power plant

Last week, the EPA unveiled rules that establish the first national limits on power plant emissions of a host of poisonous airborne pollutants. It's estimated that they'll save the country billions of dollars in health care costs.

Power plant operator Dynegy has agreed to be acquired by Icahn Enterprises for $5.50 per share in cash, or about $665 million. Dynegy has about $3.95 billion of outstanding debt, net of cash. The agreement follows a recent failed bid from private equity giant The Blackstone Group.

Shares of energy company Dynergy fell after its shareholders rejected a $603 million takeover bid from an affiliate of The Blackstone Group, a private-equity firm. Will investors Carl Icahn or Seneca Capital bid for the Houston company?

In a sign that large fossil-fuel power plants may be falling out of favor, French engineering company Alstom on Monday announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs in the next 17 months. Alstom cited low demand for its coal and natural-gas plants. Its renewable-energy operations won't be affected by the cuts.

It's barely been a week since a media frenzy marked the public launch of Bloom Energy, which makes a mini power plant known as Bloom Box for homes and businesses. Now, as critics take a closer look at the technology, it seems the bloom is off the box. Kleiner Perkins, the VC firm that backed the project, is learning a lesson about the pitfalls of investing in early-stage clean energy companies -- and raising the question of who should be backing basic energy research.

During his recent visit to China, U.S. President Barack Obama pushed hard for a firm target for cutting carbon emissions from the Chinese government. He had hoped to secure a concrete, detailed proposal from the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases ahead of the pending Copenhagen Climate...