A licensed master electrician created a potential fire hazard in five New York hotels by using wooden collars in his electrical work, an official alleges.
Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri alleges Maximum Electrical Contracting Corp. owner Robert Spallino even painted the wooden collars in order to make the items appear to be made from fireproof metal, the New York Post said.
"This contractor was willing to put people's lives in danger in order to save a few dollars, and his actions must not go unpunished," LiMandri told the newspaper.
New York city building code requires a metal fireproof conduit be used to rig electrical wires between the floors of a building. The wooden items found at the five New York hotels, one of which is under construction, have been replaced.
The wooden collars allegedly used by Spallino were flammable and could have caused electrical wires to become frayed and exposed, the Post reported.
While Spallino will not face criminal charges, the contractor has had his license suspended for a year and been hit with a $100,000 fine. Once his license is reinstated, Spallino will face a 2-year probationary period.
Sir Adam Beck I refurbishment boosts hydropower capacity in Niagara, upgrading turbines, generators, and controls for Ontario Power Generation. The billion-dollar project enhances grid reliability, clean energy output, and preserves heritage architecture.
Key Points
An OPG upgrade of the historic Niagara plant to replace equipment, add 150 MW, and extend clean power life.
✅ Adds at least 150 MW to Ontario's clean energy supply
✅ Replaces turbines, generators, transformers, and controls
✅ Creates hundreds of skilled construction and engineering jobs
Ontario's iconic Sir Adam Beck hydroelectric generating station in Niagara is set to undergo a massive, billion-dollar refurbishment. The project will significantly boost the power station's capacity and extend its lifespan, with efforts similar to revitalizing older dams seen across North America, ensuring a reliable supply of clean energy for decades to come.
A Century of Power Generation
The Sir Adam Beck generating stations have played a pivotal role in Ontario's power grid for over a century. The first generating station, Sir Adam Beck I, went online in 1922, followed by Sir Adam Beck II in 1954. A third station, the Sir Adam Beck Pump Generating Station, was added in 1957, highlighting the role of pumped storage in Ontario for grid flexibility, Collectively, they form one of the largest hydroelectric complexes in the world, harnessing the power of the Niagara River.
Preparing for Increased Demand
The planned refurbishment of Sir Adam Beck I is part of Ontario Power Generation's broader strategy, which includes the life extension at Pickering NGS among other initiatives, to meet the growing energy demands of the province. With the population expanding and a shift towards electrification, Ontario will need to increase its power generation capacity while also focusing on sustainable and clean sources of energy.
Billions to Secure Sustainable Energy
The project to upgrade Sir Adam Beck I carries a hefty price tag of over a billion dollars but is considered a vital investment in Ontario's energy infrastructure, and recent OPG financial results underscore the utility's capacity to manage long-term capital plans. The refurbishment will see the replacement of aging turbines, generators, and transformers, and a significant upgrade to the station's control systems. Following the refurbishment, the output of Sir Adam Beck I is expected to increase by at least 150 megawatts – enough to power thousands of homes and businesses.
Creating Green Jobs
In addition to securing the province's energy future, the upgrade presents significant economic benefits to the Niagara region. The project will create hundreds of well-paying construction and engineering jobs, similar to employment from the continued operation of Pickering Station across Ontario, during the several years it will take to implement the upgrades.
Commitment to Hydropower
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has long touted the benefits of hydropower as a reliable, renewable, and affordable source of energy, even as an analysis of rising grid emissions underscores the importance of clean generation to meet demand. The Sir Adam Beck complex is a shining example and represents a significant asset in the fight against climate change while providing reliable power to Ontario's businesses and residents.
Balancing Energy Needs with Heritage Preservation
The refurbishment will also carefully integrate modern design with the station's heritage elements, paralleling decisions such as the refurbishment of Pickering B that weigh system needs and public trust. Sir Adam Beck I is a designated historic site, and the project aims to preserve the station's architectural significance while enhancing its energy generation capabilities.
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.”
Ontario IESO COVID-19 Control Room Measures detail how essential operators safeguard the electricity grid with split shifts, backup control centres, real-time balancing, deep cleaning, social distancing, and shelter-in-place readiness to maintain reliable power.
Key Points
Measures that protect essential grid operators with split shifts, backup sites, and hygiene to keep power reliable.
✅ Split teams across primary and backup control centres
✅ 12-hour shifts with remote handoffs and deep cleaning
✅ Real-time grid modeling to balance demand and supply
A group of personnel key to keeping Ontario's electricity system functioning may end up locked down in their control centres due to the COVID-19 crisis, according to the head of the province's power operator.
But that has so far proven unnecessary with a change-up in routine, Independent Electricity System Operator CEO Peter Gregg said.
While about 90 per cent of staff were sent to work from home on March 13, another 48 control-room operators deemed essential are still going into work, Gregg said in an interview.
"We identified a smaller cohort of critical operations room staff that need to go in to operate the system out of our control centres," Gregg said. "My biggest concern is to maintain their health, their safety as we rely on them to do this critical work."
Some of the operators manage power demand and supply in real time as Ontario electricity demand shifts, by calling for more or less generation and keeping an eye on the distribution grid, which also allows power to flow to and from Ontario's neighbours. Others do scenario planning and modelling to prepare for changes.
The essential operators have been split into eight teams of six each working 12-hour shifts. The day crew works out of a control centre near Toronto and the night shift out of a backup centre in the city's west end, Gregg said.
"That means that we're not having physical hand-off between control room operators on shift change -- we can do it remotely -- and it also allows us to do deep cleansing," Gregg said. "We're fortunate that the way the room is set up allows us to practice good social distancing."
Should it become necessary, he said, bed, food and other on-site arrangements have been made to allow the operators to stay at their workplaces as a similar agency in New York has done.
"If we do need to shelter these critical employees in place, we've got the ability to do so."
IESO is responsible for ensuring a balance between supply and demand for electricity across the province. Because power cannot be stored, the IESO ensures generators produce enough power to meet peak demand while making sure they don't produce too much.
"You're seeing, obviously, commercial demand drop, some industrial demand drop," Gregg said. "But you're also seeing a shift in the demand curve as well, where normally you have people heading off to work and so residential demand would go down. But obviously with them staying home, you're seeing an increase in residential electricity use across the province."
Some utilities have indicated no cuts to peak rates for self-isolating customers, with Hydro One peak pricing remaining in place for now.
IESO also runs and settles the wholesale electricity markets. Market prices are set based on accepted offers to supply electricity, while programs supporting stable electricity pricing for industrial and commercial users can affect costs against forecast demand.
With the pandemic forcing many businesses to close and people to stay home, and provincial electricity relief for families and small businesses in place, typical power needs fallen about seven per cent at a time of year that would normally see demand soften anyway. It remains to be seen whether, and how much, power needs shift further amid stringent isolation measures and the ongoing economic impact of the outbreak.
Gregg said the operator is constantly modeling different possibilities.
"What we do normally is prepare for all of these sort of emergency scenarios, as reflected in the U.S. grid response coverage, and test and drill for these," he said. "What we're experiencing over the last few weeks is that those drills come in handy because they help us prepare for when the real-time situation actually happens."
BC Hydro Asset Management Audit confirms disciplined oversight of dams, generators, power lines, substations, and transformers, with robust lifecycle planning, reliability metrics, and capital investment sustaining aging infrastructure and near full-capacity performance.
Key Points
Audit confirming BC Hydro's asset governance and lifecycle planning, ensuring safe, reliable grid infrastructure.
✅ $25B in assets; many facilities operating near full capacity.
✅ 80% of assets are dams, generators, lines, poles, substations, transformers.
✅ $2.5B invested in renewal, repair, and replacement in fiscal 2018.
A report by B.C.’s auditor-general says B.C. Hydro is doing a good job managing the province’s dams, generating stations and power lines, including storm response during severe weather events.
Carol Bellringer says in the audit that B.C. Hydro’s assets are valued at more than $25 billion and even though some generating facilities are more than 85 years old they continue to operate near full-capacity and can accommodate holiday demand peaks when needed.
The report says about 80 per cent of Hydro’s assets are dams, generators, power lines, poles, substations and transformers that are used to provide electrical service to B.C., where residential electricity use shifted during the pandemic.
The audit says Hydro invested almost $2.5 billion to renew, repair or replace the assets it manages during the last fiscal year, ending March 31, 2018, and, in a broader context, bill relief has been offered to only part of the province.
Bellringer’s audit doesn’t examine the $10.7 billion Site C dam project, which is currently under construction in northeast B.C. and not slated for completion until 2024.
She says the audit examined whether B.C. Hydro has the information, practices, processes and systems needed to support good asset management, at a time when other utilities are dealing with pandemic impacts on operations.
UK Energy Price Cap aims to protect consumers on gas and electricity bills, tackling Big Six overcharging on default and standard variable tariffs, with Ofgem and MPs pushing urgent reforms to the broken market.
Key Points
A temporary absolute limit on default energy tariffs to shield consumers from overcharging on gas and electricity bills.
✅ Caps standard variable and default tariffs to protect loyalty.
✅ Targets Big Six pricing; oversight by Ofgem and BEIS MPs.
✅ Aims for winter protection while maintaining competition.
MPs are calling for a cap on the price of gas and electricity, with questions over the expected cost of a UK price cap amid fears consumers are being ripped off.
The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Select Committee says the Big Six energy companies have been overcharging for years.
MPs on the committee backed plans for a temporary absolute cap, noting debates over EU gas price cap strategies to fix what they called a "broken" energy market.
Labour's Rachel Reeves, who chairs the committee, said: "The energy market is broken. Energy is an essential good and yet millions of customers are ripped off for staying loyal to their energy provider.
"An energy price cap is now necessary and the Government must act urgently to ensure it is in place to protect customers next winter.
"The Big Six energy companies might whine and wail about the introduction of a price cap but they've been overcharging their customers on default and SVTs (standard variable tariffs) for years and their recent feeble efforts to move consumers off these tariffs has only served to highlight the need for this intervention."
The Committee also criticised Ofgem for failing to protect customers, especially the most vulnerable.
Draft legislation for an absolute cap on energy tariffs was published by the Government last year, and later developments like the Energy Security Bill have kept reform on the agenda.
But Business Secretary Greg Clark refused to guarantee that the flagship plans would be in place by next winter, despite warnings about high winter energy costs for households.
Committee members said there was a "clear lack of will" on the part of the Big Six to do what was necessary, including exploring decoupling gas and electricity prices, to deal with pricing problems.
A report from the committee found that customers are paying £1.4bn a year more than they should be under the current system.
Around 12 million households are stuck on poor-value tariffs, according to the report.
National assistance charity Citizens Advice said "loyal and vulnerable" customers had been "ripped off" for too long.
Chief executive Gillian Guy said: "An absolute cap, as recommended by the committee, is crucial to securing protection for the largest number of customers while continuing to provide competition in the market. This should apply to all default tariffs."
Irving Oil hydrogen electrolyzer expands green hydrogen capacity at the Saint John refinery with Plug Power technology, cutting carbon emissions, enabling clean fuel for buses, and supporting Atlantic Canada decarbonization and renewable grid integration.
Key Points
A 5 MW Plug Power unit at Irving's Saint John refinery producing low-carbon hydrogen via electrolysis.
✅ Produces 2 tonnes/day, enough to fuel about 60 hydrogen buses
✅ Uses grid power; targets cleaner supply via renewables and nuclear
✅ First Canadian refinery investing in electrolyzer technology
Irving Oil is expanding hydrogen capacity at its Saint John, N.B., refinery in a bid to lower carbon emissions and offer clean energy to customers.
The family-owned company said Tuesday it has a deal with New York-based Plug Power Inc. to buy a five-megawatt hydrogen electrolyzer that will produce two tonnes of hydrogen a day — equivalent to fuelling 60 buses with hydrogen — using electricity from the local grid and drawing on examples such as reduced electricity rates proposed in Ontario to grow the hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen is an important part of the refining process as it's used to lower the sulphur content of petroleum products like diesel fuel, but most refineries produce hydrogen using natural gas, which creates carbon dioxide emissions and raises questions explored in hydrogen's future for power companies in the energy sector.
"Investing in a hydrogen electrolyzer allows us to produce hydrogen in a very different way," Irving director of energy transition Andy Carson said in an interview.
"Instead of using natural gas, we're actually using water molecules and electricity through the electrolysis process to produce ... a clean hydrogen."
Irving plans to continue to work with others in the province to decarbonize the grid amid pressures like Ontario's push into energy storage as electricity supply tightens and ensure the electricity being used to power its hydrogen electrolyzer is as clean as possible, he said.
N.B. Power's electrical system includes 14 generating stations powered by hydro, coal, oil, wind, nuclear and diesel. The utility has committed to increasing its renewable energy sources and exploring innovations such as EV-to-grid integration piloted in Nova Scotia.
Irving said it will be the first oil refinery in Canada to invest in electrolyzer technology, as Ontario's Hydrogen Innovation Fund supports broader deployment nationwide.
The company said its goal is to offer hydrogen fuelling infrastructure in Atlantic Canada, complementing N.L.'s fast-charging network for EV drivers in the region.
"This kind of investment allows us to not just move to a cleaner form of hydrogen in the refinery. It also allows us to store and make hydrogen available to the marketplace," Carson said.
Federal watchdog warns Canada's 2030 emissions target may not be achievable The hydrogen technology will help Irving "unlock pent up demand for hydrogen as an energy transition fuel for logistics organizations," he said.
Those plans lean on the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that aims to trap the emissions created when producing hydrogen from natural gas.
