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
TerrAqua Resource Management's (TARM) new treatment facility in Williamsport, Pa., for wastewater generated from hydrofracking, well development and production was the first of its kind in Pennsylvania and required the firm, a subsidiary of Williamsport, Pa.-based Larson Design Group, to obtain a special “beneficial re-use permit” from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. < Photo: Courtesy of TARM The custom facility contains 96 “frac” tanks to store and keep separate the watercoming from different clients. Related Links: Drilling for Treasure LDG principal Marty Muggleton says TARM saw a need that local sanitary authorities had trouble meeting and stepped in with
The ongoing crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant quickly triggered demands from politicians and activists from California to New York to Germany and elsewhere to shut down aging nuclear reactors, but replacing existing nuclear generation isn't as simple as flipping a switch. At best, taking nuclear powerplants off line might encourage more development of renewable generation and push distributed generation, but only years or decades from now. At worst, taking a nuclear powerplant or two off line could cause spikes in wholesale electricity prices and problems with electric reliability. It's not realistic to prematurely retire nuclear power, says Mark
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