Recently in Power generation Category

Saudi Arabia, the world's energy powerhouse, took a concrete step this week to try to reduce the amount of fuel it burns to generate electricity and desalinate sea water.

It completed a pilot project to use solar power instead of fuel for water desalination and plans to expand the use of solar-powered generators in an effort to curb domestic consumption of oil that could otherwise be exported.

Lamentations Monday at Platts Global Power Markets conference about the lack of a national energy policy. There should be one. ... Why can't we just get it together and make one?. ... Accept it, there never has been one and there never will be.

Benjamin Salisbury of FBR Capital Markets brought it all up short.

Now that the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a regulation describing just what new coal and natural gas power plants must be like with respect to carbon dioxide emissions, one might think utilities and plant developers would have an easier time with long-range planning. The rule might deliver the certainty that executives always say they're looking for. 

But it's not necessarily so.

The Obama administration has made no secret of its support for renewable energy, but in the case of the offshore wind there's a question of whether the administration has enough tools at its disposal to get the industry -- which still doesn't really exist in the US -- off the ground.

A big part of the problem is that offshore wind, like most renewables, is a policy-dependant industry dealing with a dysfunctional Congress. 

The price of carbon emissions has fallen in Europe. Does that mean the system is failing, or does that mean it's working? In this week's Regulation and the Environment column from Platts Oilgram News, Frank Watson looks at the issue.

Count on the United States Marines. One might forget to look there for visions of the energy future, but... comes a reminder: email from Camp Lejeune, the Experimental Forward Operating Base, ExFOB.

It's about "wearable electric power systems."

In recent years US and European clean-energy companies have rushed to cash in on China's renewables boom, selling solar photovoltaic panels and wind turbines as fast as Chinese authorities could erect them.

Now that relationship has turned sour, as Western companies complain that China is unfairly subsidizing its domestic renewables industry and stealing technology.

While the politicians argue about the government's guarantee of a $535 million to bankrupt California solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, lost is the fact that after September 30 the Department of Energy could have a portfolio of as many as 32 renewable projects for which it could have guarantees for a total of  $18.7 billion in loans.

Among the 32 projects, of which Solyndra is but one, there are 22 that are geared to produce in the future approximately 5,688 MW of power from wind, geothermal, utility-scale and commercial and residential solar rooftop projects. The DOE could end up guaranteeing $16.8 billion of loans to those projects, or roughly $2.9 million per megawatt.

The devastating March 11 earthquake has led Japan to review its energy policy in general, and its nuclear policy in particular, amid ongoing safety concerns. The government's eventual decision on nuclear policy will affect Japan's energy portfolio in general, but the country may also need to review its oil policy, especially regarding fuel oil use, at least in the short term.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Japan will need more crude, fuel oil and LNG as direct-burning feedstocks for power generation over the next few years as more nuclear reactors are shut down for maintenance. No reactors have been restarted since the earthquake.

What a nice way to put it. A US energy regulator, talking about forward capacity markets for power in regional transmission organizations: "I think it's fair to say that our capacity markets are still in their toddler stage -- some would say in the terrible twos -- and we still have a lot to work out."

This is Cheryl LaFleur of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, speaking in Hershey, Pennsylvania, to the organization of utility regulators from Mid-Atlantic states.