POWERnews

New wind energy installations in the U.S. plunged to just 1,210 MW in the second quarter of 2009—falling to less than half of the 2,790 MW of new installations reported for the first quarter of this year—according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

More consumers would buy electric vehicles if the battery could be leased on a pay-per-mile service contract, argues a new study from the University of California at Berkeley.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works last week continued a series of hearings that assesses how proposed energy and climate change legislation could impact industry and economy. Last week’s hearing was titled, “Ensuring and Enhancing U.S. Competitiveness while Moving toward a Clean Energy Economy.”

India on Monday pledged to designate two nuclear energy park sites  for development by U.S. companies—likely Westinghouse Electric Co. and GE-Hitachi—as part of its civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement with the U.S. Before the deals—worth an estimated $10 billion—to develop nuclear power plants are signed, however, the U.S. will need to overcome several hurdles.

The UK government has approved MGT Power’s proposed £500 million Tees Renewable Energy Plant, paving the way for construction to begin. When completed in late 2012, the 295-MW baseload plant in Teesport, near Middlesbrough, will be one of the largest biomass plants in the world.

TransAlta Corp. on Monday launched a hostile takeover bid of C$653.7 million (C$1.5 billion in enterprise value) for renewables giant Canadian Hydro Developers, offering shareholders C$4.55 per share in cash. The energy giant said that the move followed a seven-month failed effort to negotiate an acquisition transaction with Canadian Hydro.

Southern Co. has partnered with the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB) to inject carbon dioxide captured from Alabama Power’s Plant Barry into a 9,000-feet-deep saline reservoir north of Mobile, Ala.

Energy storage in the U.S. received another boost this week as two flywheel energy storage companies reported milestones, and KEMA briefed the U.S. Congress on policy issues that could impact the development and adoption of electricity storage technologies and applications.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) last week signed an agreement with three Chinese companies to develop and demonstrate the use of thorium fuel and to study the commercial and technical feasibility of its full-scale application in CANDU reactors like the twin CANDU 6 that are being built in Qinshan III, southwest of Shanghai.

A federal appeals court last week struck down parts of a 2005 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule governing power plant and factory pollution in areas where levels exceeded the federal 8-hour ozone standard. Also last week, an agency official told a Senate panel that the EPA was quickly moving forward to replace the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) and Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR).