When we last checked in on the proposed massive offshore wind farm in the Northeast called Cape Wind, it had gotten federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement approval to begin construction perhaps as early as this fall. That now seems to be up in the air due to a ruling just handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia over a FAA decision regarding aviation. The opinion of the court, according to Associated Press, is that the FAA “didn’t adequately determine whether the planned 130 turbines, each 440 feet tall, would pose a danger to pilots flying by visual flight rules.” The ruling throws another monkey wrench into what has been a very long development progress for America’s first planned offshore wind farm. This article is a linkout for the full article go to EarthTechling.
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Wind farm investors face growing losses from “curtailments,” as turbine installations outstrip the capacity of local transmission systems to accommodate the new power.
The issue is a “growing pain” of wind technology, Judah Rose, Senior Vice President, ICF International in McLean, VA, said. Curtailment has become an increasing problem since 2008 as wind capacity nationwide increases from almost nothing 10 years ago to more than 42,000 megawatts now. “It’s occurring even in RTOs (regional transmission organizations) with advanced pricing and management systems,” Rose said. Keep reading →
Hydropower is probably the most invisible of the generation sources in the US. It does not have a smokestack, is defined by its reliability and creates none of the emissions that hamper expansions at traditional fossil-fueled generators.
And although in the American mind hydropower is defined by enormous projects like the Hoover Dam, much of the hydropower in the US is actually much smaller in scale, making debates over wild species migration and the filling of valleys applicable only to a much smaller number of projects. Keep reading →
A Department of Energy fee that costs nuclear power utilities some $750 million a year should be suspended because a nuclear-waste program the fee is designed to pay for does not exist, opponents said in a new court filing.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Nuclear Energy Institute, a policy organization for the industry, urged a Washington DC appeals court to order the DOE to stop collecting the fee for the federally mandated Nuclear Waste Fund which grows by about $1 billion a year and is expected to total $28.3 billion by the end of fiscal 2012. Keep reading →
Wood will fuel electricity for homes and businesses in Virginia if Dominion Power receives a final green light on converting three power stations in the state from coal to biomass.
Utility executives appeared confident in the projects’ appeal for regulators as they signed an agreement with biomass fuel producer Enviva to provide woody biomass fuel to two of the power plants. Both plants, one located in Southampton and the other in Hopewell, Virginia, are set to convert from 63MW coal-fired facilities to 50MW biomass-fueled plants under current plans. Keep reading →
Governor Rick Perry’s newly released energy plan, in focusing on domestic resources and the job opportunities prompted by energy infrastructure spending, in many ways echoes the energy policy of the Obama administration.
The US presidential election remains more than a year away, but jockeying over energy issues has already broken into the open as jobs and infrastructure spending take center stage in early debates among the declared candidates for the Republican nomination. Keep reading →
As the deadline for breaking ground on projects with loan guarantee applications from the Department of Energy’s Loans Program Office (LPO) approaches, there has been a rush of announcements on finalized agreements and conditional commitments over the past few months.
Section 1705 was a temporary program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 designed to give loan guarantees for renewable energy, power transmission and biofuels projects that start construction by the end of September 2011. Keep reading →
Growing consensus that infrastructure investment might be a solution for a host of US problems, most centrally widespread unemployment, is raising the profile of firms that specialize in the sector.
Black & Veatch is a big player in infrastructure, ranging across consulting, design and building for projects that include energy plays like electricity and oil and gas, smart grid projects, water and public sector work. The firm is at the center of the latest hot area in the economy, working with giants like Siemens and GE to serve the country’s highest-profile companies and municipalities. Keep reading →
The solar industry is changing as it grows, providing a rare opportunity to see an evolving market at work.
For those firms facing bankruptcies and operational problems, the change can seem daunting, but for firms backed by significant balance sheets and buoyed by robust development pipelines, the changes only highlight the opportunities. Keep reading →
Department of Energy plans to give federal regulators more authority over the siting of electricity transmission lines would delay development, provoke lawsuits, and damage federal-state relations, the utility commissioners’ trade group said.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners blasted the proposal to hand more power to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, saying it ignores court rulings and the intent of Congress, and would give the industry, rather than the government, control over the approval process. Keep reading →
