Related Links: Cost Pressures, Delay Worries Sour Two Southern Co. Projects Vogtle Suppliers Continue to Miss the Mark for Quality Control Nuclear-power boosters have pinned their industry's future on the on-time and on-budget completion of the first new reactors being built in decades in Georgia. Such success, they hope, will erase memories of the over-budget and behind-schedule nuclear construction cycle of 30 years ago.But those expectations may already be falling short.In January, the watchdog groups Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) and Friends of the Earth released a report that highlights perceived problems with the $8.33-billion federal loan guarantee for
Photo Courtesy of Cianbro Corp. Facility built by Cianbro Corp. at the University of Maine, Orono, will test full-length offshore turbine blades. The 87,000-sq-ft building includes a pool in which blade stability will be analyzed in April. Related Links: Maine Surges Forward With Offshore Turbine Plans In Maine, Tidal Power Shows More Promise Maine regulators have approved construction of a 12-MW offshore wind farm, one of two offshore projects developing separate technologies to harness, by 2016, deepwater wind energy from the Gulf of Maine and link it to the state's power network.Despite earlier concerns about the cost impact on ratepayers,
Related Links: First $1.8B Leg of U.S. Offshore Wind Transmission Link Is Set Bechtel Tests the Wind for Great Lakes Alternative Energy Website of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Takoma Park, Md. The third time could be the charm for Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's push to get state legislators to support a 200-MW offshore wind project. Passage of enabling legislation now appears likely as the primary statehouse opponent of two past efforts has exited a key committee.Two bills introduced in the House of Delegates and state Senate on Jan. 28 are substantially identical to legislation that was blocked in the Senate
Photo Courtesy of Cheniere Energy The Sabine Pass, Texas, import terminal was modified to export LNG. Most expansion plans are along the Gulf Coast. Related Links: NERA: Macroeconomic Impacts of LNG Exports From the U.S. (PDF) Under Oil and Gas Price Pressure, It's Back to the Future Following a recently released Dept. of Energy macroeconomic study that concluded exporting natural gas would have an overall positive economic benefit, U.S. contractors are supporting a rush of feasibility and engineering work for potential liquefied-natural-gas, or LNG, export terminals.DOE could begin deciding within a month whether to let developers export LNG to countries
Courtesy BNFL Sellafield complex has some 200 building scheduled for decommissioning. Related Links: URS-Led Team Assumes Control Of U.K.s Sellafield Nuclear Site Owner Separates From Building Team Fees paid by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to the U.S.-led consortium managing decommissioning the U.K.'s giant Sellafield nuclear facility is not “a good deal” for British taxpayers, claims a new report by the influential parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. The average cost charged last year by the Nuclear Management Partners consortium for 16 executives reached $1.1 million with the highest earner costing the NDA $1.9 million. Nuclear Management Partners is effectively winding down remaining operations
Photo Courtesy of Duke Energy Duke Energy is planning to place its Crystal River nuclear plant in a "safe-storage configuration" until final decommissioning, which will take place in 40 to 60 years. Related Links: Cost and Schedule Explosion for Florida Nuclear Plant Repairs Crystal River Plant Fix Central to Duke CEO Ouster Florida, Progress Energy Reach Fix Plan for Crystal River Utility Duke Energy announced on Feb. 5 that it is canceling previous plans to repair its broken Crystal River nuclear plant in Citrus County, Fla. Instead, it will build a new natural-gas powerplant elsewhere in the state to replace
Courtesy of Kinder Morgan Canada Expanded pipeline diameter and parallel lines would enable Kinder Morgan to add more than a half-million barrels per day from Alberta to terminals along the Pacific coast. Related Links: $20-Billion Investment Will Move Oil-Sands Crude South California Fire Marshall Fines Kinder Morgan $500,000 in Walnut Creek Blast New, long-term contracts with oil- producing companies have prompted Kinder Morgan Canada to expand its proposed twinning of its 714-mile Trans Mountain pipeline between Alberta and Burnaby, British Columbia, and increase by nearly seven times the number of tankers it serves at the port of Vancouver. Company President
Related Links: Feds Clear Path For Offshore Wind Offshore Support for Onshore Wind Website of Atlantic Wind Connection/NJ Energy Link The developer of what is touted as the first U.S. offshore wind energy transmission system, to run from Virginia to New York City, has picked Bechtel Group as EPC contractor for the first 189-mile, $1.8-billion leg off the New Jersey coast.Atlantic Wind Connection, a consortium led by internet giant Google, said construction would begin in early 2016 and be built in three phases over a decade. The first phase is to be in service in 2019. Alstom also was named
Mortenson Construction The 200 MW-Prairie Rose Wind Farm in Hardwick, Minn., was completed in November, 2012, just a month before a federal production tax credit was set to expire. The expiring PTC drove construction of a record 12,000 MW of wind farms in 2012. Related Links: Exelon Loses AWEA Membership Over Anti-PTC Stance Booms, Busts Stunt Growth Of Wind Power The wind power industry won a big victory in the "fiscal cliff" bill early this month: a one-year, $12-billion extension of the production tax credit. As important as the extension itself was a change in the extension’s language that allows
Related Links: East Africa Power Transmission Project Ready for Takeoff Efforts To Light Up Africa Gain Momentum South Korea's Daewoo International is expanding its reach in Africa against serious competition from Chinese firms currently dominating a wide spectrum of infrastructure development in the region.The company has signed an agreement with East Africa's leading power generator, Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) for the development of a $1.3-billion thermal power plant on the coast of Kenya.The 600-MW plant will be implemented under a joint venture with Daewoo holding a 60% interest. KenGen, a partially state-owned firm, will hold the remaining stake.The project,
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