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Dominion to Seek 80-Year Lifetime for North Anna Nuclear Reactors

November 20, 2017

Dominion Energy will formally ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to relicense its two reactors at the North Anna Power Station for 20 more years—effectively extending their operating lives up to 80 years.

Dominion Energy Virginia notified the federal regulatory body of its intent to relicense the two reactors in Louisa County, Virginia, which it will file in 2020. The company in November 2015 notified the NRC of its intent to seek a 20-year license renewal of its two units at the Surry power station, in southeastern Virginia, during the spring of 2019.

The 1,892-MW North Anna plant’s Unit 1 began commercial service in 1978 and Unit 2 in 1980. The 1,676-MW Surry plant’s Unit 1 began commercial service in 1972 and Unit 2 in 1973. All four units’ licenses were renewed for 20 years in March 2003. The North Anna’s units are currently authorized to operate until between 2038 and 2040. At Surry, the reactors are licensed until 2032 and 2033.…

2017 Will be the Year for North American CCS, Expert Says

February 13, 2017

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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in North America is about to have its year, Julio Friedmann, senior adviser for energy innovation at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said during the February 8 Global CCS Institute’s annual Americas Forum.

“We are just now like fully deployed and hopefully that will finally quash the idea, the persistent pernicious meme that CCS is some kooky technology that isn’t ready for prime time,” Friedmann said.

Coming into 2017, two commercial-scale CCS projects were operational in North America: SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 coal-fired CCS retrofit in near Estevan, Saskatchewan (POWER’s Plant of the Year in 2015), and Shell Canada’s Quest CCS project on an oil sands upgrader in Alberta.

Just more than a month into the new year, an additional CCS project came online in Texas and another in Mississippi is reportedly days from reaching full operation.

Completion of the Petra Nova project, a massive CCS project near Houston, Texas, was announced in the first half of January.…

Idaho Power Pursues Accelerated Depreciation of North Valmy Coal Plant

October 31, 2016

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Idaho Power—co-owner with NV Energy of the two-unit 522-MW North Valmy Generating Station near Battle Mountain, Nevada—filed a request with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (IPUC) last week seeking to accelerate the depreciable life of the power plant from 2031 for Unit 1 and 2035 for Unit 2 to 2025 for both units.

In Idaho Power’s 2015 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the company said its preferred portfolio included retirement of the North Valmy plant at year-end 2025. The timing matched the expected completion date of the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line project, which will add a new connection to the Pacific Northwest. The preferred portfolio included the addition of 60 MW of demand response and 20 MW of ice-based thermal energy storage in 2030, and the addition of a 300-MW combined cycle combustion turbine in 2031.

The 2015 IRP included a 2016 action item to continue working with NV Energy “to synchronize depreciation dates and determine if a date can be established to cease coal-fired operations” at North Valmy Units 1 and 2.…