Construction of what will be the first large-scale commercial carbon capture and storage project in the world began just hours after the Saskatchewan government gave SaskPower the go-ahead on April 26 to build the $1.24-billion plant. The project, at SaskPower's Boundary Dam coal plant, is notable not only for its size but also because it is moving forward at a time when other CCS projects are not because of CCS's high cost. Photo:Courtesy Of SaskPower SaskPower started work last month on the $1.24-billion job at its Boundary Dam coal plant. Mike Monea, a vice president of Sask- Power responsible for
Ten capped landfills will be reused as solar fields under an agreement between Cape & Vineyard Electric Cooperative, located in Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, and American Capital Energy, North Chelmsford, Mass. The 18.3-MW project on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, the largest of its type in New England, is expected to produce 22,500 MWh per year, enough energy to power 3,132 Cape and Vineyard homes, according to the cooperative. Energy produced from the project will provide about 1.1% of electric power for cooperative customers. A construction date for the $83-million project has not yet been scheduled. The federal government
Utilities in the Southeast are rebuilding the electricity grid after deadly tornadoes and storms damaged powerplants as well as transmission and distribution lines. Photo: Courtesy TVA TVA crews scramble to restore more than 90 transmission lines that were knocked down. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that 226 tornadoes touched down between April 27 and April 28, leaving a swath of destruction and 334 dead. Hardest hit within the energy infrastructure system were utilities in Tennessee, northern Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. The Tennessee Valley Authority alone has 4,000 employees and contractors working on repairs. By May 3, TVA crews
It's too early to say whether the Japanese will need their version of Chernobyl's $1.4-billion, 29,000-tonne steelwork safe enclosure to clear away their nuclear ruins.
Construction on Chile's largest hydroelectric initiative, the 2,750-MW HidroAysén project, is awaiting final approval by the country's environmental agency, which is expected to respond by next month.
While Japan struggles to stabilize its wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, engineers in Ukraine are only now starting construction of a new enclosure for Chernobyl's fourth reactor, almost exactly 25 years after it exploded and caused immense human and environmental damage in the region and globally. It's too early to say whether the Japanese will need their version of Chernobyl's $1.4-billion, 29,000-tonne steelwork safe enclosure to clear away their nuclear ruins. But the hard lessons learned in the development of Ukraine's $2.2-billion shelter implementation plan following the April, 26, 1986, disaster could give Japan's cleanup a running start. Chernobyl's shelter implementation
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