Tag: More
China Ramping Renewables, and Building More Coal Plants
The post China Ramping Renewables, and Building More Coal Plants appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Officials in China in 2017 said the country—the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases—would move away from coal-fired power generation. They promptly canceled more than 100 coal power plant construction projects.
But coal remains king in China, which in the past two years has added 43 GW of coal-fired generation capacity, according to a report released in mid-November by Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Air quality has improved in some parts of the country; the Swiss firm IQAir AirVisual in September said Beijing no longer is among the world’s 200 most-polluted cities, and said particulate levels are at their lowest point since record-keeping began in 2008. But the IQAir report said other areas of China continue to see upticks in pollution as local officials back coal-fired generation in an effort to support economic growth.
A Greenpeace official—the environmental group issues global air quality reports in concert with IQAir—recently said emissions of nitrogen oxide and other pollutants rose last year in northern China’s industrial region as cement and steel production increased to supply a government-backed flurry of construction.…
State Regulators Warn of More Delays at Vogtle
The post State Regulators Warn of More Delays at Vogtle appeared first on POWER Magazine.
A filing by Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) staff and consultants on Nov. 22 said Georgia Power’s expansion of the Vogtle nuclear power plant is falling further behind schedule. The filing Friday came the same day that the utility announced the sixth and last containment ring for the two-unit expansion was set in place.
The PSC filing said the current deadlines for commercial operation of two new reactors are “significantly challenged” amid construction delays. The filing also noted safety risks for workers at the site near Waynesboro, Georgia. Georgia Power has said more than 8,000 workers are currently at the job site.
The Vogtle project is several years behind its original schedule—completion had been expected as early as 2016 when the project was first announced more than a decade ago—and billions of dollars over budget. Officials with Georgia Power and its parent Southern Co. have in the past year pointed to November 2021 and November 2022 as expected dates for the new reactors to enter commercial operation.…
Facility to Make Coal Cleaner, More Efficient, Taking Shape in Wyoming
The post Facility to Make Coal Cleaner, More Efficient, Taking Shape in Wyoming appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Clean Coal Technologies Inc. (CCTI) has begun reassembling a test facility designed to produce a cleaner-burning and more-efficient coal. The coal beneficiation and byproducts extraction plant, first built in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for an initial test of the technology, and then moved to Gillette, Wyoming, is expected to be completely rebuilt in the next few months, a company official told POWER on Oct. 9.
CCTI in 2017 touted its process, saying it had developed “the world’s first commercially viable and scalable coal dehydration technology” designed to upgrade the Btu content of lower-ranking coal “through the extraction of volatile material in liquid form,” ultimately producing a “cleaner burning, dry coal.” The process of improving coal quality is known as beneficiation, a technique in which the quality of raw coal is improved, either by reducing the extraneous matter that is extracted with mined coal, or reducing the associated ash, or both.…
Three More Nuclear Plant Owners Will Demonstrate Hydrogen Production
The post Three More Nuclear Plant Owners Will Demonstrate Hydrogen Production appeared first on POWER Magazine.
FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), Xcel Energy, and Arizona Public Service (APS) will demonstrate hydrogen production at three nuclear plants they own starting in 2020 and 2021. The projects, selected as part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Reactor Development Project funding pathway, aim to improve long-term competitiveness of the nuclear sector as more cheap natural gas and renewable power resources flood power markets.
Funded by the DOE, the demonstrations will take place at FES’ Davis-Besse plant in Ohio, APS’ Palo Verde plant in Arizona, and an Xcel nuclear plant in Minnesota.
The three utility awards, which the DOE announced on Sept. 10 as part of the sixth round of funding under the December 2017-issued U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development funding opportunity announcement (FOA), follow a similar selection of a first-of-its-kind project spearheaded by Exelon at a still-to-be determined existing nuclear site in an organized power market under the DOE’s H2@Scale concept.…