Congressional leaders finalized a deal Tuesday to extend government funding, approve more than $100 billion in disaster aid and advance a slew of bipartisan priorities that had been awaiting action for months. The stopgap funding measure, if approved this week as expected, will kick Friday night’s funding deadline to March 14, buying congressional appropriators nearly...
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the buzziest and most well-funded company in the increasingly buzzy and well-funded fusion sector, announced today that it will build a commercial fusion power plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia — a first for both the company and the world. CFS will independently finance, build, own, and operate the 400-megawatt plant, which will produce...
The city of Richland is considering selling 425 acres of former Hanford nuclear site land for a $4.5 billion project related to advanced nuclear fuel. The company interested in the project, which is projected to employ 1,000 workers, has not been made public. It is identified in city documents only under the code name of...
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) has released three Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) worth about $18.4 million for programs to support research and development of electricity grid technologies. The programs will reduce the cost of HVDC circuit breakers, improve risk assessment and communication for grid operators, and ensure communities respond...
America’s process for permitting infrastructure is a convoluted mess of federal, state, and local procedures, regulations, bureaucracies, lawsuits, judges, activists, and landowners. “Getting approval from all of them, getting every single box checked, is the biggest hang-up to getting projects up and running,” says Cary Davis of the American Association of Port Authorities in a video making...
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to grant California permission to set stronger climate rules for cars and SUVs — a move that President-elect Donald Trump could attempt to reverse — according to two people briefed on the matter. The EPA intends to issue California a waiver as soon as next week to enforce its rule aimed at banning...
Permitting reform has swiftly risen to the forefront in Washington as a pressing national security priority. The United States is grappling with the dual challenges of escalating energy demand and mounting global competition, particularly from China. Despite the critical role of our nation’s energy infrastructure, the U.S. is ensnared in a permitting process that can...
Nuclear power is forecast to be the cheapest baseload electricity source in Japan in 2040, highlighting the government’s desire to restart the nation’s idled reactors. The cost of constructing and operating a new nuclear power plant for 2040 is estimated at 12.5 yen ($0.08) per kilowatt-hour, according to documents released from a trade ministry panel meeting on...
The Biden administration recently set new tariffs on photovoltaic solar panels imported from Southeast Asia. Always a thorny issue, trade policy is expected to be especially controversial in 2025. Therefore, it’s worth understanding when tariffs might be appropriate and when they might carry more cost than benefit. The solar panel import issue is challenging because it isn’t...
Demand for electricity is rising so quickly in the United States that even Exxon Mobil, the country’s largest oil and gas company, is planning to get into the power business. Exxon is designing a massive natural-gas fueled plant meant to directly supply electricity to data centers. The company says the plant will be fitted with...
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