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EPA: Mercury Rules for Coal, Oil Power Units Not ‘Appropriate and Necessary’

December 28, 2018

Because compliance costs to coal- and oil-fired power plants for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) far exceed quantifiable benefits to regulating hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions, the Trump administration has proposed it is not “appropriate and necessary” to regulate HAP emissions from power plants under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), according to a document signed by acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Andrew Wheeler on Dec. 27.

However, the EPA did not propose to remove coal- and oil-fired power plants from the list of source categories regulated under that section of the CAA, which means the 2012-finalized MATS remains in place. The EPA’s proposal, released publicly Dec. 28, is outlined in a revision to the agency’s final supplemental cost finding for MATS, which was required by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2015.

The agency on Friday also made public proposed results of the long-awaited MATS risk and technology review (RTR). The separate evaluations of risk and technology are required under CAA Section 112 every eight years after final HAP standards go into effect to determine if new developments should be incorporated into the standards.…

Trump EPA Scraps CCS as BSER for New Coal Units

December 14, 2018

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has significantly relaxed requirements needed to build new coal-fired power units in the U.S.

The revisions proposed on December 6 for performance standards governing carbon dioxide emissions from new, reconstructed, and modified coal power units respond to the Trump Administration’s Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth, which directed the EPA and other agencies to review existing regulations and revise or rescind “those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources beyond the degree necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.”

Among the proposal’s key changes to the Obama administration’s 2015-finalized New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) are that they drop partial carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the best system of emission reduction (BSER) for new coal units, citing “high costs and limited geographic availability of CCS.”

Instead, for new units, the EPA proposed limits for CO₂ emissions based on “the most efficient demonstrated steam cycle in combination with the best operating practices.”…

Siemens Combining Business Units as Part of New Strategy

August 13, 2018

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Siemens reported a 2% rise in industrial profit for its fiscal third quarter on August 2, topping analyst forecasts, though the German engineering giant also reported that revenue for the quarter dropped 4%. The earnings report comes as the company prepares to implement a new strategy that cuts its number of business divisions.

The company announced management changes ahead of the October 1 start of its Vision 2020+ plan, which replaces the company’s Vision 2020 outline adopted in 2014. Under the new plan, whose beginning coincides with the start of the company’s next fiscal year and is scheduled to be in place by the end of March 2019, Siemens’ five industrial divisions will be combined into three operating companies.

The company said the three operating entities—Gas and Power, Smart Infrastructure, and Digital Industries—will give its individual businesses “more entrepreneurial freedom.” The new units will work with what Siemens calls its Strategic Companies, which include Siemens Gamesa, Siemens Healthineers, and the planned Siemens Alstom train unit.…

First AP1000 Nuclear Units Reach Key Milestones

June 23, 2018

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Two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants being constructed in China have successfully completed significant project milestones.

Sanmen Unit 1—the world’s first AP1000 reactor—achieved initial criticality on June 21. Initial criticality is a nuclear industry term meaning the reactor’s neutron population has remained steady from one generation to the next and the nuclear fission chain reaction is self-sustaining for the first time.

“Today we completed the final major milestone before commercial operation for Westinghouse’s AP1000 nuclear power plant technology,” Westinghouse President and CEO José Emeterio Gutiérrez said in a press release announcing the accomplishment. “We are one step closer to delivering the world’s first AP1000 plant to our customer and the world—with our customers, we will provide our customers in China with safe, reliable and clean energy from Sanmen 1.”

The next significant step is connecting the unit to the electric grid. Assuming work continues on schedule, Sanmen Unit 1 will be the first AP1000 nuclear power plant to commence operation.

Meanwhile, at the Haiyang facility, fuel loading began on Unit 1—another AP1000 reactor.…

DOE Set to Support Small Modular Coal Units

May 11, 2018

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wants to know whether small-scale, modular coal-fired power plants are feasible. The DOE this week put out a request for information on how to accomplish such projects, following on its announcement earlier this year that it wants to establish funding opportunities for new coal technologies in an effort to prop up the industry.

“The objective of this RFI [Request for Information] is to support DOE’s mission to lead research and technology development that promotes the advancement of coal-fired power plants that provide stable power generation with operational flexibility, high efficiency, and low emissions,” according to the DOE announcement made May 8. Among the details: a design that has a lower cost than traditional coal plants, capability to be load-following, and with an efficiency higher than 40%, well above the current average of 33% for a traditional coal plant. (The efficiency of a power plant is measured as the percentage of the total energy content of that plant’s fuel that is converted into electricity.)…

More Coal Units Being Mothballed in Indiana

February 27, 2018

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An Indiana utility has confirmed it will close three coal-fired power units, replacing that generation with a proposed natural gas-fired facility along with additional solar power.

Evansville, Indiana-based Vectren Corp., a holding company whose assets include Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana-South, on February 20 released its Smart Energy Future strategic plan, designed to reduce Vectren’s carbon emissions by at least 60% from 2005 levels to comply with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.

Vectren first talked about retiring coal-fired units in late 2016, a surprising move in a state that has long relied on coal for the bulk of its power generation, ranking second behind Texas in total coal consumption as recently as 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). However, EIA notes how coal’s share of the state’s total electric power generation has fallen in recent years, and after decades of receiving more than 90% of its power from coal—as much as 98% in 1998—Indiana now receives about 71% of its electricity from coal, according to EIA data from 2016.…