Category — Technology

After months of anticipation, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) released its 563-page proposal for regulating the disposal and management of coal combustion byproducts (“CCBs”) from coal-fired power plants.  Instead of offering a single approach, EPA requested comments on two options for regulating CCBs.  The first would regulate CCBs as a new “special waste” subject to many of the requirements for hazardous waste, while the second would regulate CCBs in a manner similar to typical solid waste, subject to far fewer and less stringent environmental requirements.  EPA would lead the first approach, the various States the second.  Either of EPA’s proposed options represents a seismic shift toward more comprehensive and expensive requirements for CCBs disposal and management.  And for certain utilities, EPA’s regulatory proposal effectively signals the end of ash pond disposal for CCBs. [Read more →]

On March 23, 2010, the ISO/RTO Council (“IRC”) released a study on plug-in electric vehicles (“PEVs”) entitled “Assessment of Plug-in Electric Vehicle Integration with ISO/RTO Systems.” [Read more →]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Department of the Interior (DOI) through the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and Department of the Army (DOA) through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), announced on March 24, 2010 the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the federal agencies to promote the development of hydropower.  Pursuant to the MOU, studies will be conducted over the next few years that may help industry determine which Federal dams and reservoirs would be best suited for non-Federal hydropower development.  The process will hopefully determine which sites will have the fewest roadblocks from stakeholders, including the federal dam owners themselves.  These studies may also lead to a determination of which projects can be most efficiently integrated into the grid.  [Read more →]

In July 2009, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, (D-NM), introduced a bill, the “American Clean Energy Leadership Act,” which would allocate costs for new transmission and bar FERC from assigning the cost of a transmission project to a region or “sub-region” unless FERC can prove the costs are “reasonably proportionate to measureable economic and reliability benefits.” [Read more →]

A draft report issued this month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) calls for substantially tightening air quality standards for fine particulate matter.  [Read more →]