BP successfully cements shut the damaged oil well, the DOE awards $1 billion to Illinois for a new clean coal project, and how close the US is to generating power from waves.

BP yesterday finished their cementing operations at the damaged oil well a little earlier than expected. The procedure was one of the final steps to their static kill operation. Monitoring of the well is the final step in the process. But BP and government officials are very optimistic that the cement will hold.  If successful, retired Adm. Thad Allen has told BP to get ready for a “bottom kill.” This operation would pour more mud and cement into one of the two relief wells that’s currently being drilled by BP. The bottom kill operation will close the penetration between the drill pipe’s two layers of outer casing and inner piping. That would ensure that there would be no more oil leaking into the Gulf.

The US has decided to try a new test for clean coal. DOE Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin jointly announced a $1billion award for the development of the FutureGen 2.0 project in Mattoon, Illinois. The money will go towards building a clean coal program and carbon dioxide storage network.  With a coal of achieving a 90% carbon capture, the project will initially create approximately 1,000 construction jobs and 1,000 jobs for the suppliers. But, this is just the beginning of the master plan which is to retrofit 52 coal powered power plants over the next 10 years. The first project is to retrofit and repower an unused coal power plant in Meredosia, Illinois with a special process called Oxy –combustion technology, which mixes oxygen and CO2 while burning the coal.

Having just received approval from 11 federal and state agencies and three non-governmental stakeholders, Ocean Power Technologies has taken a major step towards becoming the first company to ever receive a license by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build a commercially viable wave power project in the United States. The project would encompass the development of a 10-PowerBuoy(R), 1.5 megawatt wave energy station off the coast of Reedsport, Oregon. If the licensing and installing are successful, then the wave farm would generate enough clean energy to power approximately 1,000 homes.

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