THE BIG PICTURE: Global Emissions Limits
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With costs for a restart escalating, Japan is considering scrapping its troubled Monju fast breeder nuclear reactor, just as a never-started nuclear plant in the Philippines may get a new lease on life.
Japan Times reported that readying the Monju plant for restart “would cost several hundred billion yen.” Sources said that “a political decision” on decommissioning is likely. The science ministry has been looking for someone to run the 280-MW facility (Figure 1) but has found no takers.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) last year ordered the ministry to come up with a new operator because of the plant’s poor performance. Construction began in 1986, and the plant first went critical in 1994. But a nasty fire caused by a leak of sodium coolant in December 1995 shut the plant down and led to a scandal as the semi-governmental operator at the time tried to cover up the accident.…
Fourteen research and development projects to scale up coal-based advanced combustion power systems and gasification processes and improve costs and endurance of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have won investments of more than $ 28 million from the Department of Energy (DOE).
The Energy Department on August 24 announced it has selected the projects to help “enable cost-competitive, fossil fuel–based power generation with near-zero emissions.”
Projects to Support 10-MW Pilots with Near-Zero Emissions
Three of the 14 projects were selected to complete preliminary designs of 10-MW pilot plants based on advanced combustion systems. The DOE invested $ 3.2 million in pre-project planning for a General Electric (GE) chemical looping combustion pilot plant. It also invested $ 3.3 million for pre-project planning for a flameless pressurized oxycombustion pilot plant spearheaded by San Antonio–based Southwest Research Institute, ITEA, Jacobs, the Electric Power Research Institute, General Electric Global Research, and Peter Reineck. Another $ 3.3 million went to Babcock & Wilcox and The Ohio State University for a front-end engineering and design study for their coal-direct chemical looping pilot plant
Each of the 10-MW pilots will be capable of capturing 90% of carbon dioxide emissions and will contain design features that will be assessed prior to commercial-scale demonstration, the DOE said.…
Although the U.S. and Canada are both aiming for similar greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, the two countries are embarking on decidedly different approaches to reaching their goals, according to a report released on August 23.
IHS Markit—a company that provides information, analytics, and solutions to customers in business, finance, and government—developed the report, titled “The State of Canadian and US Climate Policy.” One reason it cites for the different emissions reduction methods is that the makeup of the power sectors in the two countries is vastly different.
In the U.S., the largest GHG emitter is the electric power generation industry. Historically, coal has been the most prominent fuel source for U.S. electricity production, and it is a heavy GHG emitter. As natural gas supplies have increased and the cost of renewable energy has decreased, replacing coal with these lower- and zero-emitting resources has resulted in a natural decrease in GHG emissions.
Canada, however, gets about 80% of its electricity from resources that have always been low- or zero-carbon emitters, mainly hydropower.…
WEC Energy Group, parent company of We Energies, signed a deal with mining firm Cliffs Natural Resources that will support two natural gas engine plants in the Upper Peninsula (UP) region of Michigan and replace power currently supplied by the coal-fired Presque Isle Power Plant, due to retire in 2020 (Figure 1).
The deal has been in the works for several years, and grows out of discussions with the Michigan state government on future electric supplies for the UP, which themselves grew out of Wisconsin Energy’s acquisition of Integrys Energy Group (WEC was formed out of that acquisition).
Last year, We Energies and the state settled on a series of agreements to change rate structures in the UP while Cliffs agreed to purchase power from Presque Isle until its retirement. The deal on Aug.…
News agencies are reporting that an explosion at a coal-fired power plant in Dangyang, a city in central China, has killed at least 21 people and injured five others, three seriously.
The event is said to have occurred around 3:20 p.m. local time on August 11. The facility—designed to generate thermal power and sell slag, ash, and petroleum products—is owned by Madian Gangue Power Generation Co. Some sources suggested that the plant is in the process of being commissioned and was undergoing testing at the time of the incident.
Steam pipe explosion at central #Hubei , #China power station kills 21, injures 5
pic.twitter.com/syqbBlhKCa— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) August 11, 2016
It has been difficult to establish specifics about the blast. An investigation is said to still be in progress. Initial reports identified the plant as a chemical facility, but it was later determined to be the coal power plant site. Although several sources have suggested that the event was triggered when “a high-pressure steam pipe exploded,” the number of casualties, ensuing fire, and volume of black smoke shown in pictures posted on Twitter that are said to be of the event, suggest that something much more explosive initiated the incident.…