Construction on Chile's largest hydroelectric initiative, the 2,750-MW HidroAysén project, is awaiting final approval by the country's environmental agency, who is expected to respond by next month. HidroAysén—a joint venture between Chilean power utilities Empresa Nacional de Electricidad SA and Colbun SA—submitted its environmental impact assessment on April 15. A decision by the Chilean government on the environmental license for the project is expected in May. HidroAysén involves construction of five powerplants with an installed capacity of 2,750 MW; the project is located on the Baker and Pascua rivers in the Aysén region of Chile. Transporting the power from Patagonia

Reliance Power Ltd. has selected Black & Veatch to design the Samalkot, India, powerplant. The 2,500-MW plant will be located in Andhra Pradesh state, about 400 miles north of Chennai. The plant will comprise three power blocks, each consisting of two 9FA General Electric natural-gas combustion turbines, two heat-recovery steam generators and one steam turbine. Each block will have a capacity of 833MW. The plant will be fueled primarily by local natural-gas reserves. The plant will be built by Reliance Infrastructure, a subsidiary of the Reliance Group, as is Reliance Power Ltd. Construction is expected to be completed in 2012.

Five weeks into the Fukushima nuclear powerplant crisis, Tokyo Electric Power Co. on April 17 announced a road map leading to a cold shutdown that will minimize radioactive emissions and allow emergency evacuations around the plant to be lifted. The six- to nine-month plan calls for building new cooling systems as well as enclosures for four damaged reactors while limiting worker exposure to high radiation. “[The work is] very challenging because of the radiation levels,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., who is following the crisis. The nine-month schedule, he believes, “is

The value of the U.S. solar power market soared last year as several states, including New Jersey, significantly boosted installed capacity, according to a recent study by the Solar Energy Industries Association and market research firm GTM Research. Federal, state and, in some cases, local incentive programs and funding initiatives helped raise total year-over-year market value 67%, to $6 billion, the study shows. Market news was healthy nationwide as 16 states each installed more than 10 MW of photovoltaics, up from four in 2007. New Jersey, however, already has surpassed that amount and ranks second nationwide, trailing only California in

As Tokyo Electric Power Co. on April 17 released its plans to bring its Fukushiyma Daiichi reactors under control and protect the area from radiation, U.S. engineering and construction companies are working with Japanese partners to help TEPCO deal with the immediate problems and craft a long-term solution for the damaged plant. TEPCO's nine-month plan sets goals: to maintain the cooling of the reactors, install storage and decontamination facilities, remove debris, install a concrete cover over the damaged reactors and solidify the contaminated soil. San Francisco-based Bechtel, Charlotte, N.C.-based Babcock & Wilcox, and Baton Rouge, La.-based The Shaw Group, all

New Hampshire landowners are fighting the Northern Pass project, a $1.1-billion transmission line designed to import a reliable source of renewable hydropower from Canada into New England, where transmission and generation are constrained. Developers of the 180-mile line recently agreed to remove five alternatives for the line and focus on routes that would use existing rights-of-way south of Groveton, N.H., as well as a preferred route and several alternatives to the north that would require new rights-of-way. In an April 12 filing with the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Northern Pass officials successfully obtained an extension until June 14 to identify

Cape Wind Associates plans to begin construction this fall on its controversial 454-MW wind farm in Nantucket Sound after receiving final approval for its construction and operating plan on April 19 from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The farm, which should take about two years to build, has been in the works for more than 10 years and was fought by environmentalists and residents of Cape Cod. Cape Wind is still evaluating bids for construction of the farm, estimated to cost $2.5 billion. The project, about five miles off the Massachusetts coast, will consist of 130

As drivers travel down Route 6 through Mansfield, Pa., they quickly realize something has changed about the rural town. Trailers for energy companies are popping up like mushrooms, and traffic has become increasingly snarled as trucks carrying material to and from natural-gas drilling sites share the road with local cars. It's not quite a boomtown, but it is certainly changing, and the transformative agent over the past two years has been the discovery of an estimated 500 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas locked in the Marcellus Shale Formation some 5,000 to 8,000 feet below the earth's surface. The

As Tokyo Electric Power Co. continues to battle the problems at its Fukushima Daiichi powerplant—on April 11 it reported another hydrogen explosion at Unit 1—the firm and the country are beginning to prepare for cleanup and reconstruction. At a World Economic Forum on Global Risks, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that the regions hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami will be rebuilt as early as possible to withstand natural disaster. “We will create ecotowns that are fully equipped with district heating, utilizing plant matter and biomass from the region and cultivating features of communities that thoroughly

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