** Utah-based EnergySolutions intends to apply for an early site permit from federal regulators to install new nuclear generation at the retired Kewaunee Power Station in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, the company said in a statement last week.
** Donald Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency threw a tantrum Wednesday when asked to explain how exactly his agency had decided to cancel nearly 800 grants focused on helping decrease the impact of climate change. Lee Zeldin lost his cool during a Senate hearing when Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked him to explain conflicting accounts of the process for approving the cuts to 781 grants.
** The Trump administration will halt funding of $365 million awarded during the previous administration for rooftop solar power in Puerto Rico and redirect it to fossil fuel burning plants and maintenance of infrastructure, it said on Wednesday.
** Wisconsin lawmakers and researchers have found common ground in the idea of making the state into the “Silicon Valley” for nuclear fusion development. A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been working with local Realta Fusion to make fusion energy a reality, but they’re not the only ones, according to a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
** Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and state regulators tout an agreement with Georgia Power to freeze base electricity rates in the state for the next three years.
** A federal appeals court rules that three environmental groups lack standing to challenge the EPA’s approval for a Louisiana carbon capture program.
** A subsidiary of BP announces a partnership with Waffle House to install electric vehicle charging stations at the diner’s locations across the South.
World
** Gotion, one of the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturers, has officially entered the all-solid-state battery race with the launch of its first experimental production line aimed to test and refine next-generation battery technologies.
** The European Commission has selected 15 green hydrogen projects for the second European Hydrogen Bank auction. The tender received 61 bids, with a total request of €4.8bn, which represents four times the available budget for the round (€1.2bn). The selected projects will be funded by the Innovation Fund, sourced from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).
** India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has approved the siting of a new nuclear site in the Indian State of Rajasthan. The Indian nuclear regulator has given its consent for the location of Mahi Banswara Rajasthan Atomic Power Project, which will feature four Indian-designed 700 MW pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), that would be located near the village of Napla, in the Banswara district. The AERB’s consent is valid for five years.
** The renewable developer Aurora Solar and the Chinese construction contractor Norinco International have started the construction of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s largest solar power project, located at Komanja Brdo in the municipality of Stolac (in the south of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and totalling a capacity of 125 MW.
