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Exelon Gets Its Christmas Wish—Illinois Legislation Will Save Nuclear Plants

December 4, 2016

After a lengthy process of give and take, the Illinois Legislature approved the Future Energy Jobs Bill (SB 2814) on December 1, the last day of the state’s veto session.

The bill will now go to Gov. Rauner (R) for his signature, which is expected. Once signed, it will take effect on June 1, 2017, a concession that was made to reduce the number of votes required for passage. Even with the change, the bill passed with only three votes to spare in the House and two extra votes in the Senate.

Nuclear Plants Rescued

Exelon predictably praised the bill. The power company claims SB 2814 will maintain competitive electric rates in Illinois, while preserving and creating good-paying jobs and spurring billions of dollars in investment in clean energy and energy efficiency.

But those items weren’t quite what Exelon was fighting for in its effort to push the bill through the General Assembly. It was desperate for the $ 235 million the bill will allow it to collect from customers annually to keep its Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants open.…

Paducah Laser Nuclear Enrichment Facility Gets Fuel but Not Formal Construction Decision

November 12, 2016

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While GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) confirmed it hasn’t made a formal decision to proceed with licensing or construction of a laser enrichment facility at Paducah, Ky., the Department of Energy (DOE) announced it has agreed to sell depleted uranium to the company over a 40-year period to help produce nuclear power plant fuel.

The DOE said that GLE would finance, construct, own, and operate the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility proposed for a site near the DOE’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in western Kentucky. The commercial facility is expected to use, under a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license, depleted uranium to produce natural uranium, which will then be used for production of fuel for U.S. civil nuclear reactors. The agreement provides for the sale of about 300,000 metric tons of DOE-owned high-assay uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) inventories for re-enrichment using proprietary SILEX technology to produce natural-grade uranium.

Yet, as a GE Power spokesperson told POWER on November 11, GLE “has made no formal decision to proceed with licensing or construction of the facility.”…

Largest Wind Turbine Contest Gets Another Entrant

July 9, 2016

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Siemens on July 5 entered the competition for the largest wind turbine in the world with an upgrade of its SWT-7.0-154 model. The new SWT-8.0-154 turbine boosts power output over the earlier model through upgraded magnet technology. Other components remain largely the same over the earlier model and the smaller SWT-6.0-154 turbine, Siemens said.

The firm thus joins two others offering 8-MW wind turbines: MHI Vestas and Gamesa and Areva’s joint venture Adwen. Deciding which model is “largest” depends on how one defines the term, though. All are rated at 8 MW, but the MHI Vestas V164 has a larger rotor diameter at 164 meters (m) than the 154-m Siemens model.

Adwen’s AD-180 has the largest rotor diameter—at 180 m—of any commercially available design, but none have yet been constructed. Adwen and Danish firm LM Windpower completed the first AD-180 blade in June, each of which is just over 88 m long (Figure 1). The blades will be used for the AD-180 prototype planned to be built at a site in Germany later this year.…