POWERnews

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.

The U.S. House Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday passed a bill that restores $35 million to the development of the Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear waste repository in Nevada, including $10 million that goes to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to continue its license application.

The latest recipient of a conditional commitment for a $45.6 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy (DOE) is Fotowatio Renewable Venture’s 20-MW alternating current (AC) photovoltaic (PV) solar generating facility.

GenOn has reportedly reached a settlement agreement with environmental groups PennEnvironment and the Sierra Club in a case that alleges the Houston-based company continuously violated its Clean Water Act discharge permit and discharged more than three million gallons of wastewater a day from its 1,700-MW coal-fired Conemaugh Generating Station in Western Pennsylvania into the Conemaugh River.

A report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) today—and presented at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Energy Department’s role in managing civilian radioactive waste—concludes that uncertainties exist about the direction of the nation’s policy for nuclear waste disposal.

Duke Energy will retire two coal-fired units at the four-unit 560-MW Gallagher Station in New Albany, Ind., instead of converting them to natural gas if regulators approve the company’s plans to buy the 640-MW natural gas–fired Vermillion Energy Facility in Cayuga, Ind.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Thursday announced he would withdraw his state by the end of the year from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—a cap-and-trade carbon trading system that involves 10 Northeastern states—because the “program is not effective in reducing greenhouse gases and is unlikely to be in the future,” he said. The governor also said the state would not permit any new coal plants and that it would shut down “dirtier” intermediate and peaker plants.

A Texas state district judge last week remanded an air permit for White Stallion Energy Center’s 1,320-MW coal- and petroleum coke–fired power plant power plant proposed to be built in Matagorda County to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), potentially posing a delay for the $3 billion project.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) last week announced it would take the first step toward issuing the nation’s first lease that would authorize the testing of equipment designed by Florida Atlantic University to use ocean currents offshore Florida to generate power on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

Fifteen states on Monday, led by Texas, filed an opening brief in a legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) finding that greenhouse gases (GHGs) pose a danger to public health and welfare.