In a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to shut some coal-fired generating units and install new or upgraded pollution-control equipment on others to cut air-pollution emissions at 11 of its powerplants. The pollution-control improvements will cost an estimated $3 billion to $5 billion. Under the settlement, announced on April 14, TVA will shut 18 of its generating units, which equal about 16% of its coal-fired electric power capacity. EPA says the measures will cut TVA nitrogen-oxide emissions by 69% and sulfur-dioxide emissions by 67%, compared with 2008 levels. The settlement addresses alleged
Fishermen's Energy, a Cape May, N.J.-based offshore wind energy developer, said April 6 that it has received permits from New Jersey regulators to build a six-turbine, 24-MW wind farm off the Atlantic City coast. Daniel Cohen, president of the firm, says the pilot project “will be the catalyst needed to jump-start” the state's offshore wind industry. A spokeswoman says the firm has received two coastal permits and a water quality certificate and is expecting Clean Water Act approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in May. Transmission line installation is set to begin in December, with the pilot project
The Abu Dhabi-based owner of a planned $11-billion railway network across the United Arab Emirates has selected a Parsons Corp.-AECOM joint venture as the project's program manager, say both company sources who did not wish to be named and published reports in the Middle East. The owner, Etihad Rail Co., formerly Union Railway, has declined requests to confirm either the selection or contract award. The joint venture would replace a team of Parsons and Paris-based SYSTRA, whose PM contract was canceled in January, just two months after Union Railway announced its selection. Reasons for the termination were not disclosed publicly
The disaster set in motion on March 11 by a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in an unlikely place: its spent-fuel pools, where experts speculate that loss of water caused a nuclear reaction among the fuel rods, creating a hydrogen explosion that blew a hole through the pools' relatively flimsy exterior and released radiation into the air. Photo: Courtesy of Nuclear Energy Institute Deep pools, originally designed for temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel rods at powerplant sites, are nearing capacity in the U.S., pushing more utilities to consider dry-cask storage. Photo: Courtesy of Nuclear
In a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to shut some coal-fired generating units and install new or upgraded pollution-control equipment on others to cut air-pollution emissions at 11 of its powerplants. The pollution-control improvements will cost an estimated $3 billion to $5 billion. Under the settlement, announced on April 14, TVA will shut 18 of its generating units, which equal about 16% of its coal-fired electric power capacity. EPA says the measures will cut TVA nitrogen-oxide emissions by 69% and sulfur-dioxide emissions by 67%, compared with 2008 levels. The settlement addresses alleged
The U.S. Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories are teaming with Dow Chemical Co. to fund research projects that develop the next generation of “cool roof” technologies. DOE announced the agreement on April 14. The goal is to develop solar reflective roof coatings that increase energy savings from existing cool-roof technologies by more than 50% for new and existing commercial buildings. The labs will work with Dow to improve the ability of roof coatings to continue reflecting sunlight even after years of exposure to the elements.
A U.S. Energy Dept. facility in Idaho that has stored melted fuel from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant since 1999 has not done enough to address crumbling concrete modules encasing radioactive material, says the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The facility holds damaged fuel from TMI unit 2, whose partial meltdown in 1979 resulted in the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. The concrete modules are “showing significant cracking and degradation,” though they were built to last 50 years, NRC says. DOE has determined the problem is worsening, NRC says. The cracks have no impact on the safe storage of
The U.S. government will formally examine potential failure points of blowout preventers following a four-month-long forensic examination by a Norwegian firm into the failed device on BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in an April 5 conference call. Image: Courtesy of Det Norske Veritass Forensics firm Det Norske Veritas showed that pressure buckled a 5½-in.-dia steel pipe, pushing it off-center and preventing the Macondo well�s blowout preventer from working. Following the well's April 2010 blowout, its blowout preventer (BOP) failed to stop the flow of oil and gas. The report, by Oslo-based Det
As New Orleans' complex $14.6-billion storm-surge risk reduction system—which was federally funded, designed and constructed—races toward substantial completion, local stakeholders now are asking if the federal government will help them maintain it. Photo: Courtesy Of USACE New Complex drives largest interior drainage pump house in the world. The facility is new to the system, as is the O&M bill. Photo: Courtesy Of USACE Complex sector gates on federal waterways are built under emergency provisions that will leave locals footing the O&M bill. Related Links: New Orleans Flood Defenses Detailed With Operations and Maintenance In Mind The U.S. Army Corps of
The federal team investigating last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 men in the Gulf of Mexico will conduct a week of hearings on April 4-8 in Metairie, La., to focus specifically on a forensic examination of the failed blowout preventer on the well. Conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement as well as the U.S. Coast Guard Joint Investigation Team, the hearings follow the March 20 release of a report by Norwegian risk-management specialist Det Norske Veritas on the blowout preventer. DNV tested, examined and investigated the failure of the 50-ft, 300-ton BOP in
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