POWERnews

American Electric Power’s (AEP’s) long-awaited validation of advanced carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies at its Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, W.Va., was formally kicked off on Friday. The project is being watched closely around the world because it will be the first to capture carbon dioxide from a pulverized coal-fired power plant as well as inject it into a permanent storage site more than 7,800 feet underground.

Participating utilities pulled the plug on a fully permitted project to build the $1.6 billion Big Stone II coal-fired power plant near Millbank, S.D., on Monday, saying they could not find new backers necessary to build the 500-to-600-MW facility.

The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) said on Friday it would permit Constellation Energy’s sale of 49.99% of its nuclear business to French group Electricité de France (EDF) for $4.5 billion if Constellation subsidiary Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. agreed to pay $100 rebates to its customers and invested $250 million to control power rate increases.

Speaking yesterday at the opening of Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Fla.—the largest of its kind in the U.S.—President Barack Obama announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history.

A DOE public affairs contact confirmed to POWERnews on Tuesday that the department has canceled a planned second round of funding opportunities for smart grid–related projects. Initially, the DOE had planned to fund projects with American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) money spread over three rounds. Announcement of the third round’s cancellation was made at GridWeek in September, where it was also announced that the second round was being assessed.

The first legislative hearing on the 923-page Kerry-Boxer climate change and energy bill kicked off on Tuesday at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, with four prominent Obama administration officials making the case that failure to act now on climate change could affect U.S. standing in the global economy. Moderate committee members, meanwhile, criticized the legislation, signaling a tough battle ahead.

A settlement reached between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and health and environmental groups on Friday commits the agency to set pollution standards that limit air pollutants such as mercury and soot emissions from the nation’s coal- and oil-fired power plants by November 2011.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that 14 individuals who filed a class-action lawsuit against insurance, coal, and chemical companies can seek relief for property damages resulting from Hurricane Katrina. The court cited a Sept. 21 ruling, Connecticut v. AEP, by a federal court that allowed plaintiffs to sue coal-burning utilities for creating a “public nuisance” through their emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases. It is the second decision to allow a climate change–related public nuisance lawsuit to move past the pleading stage.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Siemens Energy Inc. last week formally commissioned a new 2.3-MW Siemens wind turbine at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center. The turbine is the centerpiece of a multiyear project to study the performance and aerodynamics of a new class of large, land-based machines—in what will be the biggest government-industry research partnership for wind power generation ever undertaken in the U.S., NREL said.

A new report from the National Academy of Sciences finds that in 2005, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter emitted by 406 coal-fired power plants—representing some 95% of the nation’s coal-fired generation—caused about $62 billion in “hidden” costs, or damages not reflected in market prices of electricity.