Electricity and Environmental Quality Standards

Over at Knowledge Problem, Michael Giberson is taking a look at the closing of a coal-fired power plant in Alexandria, Virginia:

Regulatory authorities and public policy goals have collided on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, just across from D.C. This has been a slow-motion collision, long in coming and probably weeks or months still to go, so pull up a chair and watch the show. Virginia state officials have caused the shut down of a power plant that the Washington, DC utility regulator calls vital to protecting the reliability of the electric power system in the area...

For years, residents of Alexandria, Virginia have complained about the emissions coming from the Mirant’s Potomac River power plant...The five-boiler coal burning power plant, which produces about 500 MW, has been operating since 1949. It is old enough -- by a substantial margin -- to have been exempted from the most stringent air quality regulations, but apparently hasn't been able to comply with the laxer standards do apply.

The Mirant plant, formerly owned by D.C. electric utility Pepco, supplies power into DC and Maryland, but does not directly provide power to its Virginia neighbors. This slight mismatch between costs and benefits probably contributes to the plants political troubles.

The Mirant plant is only a few miles South of NEI's offices in Washington, D.C. and I've pedaled past it plenty of times on the Mt. Vernon bike trail that snakes along the shore of the Potomac.

This might be a good time to mention that increasing the amount of electricity that a state generates with nuclear energy is a great way to help meet clean air standards -- something that my colleague Mary Quillian pointed out a few months ago.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy Environment Energy Politics Technology Economics

Comments

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog