POWERnews

A Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) released by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday identifies 17 Solar Energy Zones (SEZs) in six southwestern states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah—totaling about 285,000 acres of public lands, as priority areas for utility-scale solar development.

Princeton, N.J.-based NRG Energy and Houston, Texas-based GenOn on Monday signed a definitive agreement to combine the two companies in a $1.7 billion stock-for-stock tax-free transaction. The merger will create "the largest competitive generator" in the U.S. with a fleet of about 47 GW and assets in the East, Gulf Coast, and West, and a combined enterprise value of $18 billion, the companies said.

A coal dust explosion late on Tuesday at Polish utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna’s (PGE’s) 2.1-GW Turow power plant near Bogatynia in the southwestern part of Poland injured four workers and set off a blaze at three of the plant’s eight units. A team of more than 100 firefighters reportedly responded to the emergency at the facility that produces nearly 7% of power consumed in Poland.

An amended settlement reached with environmental groups will allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to delay by nearly a year issuance of rules that would govern cooling water intake structures at existing power plants and mandate compliance under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act.

Global solar trade tensions escalated on Friday as the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China announced it would launch both anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on imports of solar-grade polysilicon from the U.S. and an anti-dumping probe on South Korean polysilicon imports. Germany on Friday, meanwhile, said it would support its solar industry in anti-dumping action against China.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week handed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) two legal victories over challenges from states and industry, affirming the agency’s revisions to the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and upholding its revised final sulfur dioxide (SO₂) standard.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intends to stay and reconsider new source emission standards contained in its February 2012-finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), a letter from the agency’s assistant administrator, Gina McCarthy, shows.

Since 1977, more than 6,500-MW of nuclear uprates and been approved and many implemented in the U.S.—equivalent to the construction of six new nuclear power plants, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in an update on Wednesday.

A new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a regulatory tactic dubbed “sue and settle rulemaking” to force states to relinquish their authority and accept agency-promulgated plans to mitigate regional haze that are much costlier to implement.

Most steam generator tube wear or tube wall thinning at Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) two-reactor San Onofre Generating Station (SONGS) was less than 20%—far below the 35% wall-thinning limit that would require the tubes to be plugged, data released last week by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shows. Much of the wear was not "unusual," SCE said in a statement.