The Wayne County town of Williamson could begin powering its municipal buildings almost entirely with solar energy as early as the fall. The electricity will come from a 1.5 megawatt solar farm, which will be built on the closed Williamson landfill. Compared to the 580 megawatt Ginna nuclear plant, the generation capacity is small. But […]
power plants
Nuclear options
A Vermont Law School researcher recently released a list of 12 US nuclear power plants that he says face economic risks that could lead to early shutdown. And the Ginna nuclear plant in Wayne County is on the list. Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at the school’s Institute for Energy and the […]
Ontario cleaning up its power plants
New York’s neighbor to the north is about to shut down all of its coal-fired power plants. This year, all of the remaining coal plants in the province of Ontario will be shut down except for one small plant that will be kept as a backup for peak demand periods, says an article in Yale […]
Regional cap and trade program tightens limits
Cap and trade advocates got some good news this morning: the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has announced plans to permit fewer carbon emissions from power plants in 2014. RGGI, as the initiative is commonly known, is made of Northeastern states that banded together to impose stricter regulations on power sector greenhouse gas emissions. The […]
Federal regulations for smog-causing pollutants still uncertain
For decades, New York has had more stringent emissions regulations than other states. It’s been state government’s way of trying to improve air quality. But air moves, which complicates such efforts. Emissions from other states will drift in to New York, making their pollution this state’s problem. Former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Midwestern power […]
What I’m reading: Nuclear power from nuclear waste?
When it comes to nuclear power, storing and disposing of spent fuel rods is a problem. Power plants have to keep the spent rods on site, because there’s nowhere else for them to go. For environmentalists, the on-site storage is a major concern, though not the only one they have with nuclear power. And nuclear […]






