POWERnews

ICF International, a consultancy group that earlier this year had predicted 68 GW of coal-fired power plants could retire by 2030 as a result of finalized and proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on Monday downgraded its retirement projections to 50 GW.

Sixty projects in 25 states were awarded a total of $156 million on Thursday under the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) agency. They focus on accelerating innovations in clean technology while increasing America’s competitiveness in rare earth alternatives and breakthroughs in biofuels, thermal storage, grid controls, and solar power electronics.

Ameren Energy Resources (AER) Co. on Tuesday announced it would shutter its coal- and oil-fired Meredosia and Hutsonville energy centers in Illinois by 2011, citing concerns about rising costs related to the compliance of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR).

Just weeks ago, President Obama signaled he would veto the TRAIN Act—a bill that could indefinitely delay implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution and the utility MACT rules. This week, the White House said that it “strongly opposed” two bills that would delay the compliance period for reducing pollution from industrial boilers, solid waste incinerators, and cement plants.

California’s Supreme Court last week gave the state’s Air Resources Board (ARB) the green light to proceed with a statewide cap-and-trade program that seeks to cut California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday extended a construction permit for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) unfinished Unit 1 reactor at the Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala. The agency last week also listed actions Dominion must take before restarting operation of the quake-hit twin-reactor North Anna nuclear power plant near Louisa, Va.

Stirling Energy Systems, the Scottsdale, Ariz., maker of a reflective dish that concentrates sunlight onto a Stirling engine, has reportedly filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy—making it the fourth solar company to fall this year amid the plummeting price of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.

Hours before the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) controversial advanced energy loan guarantee program (funded under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) expired on Friday, the agency finalized seven loan guarantees totaling more than $5.9 billion. Projects include solar power facilities in California, Nevada, and Arizona, and a bioenergy project in Kansas.

Just days before the Energy Department’s advanced energy loan guarantee program funded under 2009 stimulus law is set to expire—and amid an investigation of Solyndra, the California-based solar manufacturer that received the Obama administration’s first loan guarantee—the DOE today finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for the development of a 110-MW concentrating solar power tower facility in Nevada.

The DOE on Friday finalized a partial guarantee for up to a $350 million loan guarantee to support a geothermal power project sponsored by Ormat Nevada. The 113-MW project comprises three geothermal power facilities and could increase Nevada’s geothermal power production by nearly 25% the DOE said.