POWERnews

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday appealed a federal court decision handed down on Aug. 21 that vacated the agency’s July 2011–finalized Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) because, the court said, it violated federal law. The EPA is now seeking a rehearing en banc that would involve all eight judges that serve at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Wednesday issued an air quality plan approval for a project to build the state’s first power plant to run at least partially on locally sourced Marcellus Shale gas. Moxie Energy’s proposed 936-MW plant in Asylum Township, Bradford County, uses two power blocks that will each consist of a combustion gas turbine and a steam turbine.

Czech utility ÄŒEZ on Wednesday told AREVA that a bid submitted to build two new EPR units at the Temelín Nuclear Power Plant—a site that already houses two VVER-1000 reactors built in 2000 and 2003—has been disqualified because it failed to fulfill “some other crucial criteria” defined in the tender. The decision, which AREVA said it would appeal, means only Westinghouse and an AtomStroyExport-led consortium remain as contenders for that project contract.

Global nuclear power capacity is expected to grow nearly 25% from current levels to 456 GW by 2030 according to low projections, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano told conference attendees in Kyoto, Japan, on Monday. The Fukushima Daiichi accident was a "big wake-up call" on nuclear safety, but it would not mean "the end of nuclear power," he said as he called on Japan to engage in dialogue about its stated policy to shut down all existing reactors by 2040.

An update to a 2010 analysis on the market and regulatory outlook facing coal-fired power plants in the U.S. from economists at The Brattle Group forsees that 59 GW to 77 GW of coal plant capacity are likely to retire over the next five years—about 25 GW more than previously estimated—due primarily to lower expected natural gas prices.

Repair of the damaged containment structure at Progress Energy’s Crystal River nuclear power plant in Florida will likely hover at $1.5 billion, but it could escalate to as much as $3.5 billion and take eight years to complete in the worst-case scenario, an independent review of a potential repair plan shows.

A bill introduced on Friday by a ranking member of the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee seeks to reform the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Science Advisory Board (SAB) and its sub-panels to deal with concerns about “balance, impartiality, independence, and public participation.”

A settlement proposed by New Mexico’s Environment Department on Wednesday calls for retiring two units at the 1,800-MW San Juan Generating Station located 15 miles west of Farmington, N.M., by December 2017 and installing selective noncatalytic reduction, a less-costly air emissions control technology than one proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on the other two units, 3 and 4. Plant owner PNM Resources  said in statement that it was hopeful the state’s proposal would resolve a long-standing dispute with the EPA to address regional haze.

On Oct. 1, GenOn shuttered its 482-MW coal-fired Potomac River Generating Station as Progress Energy Carolinas retired three coal-fired units—two at the 316-MW Cape Fear plant near Moncure, N.C., and the 177-MW H.B. Robinson Unit 1 near Hartsville, S.C. Utah’s Rocky Mountain Power, a unit of PacifiCorp, meanwhile reportedly warned employees and public officials that it may close its 190-MW coal-fired Carbon Power Plant in northeastern Utah over the next few years because it has no room to install air emissions controls to make it compliant with federal rules by 2015.

The National Park Service on Monday approved a $1.2 billion 500-kV transmission line that will run from the Berwick area in Pennsylvania to Roseland, N.J., a project that developers Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G) and PPL Electric Utilities say will boost electric service reliability and provide a significant economic stimulus to the region.