Related Links: Secret Study on Nuke Plant Fix May Hold Clue to Duke CEO's Ouster Duke Energy Moves To Become Largest Utility in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineers and Duke Energy Carolinas representatives met on March 25 to discuss the utility's plan to protect the Oconee nuclear station's standby shutdown facility, or SSF, in the unlikely event the Jocassee Dam, located upstream of the station, were to fail catastrophically.In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011, the NRC has been expanding its review of U.S. nuclear units' ability to withstand natural phenomena, including flooding, said commission
Related Links: AREVA (Transnuclear's parent company) website Columbia, Md.-based Transnuclear has developed a training facility in Aiken, S.C., to help workers become proficient in transferring and loading fuel from wet pools to dry-cask storage.The training facility, completed in 2012, is part of Transnuclear's NUHOMS University program, which works with contractors involved in fuel transfers at nuclear facilities and utilities. The facility replicates the equipment and situations workers would encounter on a typical loading campaign.Approximately 40 workers have graduated from one of the program's five-week training sessions, and another 30 have come to the facility for specific training tailored for utilities.
Photo Courtesy of NAES U.S. nuclear powerplants adding spent-fuel storage capacity. Related Links: Transnuclear Facility Trains Workers for Dry Storage Campaigns Cask Storage For Spent Fuel Nuke Waste Disposal Solution Still Elusive The U.S. nuclear-generation fleet's steady, predictable output of spent nuclear fuel and the federal government's inability to establish a permanent geologic repository point to several decades of regular, high-value work for contractors that install dry-cask storage systems for spent fuel.Thanks to a government plan to establish one or more large-scale, consolidated sites for dry storage of spent fuel by the early 2020s, the next few years could be
Photo Courtesy of South Carolina Electric and Gas Continuous pour at V.C. Summer plant was three days ahead of similar effort at Vogtle. Related Links: Vogtle Suppliers Continue to Miss the Mark for Quality Control Vogtle Nuclear Plant Owners Seek Budget Hike, Extend Schedule On March 11, two years after the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, crews at South Carolina Gas and Electric's V.C. Summer Unit 2 marked a more auspicious milestone: the first concrete pour at a U.S. nuclear powerplant in 30 years.Three days later, crews at Southern Nuclear's Vogtle Unit 3 in Georgia completed another pour.
With pipelines to terminals in short supply, North Dakota crude is moving by rail. Related Links: Bakken Oil-Shale Extraction Sparks a Construction Boom North Dakota Is Bakken Business Carbis Inc. Savage Services employment link Over the past month, at defunct oil refineries, industrial facilities and other brownfields on the East Coast, construction work has been accelerating to convert these sites into rail terminals to take crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale formation.The boomlet is gaining momentum. In Eddystone, Pa., Enbridge is turning the site of a shuttered coal plant into a rail terminal able to take delivery of about
Related Links: Geothermal Energy Industry Production and Development 2013 Report Installed geothermal capacity in the United States grew by 5%, or 147.05 MW, since March 2012, according to the Geothermal Energy Association, which released its annual industry update in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26.The growth in 2012 builds on a trend of steady, incremental geothermal growth over the past decade, mainly in the western U.S. According to the Energy Information Agency, geothermal power now accounts for 3.5% of renewable-energy generation in the U.S.But for that trend to continue, the market must surmount a number of obstacles, speakers at the Geothermal
Related Links: Butanol Backers Push Retrofit Effort as Ethanol Boom Fades China Backs Cellulosic Ethanol Producer That DOE Rejected North America’s largest anaerobic digester, which can take in 1,200 tons per day of waste matter, is in the midst of final construction and start-up activities at Western Plains Energy, an ethanol plant in Oakley, Kan. ICM Inc. performed construction services for the project designed by HiMark Biogas, Edmonton, Alberta. It is the highlight of an industrial-technology sector experiencing rapid growth.Using microorganisms, anaerobic digesters capture methane gas from waste streams to power generators and produce heat or even compressed natural gas.
Related Links: Vogtle Suppliers Continue to Miss the Mark for Quality Control Georgia Power's Vogtle Plant Under New Round of Criticism The engineering-procurement-construction contractor building the two-unit, 2,200-MW Vogtle nuclear expansion project in Georgia said March 4 that it "will continue to work with" the project's co-owners on ways to minimize the time it takes to complete the units.Lead co-owner Georgia Power told the Georgia Public Service Commission on February 28 that it now expects the two new nuclear units to begin commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2017 and the fourth quarter of 2018, respectively. Originally, the new
Photo Courtesy of Duke Energy Renewables Wind project got under way in Kansas (above) and Minnesota (below) last year. More are set for 2013. Photo Courtesy of Dennis Schwartz/Mortenson Construction Related Links: Ohio High Court Approves Wind Farm Project Advance Wind-farm construction in the U.S. nearly ground to a halt after ending in a frenzy late last year. But the pace of turbine installation is set to pick up substantially later this year, largely thanks to the recently enacted extension of the federal production tax credit, say utility and wind-sector experts.Frank Maisano, an energy specialist at Bracewell & Giuliani, a
Related Links: ENR's Superstorm Sandy Recovery Jersey Central Power & Light PSEG homepage Two of New Jersey's largest power utilities expect to spend at least $6.5 billion to protect systems from more severe weather after suffering massive damage last fall in Superstorm Sandy.Public Service Electric & Gas, Newark, has asked state regulators to approve a $3.9-billion infrastructure plan for electric and natural-gas systems and also plans to spend $1.5 billion on transmission in the next 10 years. Jersey Central Power & Light, part of First Energy, Akron, Ohio, has applied for a $2.6-billion block grant for storm hardening. "We must
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