longer collect the one-tenth-of-a-cent fee per kilowatt-hour of power generated by nuclear plants that was set by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.  In a letter dated May 12, the DOE notified generators storing spent nuclear fuel that is meant to be disposed of […]

The $930.7 million proposal by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to recover 90% of its budget authority through licensing, inspection, and annual fees to be charged to U.S. nuclear generators in fiscal year (FY) 2014 is a 7.7% hike from the year before, but it is “unjustified,” given the decline in the number of operating […]

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday announced his office would propose legislation that would require electric and gas utilities to assess and document their systems’ vulnerability to climate change. Though Schneiderman hasn’t yet set a date for when his office will propose the state bill, the legislation is likely to establish a framework […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) released a report on May 21 highlighting progress at five concentrating solar power (CSP) projects in the southwestern U.S. In the report, “2014: The Year of Concentrating Solar Power,” three DOE-supported technologies are featured: parabolic trough, power tower, and thermal storage. The DOE has helped finance the large-scale deployment of […]

Ending a decade of often-contentious negotiations, Russia and China on May 21 signed a 30-year, $400 billion deal that will initially send around 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year to Chinese markets, with plans to later expand that to 60 bcm/yr as pipeline capacity expands. The agreement was finalized by Chinese President Xi […]

For the first time ever, the U.S. has filed criminal charges against known state actors for hacking U.S. interests. A grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania indicted five Chinese military hackers for computer hacking, economic espionage, and other offenses directed at six American victims in the U.S. nuclear power, metals, and solar products […]

While the rainfall has stopped for now, the risk of flooding continues for the Nikola Tesla coal-fired power plant located on the Sava River near Obrenovac, Serbia (Figure 1). 1. Flooding from the Sava River has affected many parts of Obrenovac, Serbia. Courtesy: EPS The 1,502-MW “A” plant (Figure 2) has six units and is […]

A final rule released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today will affect cooling water intake structures at 544 U.S. power plants and provide those plants with lower-cost compliance options than previously proposed to reduce fish impingement and entrainment. The final rule issued under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act applies to facilities that […]

The U.S. Department of Commerce on May 13 awarded the Distribution Wind Energy Association (DWEA) a two-year grant to develop a roadmap to identify common manufacturing gaps for distributed wind equipment. The $488,634 grant from the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) calls on DWEA to form the “Strategies for Manufacturers Advancing Research and […]

Duke Energy Florida will retire five coal-fired units in response to environmental rules, but it plans to replace them with new gas-fired generation, including a $1.5 billion combined cycle plant in Citrus County that could come online as soon as 2018, the company said on Tuesday. Duke Energy’s Florida-based subsidiary said it would retire Units […]