POWERnews

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a determination on Wednesday that finds construction of Cape Wind’s 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, Mass., would pose no hazard to air navigation. The decision was issued as a congressional House committee probes whether the FAA disregarded safety concerns when it issued a prior approval of the nation’s first offshore wind project.

A new report from the Department of Energy (DOE) highlights sizeable increases in U.S. wind power capacity and recent improvements in the cost and performance of wind power technology, but it says the U.S. continues to trail several countries in wind energy penetration and warns that the industry is facing "serious federal policy uncertainty" looking into 2013 and beyond.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Monday ruled 2-1 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overstepped its authority in disapproving Texas’s Flexible Permit Program and that reasons the agency offered for rejecting the program were "arbitrary and capricious."

A report that examines and compares sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions of the 100 largest power producers in the U.S. based on 2010 generation numbers says those companies produced 88% of the nation’s total power plant emissions of those pollutants.

A fire sparked by a conveyor belt at a coal-fired power plant in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu has killed four workers and seriously injured four others, news media reported on Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday announced that 106 projects in 29 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico would receive $8.7 million in loans and grants to produce renewable energy and make energy efficiency improvements under the federal agency’s Rural Development’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).

Review of the TransWest Express, a 725-mile transmission line running from Cheyenne, Wyo., to Las Vegas, Nev., has been delayed at least six months, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said last week. Developers of the Tres Amigas Superstation in New Mexico are meanwhile, reportedly tackling funding troubles, while U.S. grid operator PJM Interconnection formally announced it would axe the $1.8 billion PATH transmission line.

Seven solar and wind energy projects with a total nameplate capacity of 5 GW in Nevada, California, Arizona, and Wyoming will be expedited under President Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Black Hills Corp. (BHC) is the latest power company to announce slated closures at fossil fuel–fired power plants. The company’s subsidiary Black Hills Energy/Colorado Electric will suspend operations at its 42-MW W.N. Clark coal-fired power plant in Cañon City, Colo., and natural gas–fired steam units 5 and 6 in Pueblo, Colo., by the end of 2012. Another subsidiary will shut down the 25-MW Ben French power plant in Rapid City, S.D., by Aug. 31, 2012, as well as the 34.5-MW Osage and 22-MW Neil Simpson 1 coal-fired power plants on Mar. 21, 2014. The company cited “environmental regulations” and changing energy demands as reasons for the measures.

An explosion in the B coal bunker at Kansas City Power and Light’s (KCP&L’s) 651-MW Iatan  Power Plant Unit 1 near Weston, Mo., on Wednesday morning required the brief evacuation of 250 personnel onsite at the facility. No employees or contractors were injured, and the fire was quickly contained, the company said.