POWERnews

Italy on Monday overwhelmingly voted to abandon nuclear power after Germany’s cabinet last week backed a controversial policy to shutter that country’s nuclear plants by 2022.

The body of a contract worker trapped when a large boiler structure at the Paul L. Bartow Power Plant on Weedon Island near St. Petersburg, Fla., unexpectedly collapsed was recovered late Monday night, four days after the accident occurred, Progress Energy said.

The Department of Energy in the past week made three more conditional loan guarantee offers: $2 billion to support two concentrating solar power (CSP) projects in California—the Mojave Solar Project in San Bernardino County and the Genesis Solar Project in Riverside County—and a $350 million partial loan guarantee for an Ormat-owned Nevada geothermal project.

Through a combination of actions that encourage the development of untapped geothermal resources and new technologies, geothermal energy could account for around 3.5% of annual global electricity production by 2050 (a considerable increase from current levels of 0.3%) the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in a report released on Tuesday.

American Electric Power (AEP) plans to retire nearly 6 GW of coal-fired capacity and upgrade or refuel another 11 GW as part of an estimated $8 billion plan to comply with a series of regulations proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). About 25 GW of AEP’s 38-GW capacity is coal-fired—making it the biggest […]

An electricity grid policy framework was released at a White House event on Monday at which government and industry representatives discussed the compelling benefits of a modernized grid while hinting at the often intransigent obstacles to making progress toward that goal. In conjunction with the event and release of the policy statement, the Obama Administration announced several public and private initiatives, including $250 million in loans for smart grid technology deployment as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utility Service.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday announced it would take more time to review public comment on draft rules concerning greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and propose the regulations on Sept. 30—instead of July 26 as initially planned. The agency said, however, that it is on track to have final rules ready by May 26, 2012.

A day after Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) doubled estimates of the total amount of radiation released into the atmosphere after an earthquake and tsunami ravaged Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the government nuclear watchdog released a 750-page report in which it admits, for the first time, that nuclear fuel may have possibly melted through reactor pressure vessels and accumulated at the bottom of outer containment vessels.

China has formally revoked grants to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers that agreed to use key parts and components made in China rather than purchasing imports after the U.S. filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO), saying the subsidies were prohibited under international trade rules. The U.S. took action after the United Steelworkers (USW) last September filed a trade case alleging that China used “protectionist and predatory” practices to develop its renewable sector at the expense of production and job creation in the U.S.

American Electric Power (AEP) and Duke Energy on Thursday said they would jointly develop a 55-mile, extra-high-voltage transmission project with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Indiana and Kentucky.