POWERnews

French nuclear giant AREVA on Monday said it had acquired 100% of Ausra, a major U.S.-based provider of large-scale concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. The acquisition marks AREVA’s foray into solar power. The company already has major offshore wind and biomass ventures.

Investigative efforts continue into the cause and origin of Sunday’s catastrophic explosion that killed five workers and injured 27 others at Kleen Energy System’s natural gas–fired plant being built at a remote location in Middletown, Conn.

Exelon Corp. last week said it intends to join the FutureGen Alliance, a consortium developing a 275-MW integrated gasification combined cycle power plant with carbon capture in Matoon, Ill.

The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) on Monday said it had received pledges from 55 countries to limit and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020. The international climate change body said the countries together accounted for about 78% of global GHG emissions from energy use.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week voted to approve interpretive guidance that calls for disclosure of climate-related business risks. These include the anticipated impact of climate change on assets and financial risks associated with compliance costs for existing and pending regulations.

The Brazilian government granted an environmental license to the controversial 11,000-MW Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rainforest on Monday in hopes that the $17 billion project will help the country cope with growing demand.

President Barack Obama emphasized the role of nuclear power, offshore oil and gas exploration, and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in his first State of the Union speech last week. The proposed $28.4 billion Fiscal Year 2011 budget for the Energy Department released by the White House this week could provide a much-needed boost to these and other measures.

The Supreme Court last week refused to review a February 2009 ruling by a federal court that blocked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from asserting its power to override transmission decisions made by states.

A technical study released by the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) last week shows that shifting 20% or more of the Eastern Interconnection’s electrical load to wind energy by 2024 is technically feasible, but it would require significant expansion of the transmission system and system operational changes.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week said it would take a fresh look at regulatory policies to integrate variable renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, or non-storage hydro generating plants into the nation’s power grid while maintaining power system reliability.