POWERnews

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.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday put a hold on all final licensing decisions—include those for 19 construction and operating licenses (COLs), 12 license renewals, and one operating license—until the federal body can hash out how it will deal with spent nuclear fuel. The order comes on the heels of an Aug. 3 federal court ruling that puts off a decision on whether to force the NRC to act on the Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear waste repository’s long-pending license application.

Progress Energy Carolinas, which recently became a Duke Energy subsidiary, on Friday said it would accelerate the retirement of its 316-MW Cape Fear coal-fired plant, located near Moncure, N.C., and the 177-MW H.B. Robinson Unit 1 coal-fired plant, located near Hartsville, S.C., due to “pending changes in the environmental regulations and other rising costs for smaller, older technology plants.”

Back-to-back transmission grid failures in India plunged nearly 670 million people—roughly 10% of the world’s population—into darkness on Monday and Tuesday, paralyzing transport networks and crippling the country’s economic ambitions. Larger than both the August 2003 North American blackout and the March 1999 southern Brazil blackout, the unprecedented Indian grid failures are among the world’s worst.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lacks centralized information on New Source Review (NSR) permits typically issued to fossil fuel-fired power plants by states, though the agency has spearheaded enforcement efforts for noncompliance. The report, which concedes that the NSR permitting process is “complex and controversial,” also suggests that a "substantial number" of existing generating units may not have complied with requirements to obtain NSR permits.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week issued a bulletin to all holders of nuclear plant operating licenses in the U.S., alerting them to a potential design vulnerability discovered at Exelon’s Byron Nuclear Generating Station in January that it says "could have damaged the plant’s emergency core cooling system."

Wisconsin Power and Light (WPL) Co. plans to retire three of its oldest and smallest coal-fired generating units and invest $1.4 billion into the company’s generating fleet over the next five years to ensure it will be able to manage "current and emerging environmental regulations," the Alliant Energy Corp. subsidiary announced on Friday.

A lawsuit filed in federal court on Friday by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environment Protection (PDEP) alleges that FirstEnergy’s Little Blue Run Dam coal ash impoundment pond in Beaver County, a facility that stores coal ash from the generator’s 2,470-MW Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pa., has leached heavy metals in drinking water supplies and surface water. A proposed consent decree could force the generator to shut down the impoundment facility.