BLM eases rights-of-way for wind and solar, not mining, on public lands
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09 May 2013
By Kennedy Maize
May 9, 2013 – The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is adopting rules to promote renewable energy projects. BLM policy will favor rights-of-way for wind and solar developments over competing claims filed for mining rights.
The new BLM policy is known as “segregation,” meaning that the agency will forestall filing new mining claims under the 1872 Mining Law if there also is a filing for a solar or wind right-of-way (ROW) over the same territory. The new rule responds to a fear that frivolous mining claims can make financing renewable energy projects on public lands more difficult and costly.
FERC sets July technical conference to scope out electric reliability issues
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09 May 2013
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has scheduled a technical conference on bulk electric power system reliability issues for July 9, 2013. The purpose of the meeting, says FERC, “is to discuss policy issues related to the reliability of the bulk-power system.” FERC says more details will be forthcoming. The commission has been engaged in a long, on-going debate, mostly internal, over electric system reliability issues according to FERC insiders. These include the impacts of its Order No. 1000 on transmission regional planning. Some at FERC have told Electricity Daily that the July meeting will surface some of those internal discussions. The meeting is scheduled to last from 9 a.m to 5 p.m.
Here’s the story on the reliability technical conference.
ASU: Navajo plant, worth $13B to Navajo Nation, faces many challenges
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09 May 2013
Keeping the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station coal-fired plant in service is worth $13 billion to the Indian nation over the next 30 years, according to a report in Public Power Daily. The newsletter of the American Public Power Association says a study from the Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business finds the benefits of keeping the plant open and generating power for the Phoenix-based Salt River Project and other customers are significant to the Navajo Nation. The 2,250-MW plant, fed by coal from the local Kayenta Mine, which also employs a large number of Navajo miners, faces a number of challenges, including lease renewal with the federal government, an expiring contract with Peabody Energy, which operates the mine, new power sales agreements with the city utility of Los Angeles, which is looking to get out of all associations with coal, and potential new rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on haze limits in the Grand Canyon National Park.
Read about the study and the challenges for the Navajo plant.
Kewaunee moves to old-nukes home
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09 May 2013
Dominion’s Wisconsin nuclear power plant Kewaunee is no more. The plant has ramped down to zero power and now enters the old-nukes home, awaiting decommission – a process that could take the next 50 years or so. The company turned off the switch on generation from the 574-MW plant this week. Kewaunee stopped making power at 12:00 p.m. May 7, Eastern Standard Time, according to World Nuclear News. The plant near Green Bay began operating in 1974 for Wisconsin Public Service and was sold to Virginia-based Dominion in 2005 for $220 million cash. Recently, it proved unable to compete with gas-fired generation in Midwest markets. Dominion was unable to find a buyer for the plant earlier this year saying it would shut down. The plant faces potential decommissioning costs approaching $1 billion. Is it a tale of the perils of the marketplace, of the changes in the costs of generating power, or of the risks of the nuclear endgame? Or all of the above.
Read about Kewaunee’s surprising end here.
Goldfish in Perry nuke, no joke
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09 May 2013
Beware the goldfish in the reactor. Operators at First Energy’s Perry nuclear plant in Ohio are pondering security video tapes trying to discern how someone – a would-be piscine terrorist perhaps – managed to smuggle two goldfish into the security zone of the reactor and leave them swimming in a juice pitcher inside a secure area of the plant, a violation of the plant’s security plan. Suspicions are that the goldfish – the kind won in local carnivals – were left as a prank or as a warning that the plant’s security systems are fishy. The fish died, but not as a result of radiation, the local news media reported. “It’s not a laughing matter,” said Viktoria Mitlyng, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s regional office. Press accounts did not reveal whether she was laughing when she issued that denial. Or perhaps grinning just a bit?
See the fishy tale here.
