POWERnews

To meet future demand as well as carbon constraints, the U.S. power industry should by 2030 build 45 new nuclear reactors, increase renewable generation four-fold, decrease electricity consumption 8% through improved end-use efficiency, and deploy 100 million plug-in electric vehicles, according to an updated “Prism and Merge” analyses from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

A new analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) finds that the most carbon dioxide reductions will occur in the electric power sector, mainly through the reduction in use of coal power. But it also finds that compliance with emissions caps that is generated through offsets could exceed actual reductions in covered emissions, and that the average electric customer could face a 20% price hike by 2030.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced last week that it would make available an additional $30 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects. At the same time, it pledged another $750 million in subsidy costs to support projects that increase the reliability, efficiency, and security of the national grid.

Italy’s Enel and Electricité de France (EDF) on Monday sealed a €16 billion deal to jointly develop feasibility studies for the construction of at least four advanced third-generation EPR units in Italy—a country that recently reversed a 21-year-old ban on nuclear power.

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) is reportedly negotiating an energy project with Hydro Quebec and other Canadian entities that could allow the state-owned power organization to import up to 2,000 MW of power from multiple sources, including hydropower, from Canada.

A report released on Tuesday by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) lambasts the publically owned company’s management practices. It says that the breach of a 50-year-old coal ash storage pond and subsequent ash spill at its Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tenn., last December could have been prevented if TVA had heeded 20 years of warnings and taken recommended corrective actions.

Doosan Babcock Energy on Friday switched on what it is calling the “world’s largest” oxyfuel combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in Renfrew, Scotland. The facility will demonstrate that company’s OxyCoal Clean Combustion system for the first time on a full-size 40-MW burner.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday said it had encouraged USEC to withdraw its application for $2 billion in loan guarantee funding for the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The decision has forced the nation’s only domestic uranium enrichment firm to begin demobilizing the project.

U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) last week introduced a bill to encourage the commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology by setting up a program for managing financial risk or liability of the long-term storage of the greenhouse gas.

Canada’s only private nuclear generating company, Bruce Power, plans to withdraw its application to build two new nuclear power plants in Ontario, opting instead to refurbish existing reactors. The decisions reflect the “realities of the market” and are unique to Ontario, the company said last week.