POWERnews

The U.S. Departments of Energy (DOE) and Agriculture (USDA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on Monday the launch of a joint research program to produce high-resolution models for predicting climate change and its resulting impacts.

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) released on March 15 a new study, titled China’s Promotion of the Renewable Electric Power Equipment Industry: Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass, which examines policies put in place by the Chinese government to promote the development of its renewable energy sector.

Last week, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) representatives announced that they intend to approve a draft environmental document related to the expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear power plant. Concern about the environmental impact of the proposed expansion has been a key regulatory obstacle for the project.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspection team that was sent last week to investigate crack indications at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station completed ultrasonic tests on Sunday night that show 12 of the 69 nozzles on top of the plant’s reactor head developed some sort of cracks.

New Jersey’s Gov. Chris Christie decided last week to move $65 million in Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) money to the state’s general fund to help cover budget deficits.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued on Thursday a proposal to standardize the definition of transmission facilities subject to mandatory reliability standards. The commission’s intent is to protect the reliability of the nation’s bulk power system.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a report on Friday that highlights examples of small businesses throughout the clean, renewable energy and environmental management sectors that have received funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which was enacted in February 2009.

A power blackout on Sunday that affected about 90% of Chile’s customers may have been a result of the massively destructive February 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake. The country’s National Emergency Office (Onemi) said that power had been restored to 98% of the country by Monday—within hours of the outage—but the energy minister noted that the system would remain unstable for up to six months.

Last week POWERnews reported that the U.S. Department of Energy had awarded $40 million for preliminary work on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). That was Monday. On Friday, the DOE issued two requests for applications (RFA) for scholarships and fellowships as part of its efforts to recruit and train the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers.

Southern California Edison (SCE) and SunPower Corp. announced last Wednesday that SunPower has won a contract to provide solar technology for generating up to 200 MW, or 80%, of the solar power capacity needed for the utility’s large solar photovoltaic (PV) installation program. The agreement is an indication of the growing importance of aggregating distributed generation resources as an alternative to building large "utility-scale" generating plants.