2014-09-04 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, August 29

¶   The tar sands industry’s tailings problem is a growing liability and it is getting worse. For every barrel of tar sands bitumen produced (the semi-solid substance from which oil is eventually refined), 1.5 barrels of toxic liquid waste is added to the tailings ponds. [Energy Collective]

¶   A new study, published online in the journal Nature Climate Change, has found that savings from health benefits dwarf the estimated $14 billion cost of a cap-and-trade program. It says the health savings outweigh cap-and-trade pollution abatement costs more than 10 times over. [CleanTechnica]

¶   More and more utilities say they buy wind energy to save their customers money. In some places, wind is now the cheapest way to add electrical generating capacity. It provides a great long-term hedge against rising prices for natural gas everywhere. [CleanTechnica]

Saturday, August 30

¶   Austin Energy could be a greenhouse-gas-free utility eventually, as the Austin City Council passed a measure requiring the utility to make larger investments in renewable energy. The goal is for the utility to be completely green by 2030. [Austin Business Journal]

Sunday, August 31

¶   One of the most important pieces of news of the summer made virtually no headlines at all, and seemed to only appear on the website of the US Energy Information Administration. It is that 127 of the world’s largest oil and gas companies are running out of cash. [Resilience]

Monday, September 1

¶   South Australia’s Sustainability, Environment and Conservation Minister Ian Hunter has condemned the recently released Renewable Energy Target Review report, referring to the move by the Abbott Government to scale back the RET as “anti-science.” [Energy Matters]

¶   Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is vulnerable to ‘direct bombardment’ in Ukraine if caught in the conflict, a Greenpeace nuclear energy expert told a German newspaper, claiming that its nuclear reactors are not protected from armor-piercing weapons. [RT]

¶   Just days after the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection disclosed 243 cases of contamination from oil and gas drilling operations, a major drilling company has voluntarily dropped an attempt to force its operations upon unwilling property owners. [CleanTechnica]

¶   With the Islamic State (ISIS) reportedly trying to recruit terror operatives just across our southern border, one terrorism expert — an ex-CIA officer — is warning of an “imminent threat” to the US electric grid. [Western Journalism]

Tuesday, September 2

¶   The respected International Energy Agency (IEA) has found that world renewable energy capacity grew at the fastest ever annual rate in 2013. Renewable energy now accounts for 22% of the world’s electricity generation, and that figure is expected to climb to 26% by 2020. [The9Billion]
… According to the latest report from the IEA, renewable energy now accounts for 80% of new generation among the 34 developed countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Policy uncertainty remains a threat, however. [CleanTechnica]

¶   “The Upcoming Crisis for Fortis Inc and TransAlta Corporation” Power generators aren’t nearly as safe as investors think they are. What’s the upcoming crisis? It’s solar energy.  The risk is that you and I will put solar panels on our roofs. [The Motley Fool Canada]

¶   Impatient with the pace at which states and the federal government are confronting climate change, communities from the coast to coast have begun taking steps to elbow aside big electricity companies and find green power themselves. [Los Angeles Times]

Wednesday, September 3

¶   RenewableUK, the country’s leading renewable trade association, announced Monday that UK wind had exceeded coal on the 3rd, 9th, 11th, 12th, and 17th of August. Wind also beat out nuclear on the 29th of August. [CleanTechnica]

¶   After decades of very little build-out of new transmission lines, US investor-owned utilities have boosted spending fivefold over the last 15 years. The driving factors have been needs for resiliency initiatives, along with new preparations for managing distributed energy. [Energy Collective]

¶   Executives of Green Mountain Power and NRG Energy announced a partnership Tuesday that will see the companies working together to create a “microgrid” in Vermont and offer an array of products and services intended to help customers be more efficient and save money. [Barre Montpelier Times Argus]

Thursday, September 4

¶   The latest statistics from NPD Solarbuzz predict that by the end of 2018 there will be at least nine countries with installed solar PV capacity levels above 5 GW. But they expect China to surpass the 100 GW capacity mark in the same year. [CleanTechnica]

 

¶   In a speech to Australia’s House of Representatives, Clive Palmer took the Government’s attitude to renewable energy to task. It appears Mr. Palmer believes the Renewable Energy Target review was a waste of taxpayer money. [Energy Matters] (Palmer leads a party that has three critical votes in the senate; if they do not vote to alter it, the RET may be retained as it is.)

 

¶   Wind power provided a record 41.2% of Denmark’s electricity consumption in the first half of 2014, power grid operator Energinet.dk said in its half-year report published Tuesday. Wind energy accounted for 33.2% of the country’s energy consumption in 2013. [Wall Street Journal]

¶   Renewable energy technologies are getting a boost in Africa, driven by the need to power base stations for mobile phone operators in rural areas that are unconnected to national power grids. Companies are selling phone chargers and enabling customers to light their homes. [AFKInsider]

 

2014-08-28 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, August 22

¶   “Opening the Multi-Trillion Dollar Market for Energy Management” Energy management is one of the most important parts of our changing energy landscape. It is a market made up of part energy efficiency, part Big Data solution and part Internet of Things. [Energy Collective]

¶   Greenland and Antarctica are home to the two largest ice sheets in the world, and a new report released Wednesday says that they are contributing to sea level rise twice as much as they were just five years ago. [Huffington Post]

¶   Microsoft Corp. has left the American Legislative Exchange Council because of concerns about the lobbying group’s opposition to renewable energy, according to the Sustainability Group and Walden Asset Management, sustainable investing asset management companies. [Bloomberg]

Saturday, August 23

¶   Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Goldwind boosted its net profit in the first half of 2014 by 256.8% to 330 million yuan ($53.65 million) compared with the year-ago period on the back of a “sector recovery”. [reNews]

¶   Investment bank UBS says the addition of electric vehicles, and the proliferation of battery storage, will solve the problem of intermittency for rooftop solar and make it viable without subsidies. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Housing authorities that are seeking alternate energy sources or new funding streams will be particularly interested in HUD’s latest PIH notice. Its changes seek to encourage use of on-site renewable energy technology at federally subsidized housing projects. [JD Supra]

Sunday, August 24

¶   Soon after Navigant Research predicted investment in microgrids to reach $31 billion in the Asia Pacific region by 2023, it released another report investigating smart grid technologies, and predict that market spending will total $600 billion from 2014 through 2023. [CleanTechnica]

¶   There seems to be some hysteria online about bird deaths associated with the Ivanpah solar project in California. For example, one news article calls the solar power plant a “death ray,” as if it is a weapon, and that hundreds of thousands of birds might be dying, or 28,000 or 1,000. [CleanTechnica]

Monday, August 25

¶   The commander of the US Defense Logistics Agency Energy dismisses the denialism rampant in American politics and society with: “Call it climate change, call it the big blue rabbit, I don’t give a hoot what you call it — the military has to respond to those kinds of things.” [Japan Focus]

¶   A proposal to build one of the world’s largest solar farms in a rural area south of Silicon Valley has cleared one of its final hurdles after five years of planning and environmental debate. The 247-MW facility still awaits a final environmental permit. [Contra Costa Times]

Tuesday, August 26

¶   “It’s time to join the revolution,” Swiss investment bank UBS is advising clients. The bank says the payback time for unsubsidised investment in electric vehicles plus rooftop solar plus battery storage will be as low as 6-8 years by 2020. [CleanTechnica]

¶   The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently reopened a year-old petition from anti-nuclear groups concerned about the financial ability of Entergy Corp. to safely operate its nuclear plants, including Vermont Yankee. [GazetteNET]

¶   Massachusetts has reached a milestone: The number of solar installations statewide has surpassed 15,000. The state now has 15,762 solar installations that produce 615 MW of electricity, enough to power about 94,000 homes. [Boston Globe]

Wednesday, August 27

¶   “Renewable Energy Momentum Has Passed The Tipping Point” Here in the ides of August, 2014, there exists clear, overwhelmingly convincing evidence that we have passed the tipping point for change into the renewable energy era. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Indian wind turbine manufacturers and project developers have been advised by the government to make efforts to increase annual capacity addition to five times its current level, a leading Indian newspaper has reported. That means 10,000 MW is to be added each year. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Nearly one in four homes in South Australia now has rooftop solar, as the share of renewable energy in the state neared 33% in 2013/14 – delivering the state’s ambitious 2020 target six years ahead of schedule. [RenewEconomy]

Thursday, August 28

¶    GE’s Energy Consulting business has presented an extensive study that modeled the Eastern Interconnection in the US. It determined that when equipped with the appropriate modern plant controls, wind applications can substantially enhance grid resiliency. [EarthTechling]

¶   The Australian federal government has released its review of the Renewable Energy Target. It concludes the costs of the scheme “outweigh its benefits” and has recommended the scheme either be shelved or changed. [Business Insider Australia]

¶   Renewable energy sources accounted for 14.3% of net US electrical generation in the first half of the year, according to a new report by the EIA. Last year, the EIA forecast that the US would reach the 14% renewable mark in 2040. [pv magazine]… From June 2013 to June 2014, the US produced more than 12,000 GWh of solar power, compared to around 5,600 GWh from June 2012 to June 2013. This is an increase of over 210%, year-on-year. [Smithsonian]

2014-08-21 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, August 15

¶   In Germany, wind generation of electricity rose by 66% in the first six months of the year, as capacity was added before incentives were scaled back on August 1. Schleswig-Holstein, which profiting from its northern sea winds has constructed 159 wind turbines this year. [The Local.de]

¶   In a set of papers published Thursday in the Journal of Heredity, a US publication, Japanese and US scientists warned that radioactive materials released from by the core meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi could have caused abnormalities in the genes of nearby birds and insects. [The Japan Times]

Saturday, August 16

¶   Sharp has launched an energy storage system aimed at large individual consumers that could “dramatically cut utility demand charges.” The SmartStorage energy solution stores a large amount of electricity stored in reserve and releases it selectively. [CleanTechnica]

¶   A federal appeals court ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was within its rights to require electric utilities to make regional transmission plans. The plans mandate that regional planning for new transmission infrastructure account for renewable energy integration. [The Hill]

¶   DVO announced the first anaerobic digester installation in California. Each day, the digester will receive 55,000 gallons of solid and liquid waste from a nearby dairy farm with approximately 2,000 head of cattle. It will reduce the farm’s greenhouse gas emissions by 90% and provide power. [Renewable Energy Focus] (This is an area where Vermont is way ahead of California for now, with 15 biodigesters in the state.)

Sunday, August 17

¶   Renewable electricity sources generated 38% of the electricity consumed in Spain last month. Almost 30% of the total electricity consumed last month was generated by wind energy projects, while about 4% each was generated by solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power projects. [CleanTechnica]

¶   The US Department of Agriculture’s road map details the benefits installing 11,000 new anaerobic digestion plants across the US. They could be used to produce energy or transport fuels and also have major positive effects in the fight to reduce carbon emissions. [Energy Digital]

¶   Tesla has announced what they call the “Infinite Mile Warranty.” The infinite mile warranty is for the drive units of 85 kWh Model S’s, and it isn’t just for the first owner, but for anyone a Model S might be sold to. It also applies retroactively. [CleanTechnica]

Monday, August 18

¶   Leading investment bank Citigroup has painted an incredibly bright future for solar energy across the globe, arguing that its rapid expansion will be driven by “pure economics” and the growing need for diversity. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Europe’s ageing nuclear fleet will undergo more prolonged outages over the next few years, reducing the reliability of power supply and costing plant operators many millions of dollars. The 28-nation bloc’s 131 reactors are well past their prime, with an average age of 30 years. [EurActiv]

¶   The largest proposed onshore wind project in the United States does not need a recently expired federal tax credit to be commercially viable, the head of the company planning to build 1,000 turbines in Carbon County said this week. [Casper Star-Tribune Online]

Tuesday, August 19

¶   The Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century says the world now gets 22% of its energy from renewable sources. And renewables accounted for more than 56% of last year’s investments for additions to global power capacity, beating fossil fuels for the fourth year in a row. [reNews]

¶   A just-released Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report pegs utility-scale wind power-purchase agreement pricing as averaging $25 per MWh for projects that negotiated contracts in 2013. That’s cheap power. [Greentech Media]

¶   Two 1,117-MW nuclear power plants being constructed at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Powersite in Fairfield County for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (55%) and state-owned Santee Power (45%) have fallen behind schedule, causing a drop in SCE&G’s credit rating to negative. [CleanTechnica]

Wednesday, August 20

¶   According to analysis produced by Lauri Myllyvirta and Greenpeace International in the first half of this year, China’s coal use dropped for the first time this century – while the country’s gross domestic product actually grew. [Energy Collective]

¶   In Australia, Queensland businesses with their own renewable resources are being hit with service charges of more than $500 a day on their electricity bills, in a move the solar industry says is designed to kill the roll-out of commercial-scale rooftop solar across the state. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Demand for renewable electricity and power generation capacity is growing at an unprecedented rate in the Asia Pacific region. Cumulative investment in microgrids across the region will total $30.8 billion from 2014 to 2023, according to a Navigant Research report. [PennEnergy]

Thursday, August 21

¶   The European Commission now expects final power demand in 2020 to be 11% lower than it did in 2009. The commission has prepared three growth scenarios for wind power, with growth projections ranging from 41% to 85.9% by 2020. [Maritime Journal]

¶   World energy markets will soon enter a period of “extreme flux,” according to a new report out from Citigroup. The report paints a bleak picture for the future of the oil industry, while predicting massive growth in the renewable sector. [OilPrice.com]

¶   During July, 100% of US utility-scale power installations were renewables. So far this year, 25.8% of installations were utility scale solar, 25.1% wind, combined with biomass, geothermal and hydropower, the total is 53.8%. The rest was nearly all natural gas. [CleanTechnica]

¶   In just three years, new numbers tell us, more than half of the states in the US may have rooftop solar available at the same price as the local grid’s electric rates. And that’s even without considering state and local incentives! [CleanTechnica]

2014-08-14 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, August 8

¶   “Solar Power on the Rise: Rooftop Solar, Large-Scale PV, CSP, and the Solar Revolution” Shining. Soaring. Skyrocketing. Solar is so exciting, we’re running out of adjectives. America’s solar power revolution is the subject of a new UCS report. It’s a story worth celebrating. [The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists]

¶   An Australian Energy Market Operator report says Australia is facing an energy glut. It raises serious questions about the viability of existing coal-fired power stations, but might also result in more pressure on the Federal Government to reduce the Renewable Energy Target. [Yahoo Singapore News]

¶   The Japanese government and TEPCO are considering pumping up contaminated groundwater from 42 wells around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s Nos. 1 to 4 reactors and releasing it into the Pacific Ocean after removing almost all radioactive substances. [The Japan News]

¶   Governor Peter Shumlin marked the completion this week of the South Ridge Solar facility, the first 500-kilowatt solar net-metering project in Vermont. The solar farm provides power to Middlebury College as part of the school’s commitment to become carbon neutral. [Rutland Herald]

Saturday, August 9

¶   South Australia’s wind farms produced enough electricity to meet a record 43 per cent of the state’s power needs during July, and on occasions during the month provided all the state’s electricity needs. [RenewEconomy]

¶   Massive algae blooms on Lake Erie have robbed Toledo of clean drinking water, and boiling water with blue-green algae toxins just concentrates the poison. The causes include loss of wetlands, crumbling infrastructure, invasive species, and climate change. [Energy Collective]

¶   Residential solar provider Sungevity, Inc, headquartered in Oakland, CA, has announced that it has expanded its solar services into New Mexico and Vermont. Sungevity was ranked the third most productive residential solar installer in America, by a GTM Research report. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Wyoming’s Industrial Siting Council voted 7-0 to approve a proposal for a 1,000-turbine wind farm. During the two-day public hearing, no one spoke against the project. The nearly $5 billion project could produce up to 3,000 MW, or 10 million MWh annually, with 114 permanent jobs. [Casper Star-Tribune Online]

Sunday, August 10

¶   “RMI Blows The Lid Off The ‘Baseload Power’ Myth (Video)” Amory Lovins has very effectively debunked the myth that a reliable electricity supply from renewable resources needs either giant baseload coal, gas, or nuclear power stations or some yet untested cheap storage solution. [CleanTechnica]

¶   While Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power. [Los Angeles Times]

Monday, August 11

¶   Ocean acidification hurts infant oyster populations that cannot develop thick enough shells to survive. Washington state oyster farmers deal with this by adding alkaline chemicals into controlled environments, but as acidification worsens it will hurt adult populations as well. [Energy Collective]

¶   More than 650 US organizations now rely wholly on “green” power resources – such as solar, wind and geothermal – to meet their electricity needs, according to the US EPA’s Green Power Partnership’s latest quarterly report. [Triple Pundit]

¶   Three of Ohio’s four largest utilities — American Electric Power, Duke Energy and FirstEnergy — are asking state regulators to guarantee profits on a select number of power plants that might otherwise be decommissioned. [Columbus Dispatch]

Tuesday, August 12

¶   “Fracking: Energy Abundance or Crisis?” As the boom in fracking wells in the northern Appalachian Marcellus shale region now produces seven times more natural gas than in 2010, the implications for policy and impacts on the energy market are starting to show. [The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists]

¶   According to the latest weekly analysis by NPD Solarbuzz on UK PV market deployment, the UK’s cumulative capacity has now reached 5 GW. This makes the UK only the sixth country to have more than 5 GW capacity. [Solar Power Portal]

Wednesday, August 13

¶   Opponents of wind and solar power decry their intermittent nature. In the U.K. this week the tables have temporarily turned as wind power is replacing power lost when four nuclear plants unexpectedly had to be taken offline. [ThinkProgress]

¶   Green Mountain Power broke ground in Rutland Tuesday on a new $10 million solar project that the utility says will not only generate clean energy, but also provide emergency back up power to parts of the city when needed. [Vermont Public Radio]

¶   Many retiring nuclear and coal power plants may not need to be replaced on a megawatt-to-megawatt basis, according to a new report. This results from new technologies and distributed generation that improve energy efficiency, along with soft demand growth. [Renew Grid]

Thursday, August 14

¶   “‘Experts’ Have Been Misleading People About Renewable Energy” one of the striking patterns of behaviour in the energy industry over the last decade has been the ability of the “established” energy experts to underestimate growth of renewable energy and to overplay fossil fuels. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Ford Motor Company is teaming with DTE Energy to build Michigan’s largest solar array at Ford World Headquarters. The project will provide employees with 360 covered parking spaces and 30 charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles. [Stockhouse]

¶   The US DOE issued the final Environmental Impact Statement for the Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line, clearing it for final permitting. It is expected to bring New York up to 1,000 MW of renewable power, reducing dependency on the Indian Point nuclear plant. [POWER magazine]

2014-08-01 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, August 1

¶   A retired coal miner traveled 1,300 miles from his home in Kentucky to Denver to tell the EPA about the black lung disease he suffers from and how the pollution from coal plants is adversely affecting public health. His plea: “We’re dying, literally dying for you to help us.” [ThinkProgress]

¶   When a Republican congressman who represents an area of central Kansas co-sponsored a bill that would cut demand for biofuels by phasing out a federal renewable energy program, many of his rural constituents took note. Now he is in a tough race with a political novice. [Daily Journal]

Saturday, August 2

¶   “Energy bill’s failure sets back state’s fight on climate change” An important Massachusetts energy bill has failed, but the problems it tried to address have not gone away, and the clock is ticking. Massachusetts climate goals won’t mean much if they aren’t met. [Boston Globe]

¶   Central Hudson Gas & Electric filed a $46 million rate case, “Value for our Valley,”  which includes new distribution automation systems, community solar, expanded demand response, and a microgrid-as-a-service program, with the New York Public Service Commission. [Energy Collective]

¶   The US Energy Information Agency announced that non-hydro renewable had gone eight months where it outproduced hydroelectric dams. The figures include projects in excess of 1 MW of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas, and municipal solid waste. [Ars Technica]

¶   The planned 1300 MW Eagle Mountain pumped storage project in California has received a licence from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, paving the way for the project to go ahead. The pits at the mine will be modified to become water storage reservoirs. [International Water Power and Dam Construction]

Sunday, August 3

¶   The Edison Electric Institute, the power industry’s main trade group, is calling on utilities to better promote electric cars in order to stimulate demand for electricity and help reverse trends that threaten the long-term viability of some in the industry. [Energy Collective]

¶   Panasonic, Tesla’s current lithium-ion battery cell supplier, has now signed an agreement with Tesla on how the two will jointly carry out construction of this factory in the United States, including the roles each will play. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Dismantling the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California will take two decades and cost $4.4 billion, but spent radioactive fuel will be held at the site indefinitely, according to a game plan from Southern California Edison. [Chicago Daily Herald]

Monday, August 4

¶   About 25% of Australian power generation profits come from supplying power 0.4% of the time at peak prices. Renewable resources are destroying that profitability. Coal-burning power stations are being hit hardest, because they need to keep producing around the clock. [Sydney Morning Herald]

¶   The proportion of electricity produced in Western Australia’s main power grid from coal has jumped more than 30% in seven years despite carbon pricing and concerns about climate change. New figures reveal that coal has overtaken gas as the dominant fuel source. [The West Australian]

¶   The US DOE has just teamed up with EPA and the Department of Agriculture to announce a new initiative for ramping up manure-to-biogas at dairy farms and other farming operations, called the Biogas Opportunities Roadmap. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Rather than resisting change, San Diego Gas & Electric has been working with the Environmental Defense Fund and others at Rocky Mountain Institute’s eLab Accelerator to explore a vision of a future with even greater quantities of distributed energy resources. [Business Spectator]

Tuesday, August 5

¶   Beijing will stop using coal and close coal-fired power plants and other coal facilities in six of its capital districts by 2020. With pollution in Beijing reaching levels more than double levels considered hazardous, the country is increasingly installing clean wind and solar power. [NEWS.com.au]

¶   India will provide low-cost loans and grants to set up solar power parks across the country to host as much as 20 gigawatts of capacity, about 10 times what it has built to date. The parks will host large plants ranging between 500 MW to 1,000 MW that will be connected to the grid. [eco-business.com]

¶   As Australia’s federal government commits to a future dependent on the nation’s vast coal resource, two of the countries upon which this shaky economic plan is most dependent – India and China – look to be closing the door on the heavy polluting fossil fuel. [RenewEconomy]

¶   Three members of the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act Implementation Advisory Committee resigned and criticized the administration’s support of a bill that could lead to the construction of a natural gas pipeline across the state. [Platts]

Wednesday, August 6

¶   The message from energy ministers as part of the US-Africa Leaders Summit was that coal and natural gas will have to dominate the continent’s near future, even as officials also emphasized how deeply threatened the region is by climate change. [Environment & Energy Publishing]

¶   At best, nuclear power accounted for only 10.8% of the world’s electricity last year – down from a peak of 17.6% in 1996 – and faces a difficult future in at least the short term because the world’s reactor fleet is aging, while new projects are hit by high costs and construction delays. [MinnPost.com]

¶   Environment New York Research & Policy Center released a report showing strong solar growth across the nation including a 30% increase in New York in 2013. The report says effective state and local public policy is more important than the quality of sunlight. [Long Island Exchange]

Thursday, August 7

¶   The long-awaited restart of Japan’s nuclear power plants is facing yet another setback and may be delayed until 2015, Japanese media said on Wednesday, piling pressure on struggling utilities to push for fresh price hikes. [Japan Today]

¶   The State of Indiana last week joined 10 other states and the Commonwealth of Kentucky in a lawsuit challenging the legality of the US EPA’s new Clean Power Plan, which aims to achieve targeted reductions in carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. [NUVO Newsweekly]

¶   Conservative groups failed Tuesday in a coordinated effort to unseat several moderate House Republicans. Despite a flood of negative mail in the final weeks of the campaign, all of the targeted members appear to have survived their primary challenges, several by wide margins. [KCUR]