POWERnews

A federal court on Friday ruled that collection of a fee by the Department of Energy that totaled nearly $750 million a year from nuclear generators for nuclear waste disposal since 1983 was “legally defective” because development of the Yucca Mountain permanent spent fuel waste facility had been discontinued. But in lieu of suspending the fee, the court ordered the DOE to conduct a reevaluation of the Nuclear Waste Fund within six months.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week issued a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) as a supplement to its April 2011 proposed rule for cooling water intake structures at all existing power facilities as part of section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act.

A report released on Friday by consultants at the Brattle Group concludes that tripling peak wholesale power prices in Texas (from $3,000/MWh to $9,000/MWh by 2015), as is being considered by Texas utility commissioners and grid operators to encourage power plant construction in the power-strapped state, would only raise the region’s reserve margin to 10% above peak demand—less than the 13.75% reserve margin recommended by federal regulators.

Nearly three-quarters of the 74 transmission line outages were caused by fallen trees during a snowstorm that hit the Northeast in October 2011 and shut off the lights for more than 3.2 million homes and businesses, concludes a report released jointly by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC).

The growing lack of cooling water resources could decrease power generating capacity in the U.S. by between 4% and 16% and between 6% and 19% in Europe between 2031 and 2060, and the likelihood of extreme drops in generation as a result will almost triple, suggests a new study by European and University of Washington (UW) scientists.

PPL Corp. last week shut down Unit 2 of its Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, Pa., for a planned inspection of its turbine. Unit 1 of the two-reactor plant was shut down after workers in April found cracks similar to damage discovered and repaired in 2011.

Just weeks after the U.S. Commerce Department slapped a 31% tariff on 61 Chinese crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cell producers and exporters, it imposed preliminary duties of as high as 26% on imports of utility-scale wind towers from China.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear a case filed by several states and citizen groups against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that contends that FERC Order 697, issued in 2007 to improve market-based rate regulations, exceeds FERC’s authority under the Federal Power Act (FPA).

Planning reserve margins in California and Texas will be "tight" this summer, and New England generators could face uncertain supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC’s) newly released 2012 Summer Reliability Assessment finds.

Over the next five years, at least eight advanced large-scale demonstration carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects will enter operation—five in North America and three in Europe, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis shows. Leading the pack is Pennsylvania-based Air Products & Chemical’s CCS demonstration at a refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, a project that could be operational as soon as next year.