Seemingly defeating the odds, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved a landmark global-warming bill on June 26 by a 219-212 vote, setting the stage for further action on the bill. But while it has a fair amount of support from a wide range of groups and is a priority of the Obama administration, the bill faces a hurdle in the Senate, where Republicans and moderate Democrats could prevent its passage. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 80% by
Unable to find a buyer and facing expiration in 2010 of their operating permit, the owners of a controversial coal-fueled powerplant shuttered in 2005 will dismantle it starting late this year. The Mohave Generating Station near Laughlin, Nev., had operated since 1999 under a consent decree requiring air-pollution-control retrofits to improve visibility in the Grand Canyon. Photo: Babcock & Wilcox Co Decommissioning costs less than retrofitting to comply with consent decree. Decommissioning, to start in the fourth quarter, will be complete in two years at a net cost of $300 million after the sale of equipment, says Southern California Edison
After nearly four years of high-octane growth, the petroleum industry has abruptly reversed course as the collapse of the global financial crisis has driven down crude-oil prices and consumer demand, causing oil producers to hit the brakes on a bevy of pipeline, refinery, exploration and storage-facility projects. Photo:Fluor Fluor is executing a $2.2-billion heavy-oil upgrade and expansion project for Marathon Oil Corp. to add considerable processing capacity at its Detroit refinery. Photo: CB&I CB&I is fabricating more than 120 modules for an Illinois refinery expansion that will double the refinery’s capacity to 240,000 bpd. The modules will be shipped and
Although the power market has taken a hit over the past year, not all the news is bad. The Obama administration’s stimulus plan encourages the development of renewable resources and the rebuilding, expansion and modernization of the nation’s power-delivery network. Photo:AEP Wind and other renewable-energy projects gain traction. Photo: SHAW Coal-fired plants face permit obstacles. Related Links: The Top 500 Design Firms: How Long Will the Recession Last? The Top 500 Design Firms Rankings Optimism in Transportation Sector As Stimulus Provides Stability Design Firms Brace as Bottom Falls Out of Building Market Telecommunications Picks Up While Manufacturing Flounders Global Financial
The joint tenders committee of Israel’s National Infrastructure and Finance Ministries has issued an international prequalifiying tender for an offshore liquefied-natural-gas receiving terminal. The build-own-transfer tender is one of the largest issued in recent years by the by the State of Israel. The target date set for the operation of the terminal is October 2013. The decision to proceed with the terminal is part of the government’s policy to guarantee natural gas supplies to the local economy which has been rapidly switching to gas in recent years. “The tender is for the construction, operation and maintenance of the LNG terminal
A sprawling reservation in southern Ohio long associated with the nuclear industry has been selected as the site for construction of Ohio’s third nuclear powerplant. If the project goes forward, it will be one of only a few nuclear plants in the U.S. proposed for a greenfield site. Duke Energy, Charlotte, N.C.; AREVA and USEC Inc., both of Bethesda, Md.; UniStar Nuclear Energy, Baltimore; and the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, Piketon, Ohio, have formed an alliance to develop the country’s first so-called Clean Energy Park on the site in Piketon where USEC’s Portsmouth Gaseous-Diffusion Plant enriched uranium for powerplant fuel
Smart-grid development advanced on June 18 with the release of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies’ June 18 on standards for the smart grid. The report, prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, Cal-if., is the first of three phases in NIST’s plan to expedite development of the smart grid. NIST will accept public comments for 30 days after publication of a notice in the Federal Register announcing the report’s availability, then establish priorities, standards and action plans by early fall.
The U.S. Energy Dept. says it will build a flagship clean-coal powerplant in Illinois, reversing a previous Bush administration move to scrap the ambitious FutureGen project in favor of smaller carbon-capture and -storage projects (CCS) around the U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his industry partner, the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, a group of 20 leading power utilities and coal companies, reached agreement on the project: a 275-MW integrated gasification combined-cycle powerplant that could cost between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion. The plant will be sited in Mattoon, Ill., 180 miles south of Chicago, and will be the first commercial-scale, coal-fired
Citing a need for smaller and more affordable nuclear reactors, Babcock & Wilcox Co. is developing a self-contained, modular 125-MW nuclear reactor to be built in its U.S. plants and shipped by rail to construction sites. B&W would like to secure turnkey contracts with utilities to manufacture and install the reactors, says Christofer Mowry, president and chief executive officer of the new Lynchburg, Va.-based division of Babcock & Wilcox, B&W Modular Nuclear Energy LLC. Photo: The Babcock & Wilcox Co. Four reactors combine for 500 MW. An array of the 15-ft-dia x 75-ft-tall modules could create small and mid-sized nuclear
By 2016, a solar satellite could begin beaming up to 4,000 MW a year via microwave to a receiving station in Fresno, Calif., now that Solaren Corp. has signed a 200-MW power sales contract with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Solaren, Manhattan Beach, Calif., is still designing the system, but plans call for an array of geosynchronous orbiting mirrors several miles wide to focus sunlight onto photovoltaic cells. An amplifier will convert the electrical power into a microwave beam aimed at a ground receiving station in Fresno County, where it will be converted to AC power and fed into the
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