A shortage of plutonium could hold back a new generation of nuclear projects, with start-ups battling to secure the radioactive material given the limited supplies available to civilian projects. Plutonium, which cannot be mined, is a byproduct of spent uranium-based fuel used in reactors. Its huge explosive capacity makes it ideal for nuclear warheads, meaning...
Geothermal company Fervo Energy has signed a major deal to sell power to Alphabet’s Google from a Utah project that it plans to turn into the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility. The agreement for nearly 400 megawatts of electricity is enough to power a midsize city and would be Fervo’s largest-ever power deal. Fervo plans...
SLB agreed to acquire thermal management company Kelvion from private-equity funds for $4.1 billion. The oil drilling and production company said Monday that the acquisition is meant to strengthen its growing data center business. “This transaction accelerates our ambition to become an industrial technology partner to the data center industry and help customers address the...
A Houston-based company has received funding that can help make world’s first superhot geothermal power plant. Quaise Energy, a leading developer of utility-scale superhot geothermal energy, today announced the final close of its Series B, raising a total of $180 million in equity financing, including a $35 million investment from Nabors Industries (NYSE: NBR), one...
A four-month test of enhanced geothermal systems performance, aimed at derisking the technology to ensure its commercial viability, began in Utah earlier this month, according to the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy. The test is an “extended circulation” which will allow the FORGE team to “evaluate reservoir performance under continuous flow” over the...
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order preparing to block utilities from connecting some foreign-made equipment to the bulk power system, including transformers, batteries, inverters and associated software and digital products. The order also contemplates the replacement of already-installed equipment, allowing the Secretary of Energy to “impose conditions on the continued use, operation,...
Europe’s increasingly hot summers come with a worrying trend. The air conditioning that the continent long eschewed as an American indulgence is becoming a necessity, and some of the nuclear reactors needed to run those cooling units are tapping out right as thermometers spike. This summer was especially bad: The series of extreme heat waves...
Nevada utility regulators cleared the way earlier this month for NV Energy to develop two performance-based credit programs for distributed energy resources that provide energy or capacity services during load flexibility events. Under the Energy Grid Services and Capacity Grid Services riders, customer-sited resources would be eligible to receive payments for dispatched energy based on...
Californians could soon put solar panel kits on balconies and in backyards to lower their electric bills — without utility approval. On Wednesday, state lawmakers passed the Plug and Play Solar Act (Senate Bill 868) to legalize balcony solar, a form of DIY clean energy that’s taken off in Germany. The bill, which garnered bipartisan...
Researchers in the US have developed a new electric plasma heating method that could significantly speed up the production of cement and at the same time slash its reliance on fossil fuels. The technique was developed by Qi Zheng, PhD, and Yi Cui, PhD, from Stanford University, along with Paulo Monteiro, PhD, a civil engineering...
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