POWERnews

Federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development, fund environmental studies, open new solar energy permitting offices, and speed reviews of industry proposals, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said on Monday.

GE Energy and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) last week agreed to co-develop a “next generation” steam turbine for use in gas turbine combined-cycle power plants. If successful, the parties will separately manufacture and sell the co-developed steam turbine.

An Arkansas appeals court last week overturned on technical grounds a key decision by the state regulators that authorized construction of Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s (SWEPCO’s) 600-MW John W. Turk Jr. coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County—the nation’s first ultrasupercritical project. SWEPCO on Monday filed an appeal with the Arkansas Supreme Court and said it would continue the plant’s construction because delays could prove costly.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed by a narrow vote of 219–212 a mammoth climate change and energy bill on Friday that, among other things, seeks to establish a carbon emissions reduction goal, a cap-and-trade program, and a federal renewable energy standard. The bill now heads to the Senate.

The Ontario government has suspended a 10-year multibillion dollar nuclear upgrade project to replace two reactors at the Darlington site, citing pricing and uncertainty regarding the future of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), Canada’s sole bidder.

Exelon, the largest nuclear power generator in the U.S., has suspended plans to build a proposed two-unit nuclear plant in Victoria, Texas, because of uncertainties in the domestic economy and limited federal loan guarantees.

The breach of a 50-year-old coal ash storage pond and subsequent ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tenn., last December was caused by a rare and complex combination of conditions, a six-month independent engineering study has found. These included the existence of an unusual bottom layer of ash and silt, the high water content of the wet ash, the increasing height of ash, and the construction of sloping dikes over the wet ash.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week cleared by a 15–8 vote a broad energy bill that, among other things, would impose a federal renewable energy standard, reaffirm the government’s commitment to nuclear waste disposal, and implement grid cybersecurity measures.

There is no credible pathway toward prudent greenhouse gas stabilization targets without carbon dioxide emissions reductions from existing coal power plants, but the U.S. urgently needs technology options for these plants and policies that incentivize implementation, a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) finds.

Duke Energy is planning a new nuclear power plant at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Portsmouth site in Piketon, Ohio, the company announced with partners AREVA, USEC Inc., UniStar Nuclear Energy, and the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI) on Thursday.