President Trump signs legislation to promote advanced nuclear reactor technology

GREENTECH MEDIA – Oct 1 On Friday, President Trump signed the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, which passed earlier last month with bipartisan support. The bill is expected to speed up the development of advanced reactors in the U.S. by eliminating several of the financial and technological barriers standing in the way of nuclear innovation. To help offset upfront costs, the bill calls for a cost-share grant program to cover a portion of the licensing fees charged by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission during its new technology review process. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry now has 180 days to provide Congress with a report assessing the ability to host and operate experimental advanced nuclear reactors at the national labs or other DOE sites.

SunPower completes purchase of SolarWorld Americas

PV-TECH – Oct 2 SunPower Corp. has completed the acquisition of SolarWorld Americas from German insolvency court and administrators, securing the future of the solar cell and module assembly operations of the Hillsboro, Oregon, plant. SunPower reiterated that the facility would produce its P-Series cells and modules, which were already being made under a JV in China and assembled in Mexico. “This acquisition is an important step in helping to reshape solar manufacturing in America,” said Tom Werner, SunPower CEO and chairman.

New Jersey, California play catch-up on offshore wind

ENGINEERING NEWS-RECORD – Sep 27 California and New Jersey, which have been on slower tracks than other coastal states for offshore wind-energy development, took big steps last month to catch up. In California, the U.S. Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) and the state energy commission, proposed on September 17 to open 1,149 square miles of ocean to offshore wind, including areas off Humboldt Bay, Morro Bay, and the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near Avila Beach. BOEM established a task force in 2016 to develop wind generation along the Pacific coast—which has high-capacity wind supply but added technical challenges because of much-deeper water—after an unsolicited lease request from Trident Energy.

California’s great electric vehicle charging build-out

GREENBIZ – Oct 3 California, the state with the most electric vehicles (EVs) on its roads in the U.S., might finally get the infrastructure it will need to charge the coming wave of zero emissions vehicles. This Wednesday, Volkswagen subsidiary Electrify America released the details of its plans to spend another $200 million deploying electric vehicle charging stations and educating the public around EV options. The company, which was created as part of a settlement after VW was caught cheating on its diesel vehicle emissions tests, intends to spend $2 billion over 10 years to promote EV adoption around the U.S. The latest program, called “Cycle 2,” will seek to deploy mostly fast charging stations in metro areas up and down California, including around Riverside, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Jose, San Diego, and Santa Rosa.

Import tariffs will make U.S. wind power more expensive

BLOOMBERG – Oct 2 President Donald Trump’s trade war won’t wreck the U.S. wind industry, but it will raise the cost of power. Tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports, as well as on metals from Europe and elsewhere, could raise the cost of wind power in the U.S. by as much as 10 percent, Tom Kiernan, chief executive officer of the American Wind Energy Association, said at a conference in New York. Besides steel, the tariffs cover turbine blades, gearboxes, crank shafts, and other internal components.