Nuclear

Plans unveiled Tuesday to eventually close California’s last nuclear generating plant by 2025 appear to shut out the prospect for any new natural gas-fired generation being part of the electric generation replacements.

Cheap natural gas is pushing New York and Massachusetts nuclear power generators to the sidelines and prompting plant closures. But helping them out with a subsidy — as New York is considering — would be an unfair intervention that would distort markets, natural gas interests said Monday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) and Chubu Electric Power Co. have signed a memorandum of understanding on the formation of an alliance covering the entire energy supply chain, from upstream investments and fuel procurement through power generation. It would, among other things, create the world’s largest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

For the second month in a row, gas-fired power generation gained ground on coal-fired plants compared to the previous year by not falling off nearly as sharply, according to Genscape Inc.’s “Generation Fuel Monitor Report.”

Japan and Canada will engage in talks over the potential for future exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada to Japan, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) best practices need to be improved, but the drilling practice can be done safely, according to Stanford University’s Steven Chu, who served as Energy Secretary during the first Obama administration.

Cheap natural gas might not be the biggest nail in the coffin of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, VT, but it’s in there, Entergy Corp. said in announcing the shuttering of the plant, mainly due to low power prices in a poorly designed wholesale power market.

The now-closed 2,200 MW, 438-acre San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) could be totally shuttered and, decommissioned in 10 years, an official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) told a California state Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee hearing in Sacramento Tuesday.

Upcoming successes, particularly with major natural gas infrastructure projects, should help San Diego-based Sempra Energy offset a one-time 2Q2013 charge and annual revenue losses due to its minority share in a closed nuclear power plant in Southern California, CEO Debra Reed said Tuesday during a second quarter conference call with financial analysts in which she reported increased profits for the quarter and first half of 2013.