A federal judge has granted Maine Yankee and two sister companies a third payment from the U.S. government as damages for continued storage of spent nuclear fuel.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims Senior Judge, James Merow in an order issued Thursday granted Maine Yankee $24.6 million to compensate for the cost of storing spent nuclear fuel near the decommissioned nuclear plant in Wiscasset. The award covers storage from 2009 to 2012.
Past awards have helped cover current costs otherwise borne by ratepayers.
The decision comes as the federal government advances its latest effort to craft a long-term plan for storing spent nuclear fuel from power plants and the country's nuclear weapons arsenal.
Wayne Norton, head of the three Yankee Atomic power companies, said in a statement Friday that he hopes Congress implements a pilot program to begin removing the spent nuclear waste from shuttered reactor sites and consolidating it in a more permanent storage area.
"The three Yankee companies will continue to work closely with our stakeholders to hasten the day when the federal government fulfills its obligation to remove the spent nuclear fuel ... from our sites so that they can be reused for other purposes and the cost burden on ratepayers is lifted," Norton said.
The federal government has a contractual obligation to dispose of the 550 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel that is stored in Wiscasset and at other sites. The Wiscasset Newspaper reported Monday that the Department of Energy plans to hold a public comment session in Boston in June, to which local officials were invited.
The federal government is now starting a process to identify a community where it would pilot such a storage program. Norton said enacting that plan still requires an act of Congress this session.
Aside from the award to Maine Yankee,
Judge Merow awarded $32.6 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. in East Hampton, Connecticut, and $19.6 million to Yankee Atomic Power Co. in Rowe, Massachusetts.
The award represents the third phase of damages for the companies, which have an ongoing lawsuit against the federal government to recoup those costs for storing the fuel.
Maine Yankee began generating power in 1972, and was shut down in 1997, beginning an eight-year dismantling process ending in 2005. It is owned by a consortium of utilities in New England, with Central Maine Power being the largest shareholder with a 38 percent stake. Now merged as Emera Maine, Bangor Hydro Electric Co. owns 7 percent and Maine Public Service Co. owns 5 per cent.
Hydropower Covid-19 Resilience highlights clean, reliable energy and flexible grid services, with pumped storage, automation, and affordability supporting climate action, decarbonization, and recovery through sustainable infrastructure, policy incentives, and capacity upgrades.
Key Points
Hydropower Covid-19 Resilience is the sector's ability to ensure clean, reliable, flexible power during crises.
✅ Record 4,306 TWh in 2019, avoiding 80-100 Mt CO2e emissions.
✅ 1,308 GW installed; 15.6 GW added; flexibility and storage in demand.
✅ Policy, tax incentives, and fast-track approvals to spur projects.
The Covid-19 pandemic has underlined hydropower's resilience and critical role in delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy, especially in times of crisis, as highlighted by IAEA lessons for low-carbon electricity. This is the conclusion of two new reports published by the International Hydropower Association (IHA).
The 2020 Hydropower Status Report presents latest worldwide installed capacity and generation data, showcasing the sector's contribution to global carbon reduction efforts, with low-emissions sources projected to cover almost all demand increases in the next three years. It is published alongside a Covid-19 policy paper featuring recommendations for governments, financial institutions and industry to respond to the current health and economic crisis.
"Preventing an emergency is far better than responding to one," says Roger Gill, President of IHA, highlighting the need to incentivise investments in renewable infrastructure, a view echoed by Fatih Birol during the crisis. "The events of the past few months must be a catalyst for stronger climate action, including greater development of sustainable hydropower."
Now in its seventh edition, the Hydropower Status Report shows electricity generation hit a record 4,306 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2019, the single greatest contribution from a renewable energy source in history, aligning with the outlook that renewables to surpass coal by 2025.
The annual rise of 2.5 per cent (106 TWh) in hydroelectric generation - equivalent to the entire electricity consumption of Pakistan - helped to avoid an estimated additional 80-100 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases being emitted last year.
The report also highlights:
* Global hydropower installed capacity reached 1,308 gigawatts (GW) in 2019, as 50 countries completed greenfield and upgrade projects, including pumped storage and repowering old dams in some regions.
* A total of 15.6 GW in installed capacity was added in 2019, down on the 21.8 GW recorded in 2018. This represents a rise of 1.2 per cent, which is below the estimated 2.0 per cent growth rate required for the world to meet Paris Agreement carbon reduction targets.
* India has overtaken Japan as the fifth largest world hydropower producer with its total installed capacity now standing at over 50 GW. The countries with the highest increases in were Brazil (4.92 GW), China (4.17 GW) and Laos (1.89 GW).
* Hydropower's flexibility services have been in high demand during the Covid-19 crisis, even as global demand dipped 15% globally, while plant operations have been less affected due to the degree of automation in modern facilities.
* Hydropower developments have not been immune to economic impacts however, with the industry facing widespread uncertainty and liquidity shortages which have put financing and refinancing of some projects at risk.
In a companion policy paper, IHA sets out the immediate impacts of the crisis on the sector, noting how European responses to Covid-19 have accelerated the electricity system transition, as well as recommendations to assist governments and financial institutions and enhance hydropower's contribution to the recovery.
The recommendations include:
Increasing the ambition of renewable energy and climate change targets which incorporate the role of sustainable hydropower development.
Supporting sustainable hydropower through introducing appropriate financial measures such as tax incentives to ensure viable and shovel-ready projects can commence.
Fast-tracking planning approvals to ensure the development and modernisation of hydropower projects can commence as soon as possible, in line with internationally recognised sustainability guidelines.
Safeguarding investment by extending deadlines for concession agreements and other awarded projects.
Given the increasing need for long-duration energy storage such as pumped storage, working with regulators and system operators to develop appropriate compensation mechanisms for hydropower's flexibility services.
Illinois Zero Emission Credits support nuclear plants via tradable credits tied to wholesale electricity prices, carbon costs, created by the Future Energy Jobs Bill to avert Exelon closures and sustain low-carbon power.
Key Points
State credits that value nuclear power's zero-carbon output, priced by market and carbon metrics to keep plants running.
✅ Pegged to wholesale prices, carbon costs, and state averages.
✅ Created by Future Energy Jobs Bill to prevent plant retirements.
✅ Supports Exelon Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear facilities.
Nuclear plants have produced over half of Illinois electricity generation since 2010, but the states two largest plants would have been retired amid the debate over saving nuclear plants if the state had not created a zero emission credit (ZEC) mechanism to support the facilities.
The two plants, Quad Cities and Clinton, collectively delivered more than 12 percent of the states electricity generation over the past several years. In May 2016, however, Exelon, the owner of the plants, announced that they had together lost over $800 million dollars over the previous six years and revealed plans to retire them in 2017 and 2018, similar to the Three Mile Island closure later announced for 2019 by its owner.
In December 2016, Illinois passed the Future Energy Jobs Bill, which established a zero emission credit (ZEC) mechanism
to support the plants financially. Exelon then cancelled its plans to retire the two facilities.
The ZEC is a tradable credit that represents the environmental attributes of one megawatt-hour of energy produced from the states nuclear plants. Its price is based on a number of factors that include wholesale electricity market prices, nuclear generation costs, state average market prices, and estimated costs of the long-term effects of carbon dioxide emissions.
The bill is set to take effect in June, but faces multiple court challenges as some utilities have expressed concerns that the ZEC violates the commerce clause and affects federal authority to regulate wholesale energy prices, amid gas-fired competition in nearby markets that shapes the revenue outlook.
Illinois ranks first in the United States for both generating capacity and net electricity generation from nuclear power, a resource many see as essential for net-zero emissions goals, and accounts for approximately one-eighth of the nuclear power generation in the nation.
2022 US Renewable Power Milestone highlights EIA data: wind and solar outpaced coal and nuclear, hydropower contributed, with falling levelized costs, grid integration, battery storage, and transmission upgrades shaping affordable, reliable clean power growth.
Key Points
The year US renewables, led by wind and solar, generated more power than coal and nuclear, per EIA.
✅ Wind and solar rose; levelized costs fell 70%-90% over decade
✅ Renewables surpassed coal and nuclear in 2022 per EIA
✅ Grid needs storage and transmission to manage intermittency
Electricity generated from renewables surpassed coal in the United States for the first time in 2022, as wind and solar surpassed coal nationwide, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has announced.
Growth in wind and solar significantly drove the increase in renewable energy and contributed 14% of the electricity produced domestically in 2022, with solar producing about 4.7% of U.S. power overall. Hydropower contributed 6%, and biomass and geothermal sources generated less than 1%.
“I’m happy to see we’ve crossed that threshold, but that is only a step in what has to be a very rapid and much cheaper journey,” said Stephen Porder, a professor of ecology and assistant provost for sustainability at Brown University.
California produced 26% of the national utility-scale solar electricity followed by Texas with 16% and North Carolina with 8%.
“This booming growth is driven largely by economics,” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, as renewables became the second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020 nationwide. “Over the past decade, the levelized cost of wind energy declined by 70 percent, while the levelized cost of solar power has declined by an even more impressive 90 percent.”
“Renewable energy is now the most affordable source of new electricity in much of the country,” added Wetstone.
The Energy Information Administration projected that the wind share of the U.S. electricity generation mix will increase from 11% to 12% from 2022 to 2023 and that solar will grow from 4% to 5% during the period, and renewables hit a record 28% share in April according to recent data. The natural gas share is expected to remain at 39% from 2022 to 2023, and coal is projected to decline from 20% last year to 17% this year.
“Wind and solar are going to be the backbone of the growth in renewables, but whether or not they can provide 100% of the U.S. electricity without backup is something that engineers are debating,” said Brown University’s Porder.
This presents challenges for engineers and policy-makers, Porder said, because existing energy grids were built to deliver power from a consistent source. Renewables such as solar and wind generate power intermittently. So battery storage, long-distance transmission and other steps will be needed to help address these challenges, he said.
Alberta Solar Power is accelerating as renewable energy investment, PPAs, and utility-scale projects expand the grid, with independent power producers and foreign capital outperforming AESO forecasts in oil-and-gas-rich markets across Alberta and Calgary.
Key Points
Alberta Solar Power is a fast-growing provincial market, driven by PPAs and private investment, outpacing AESO forecasts.
✅ Utility-scale projects and PPAs expand capacity beyond AESO outlooks
✅ Private and foreign capital drive independent power producers
✅ Costs near $70/MWh challenge >$100/MWh assumptions
Solar power is beating expectations in oil and gas rich Alberta, where the renewable energy source is poised to expand dramatically amid a renewable energy surge in the coming years as international power companies invest in the province.
Fresh capital is being deployed in the Alberta’s electricity generation sector for both renewable and natural gas-fired power projects after years of uncertainty caused by changes and reversals in the province’s power market, said Duane Reid-Carlson, president of power consulting firm EDC Associates, who advises renewable power developers on electric projects in the province.
“From the mix of projects that we see in the queue at the (Alberta Electric System Operator) and the projects that have been announced, Alberta, a powerhouse for both green energy and fossil fuels, has no shortage of thermal and renewable projects,” Reid-Carlson said, adding that he sees “a great mix” of independent power companies and foreign firms looking to build renewable projects in Alberta.
Alberta is a unique power market in Canada because its electricity supply is not dominated by a Crown corporation such as BC Hydro, Hydro One or Hydro Quebec. Instead, a mix of private-sector companies and a few municipally owned utilities generate electricity, transmit and distribute that power to households and industries under long-term contracts.
Last week, Perimeter Solar Inc., backed by Danish solar power investor Obton AS, announced Sept. 30 that it had struck a deal to sell renewable energy to Calgary-based pipeline giant TC Energy Corp. with 74.25 megawatts of electricity from a new 130-MW solar power project immediately south of Calgary. Neither company disclosed the costs of the transaction or the project.
“We are very pleased that of all the potential off-takers in the market for energy, we have signed with a company as reputable as TC Energy,” Obton CEO Anders Marcus said in a release announcing the deal, which it called “the largest negotiated energy supply agreement with a North American energy company.”
Perimeter expects to break ground on the project, which will more than double the amount of solar power being produced in the province, by the end of this year.
A report published Monday by the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy, estimated that renewable energy powered 3 per cent of Canada’s energy consumption in 2018.
Between the Claresholm project and other planned solar installations, utility companies are poised to install far more solar power than the province is currently planning for, even as Alberta faces challenges with solar expansion today.
University of Calgary adjunct professor Blake Shaffer said it was “ironic” that the Claresholm Solar project was announced the exact same day as the Alberta Electric System Operator released a forecast that under-projected the amount of solar in the province’s electric grid.
The power grid operator (AESO) released its forecast on Sept. 30, which predicted that solar power projects would provide just 1 per cent of Alberta’s electricity supply by 2030 at 231 megawatts.
Shaffer said the AESO, which manages and operates the province’s electricity grid, is assuming that on a levelized basis solar power will need a price over $100 per megawatt hour for new investment. However, he said, based on recent solar contracts for government infrastructure projects, the cost is closer to $70 MW/h.
Most forecasting organizations like the International Energy Agency have had to adjust their forecasts for solar power adoption higher in the past, as growth of the renewable energy source has outperformed expectations.
Calgary-based Greengate Power has also proposed a $500-million, 400-MW solar project near Vulcan, a town roughly one-hour by car southeast of Calgary.
“So now we’re getting close to 700 MW (of solar power),” Shaffer said, which is three times the AESO forecast.
Canadian Power Crews Aid Florida after Hurricane Irma, supporting power restoration for Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light. Hydro One and Nova Scotia Power teams provide mutual aid to speed outage repairs across communities.
Key Points
Mutual aid effort sending Canadian utility crews to restore power and repair outages in Florida after Hurricane Irma.
✅ Hydro One and Nova Scotia Power deploy line technicians
✅ Support for Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light
✅ Goal: rapid power restoration and outage repairs statewide
Hundreds of Canadian power crews are heading to Florida to help restore power to millions of people affected by Hurricane Irma.
Two dozen Nova Scotia Power employees were en route Tampa on Tuesday morning. An additional 175 Hydro One employees from across Ontario are also heading south. Tuesday to assist after receiving a request for assistance from Tampa Electric.
Nearly 7½ million customers across five states were without power Tuesday morning as Irma — now a tropical storm — continued inland, while a power outage update from the Carolinas underscored the regional strain.
In an update On Tuesday, Florida Power & Light said its "army" of crews had already restored power to 40 per cent of the five million customers affected by Irma in the first 24 hours.
FPL said it expects to have power restored in nearly all of the eastern half of the state by the end of this coming weekend. Almost everyone should have power restored by the end of day on Sept. 22, except for areas still under water.Jason Cochrane took a flight from Halifax Stanfield International Airport along with 19 other NSP power line technicians, two supervisors and a restoration team lead, drawing on lessons from the Maritime Link first power project between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. "It's different infrastructure than what we have to a certain extent, so there'll be a bit of a learning curve there as well," Cochrane said. "But we'll be integrated into their workforce, so we'll be assisting them to get everything put back together."
The NSP team will join 86 other Nova Scotians from their parent company, Emera, who are also heading to Tampa. Halifax-based Emera, whose regional projects include the Maritime Link, owns a subsidiary in Tampa.
"We're going to be doing anything that we can to help Tampa Electric get their customers back online," said NSP spokesperson Tiffany Chase. "We know there's been significant damage to their system as a result of that severe storm and so anything that our team can do to assist them, we want to do down in Tampa."
Crews have been told to expect to be on the ground in the U.S. for two weeks, but that could change as they get a better idea of what they're dealing with.
'It's neat to have an opportunity like this to go to another country and to help out.'- Jason Cochrane, power line technician
"It's neat to have an opportunity like this to go to another country and to help out and to get the power back on safely," said Cochrane.
Chase said she doesn't know how much the effort will cost but it will be covered by Tampa Electric. She also said Nova Scotia Power will pull its crews back if severe weather heads toward Atlantic Canada, as utilities nationwide work to adapt to climate change in their planning.
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
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