POWERnews

The 365-MW Powder River Basin coal–fired Wyodak Power Plant near Gillette, Wyo., shut down last Friday after one of its 140-foot-tall scrubber vessels sustained significant structural damage.

In a statement last Thursday, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) recommended that power plants and industry discontinue the gas venting practice that resulted in the massive explosion on Feb. 7 at the Connecticut Kleen Energy plant, which was not yet online.

Concentrix Solar, a German supplier of concentrator photovoltaic systems, announced on Feb. 24 that it has signed a contract with Chevron Technology Ventures for the deployment of a 1-MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be installed at a Chevron Mining facility in Questa, New Mexico.

On Tuesday, Sweden’s enterprise minister, Maud Olofsson, announced in an editorial in Dagens Nyheter that his country would build 2,000 new wind turbines in 10 years for a total added capacity of 10 TWh by 2020. Sweden currently has the largest percentage (about 20%) of renewable energy in Europe and has a goal of supplying at least 50% of its energy from renewables by 2020.

While nuclear power is taking one step forward and two steps back in the U.S. (see top two stories), several other nations, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, are lining up to build new—or their first—reactors.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson defended the science behind the agency’s so-called “endangerment finding” at a Senate hearing on Tuesday—the day after she told coal-state lawmakers that the agency could begin phasing in permit requirements controlling greenhouse gases emitted by large stationary sources beginning in 2011.

The UK’s nuclear safety and security regulator last week raised a regulatory issue against Westinghouse’s AP1000 nuclear reactor design, saying it was not satisfied that the modular construction methodology could protect the third-generation pressurized water reactor from severe weather or physical impact. The finding comes on the heels of a similar issue raised by the […]

A $1 billion settlement negotiated by CPS Energy and Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) last week ended a bitter legal dispute between the companies and could allow the proposed nuclear expansion of the South Texas Project (STP) near Bay City, Texas, to proceed.

The Department of Energy on Monday conditionally offered California solar company BrightSource Energy more than $1.37 billion in loan guarantees to support construction and start-up of three utility-scale concentrated solar power plants (CSP) in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California.

A draft bill being circulated by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) seeks to create a federal clean electricity standard that could require utilities to supply 13% of electricity from “clean” sources by 2012, reach 25% in 2025, and 50% in 2050.