Letters From Readers

October 4, 2007

Below are a few letters we received on topics that appeared in the past few weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel.  

Earth Shattering New Proposals - September 7, 2007

My family is 10th generation in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia. I am a coal miners daughter and granddaughter.

In response to your views on mountaintop removal, let me clarify something.

This battle is not just for the environment or for a viewshed. It is NOT jobs versus the environment.

This is a battle for our very lives, our homes and our children's future.

Mountaintop removal is NOT safer than underground mining. Surface mines log fatalities as well. But surface mining puts the entire community in danger, from the unborn baby to the sickest elder. When my father went underground he knew the danger to him self but he did not put the community in danger. Who is it safer for?

Our water and our air are being poisoned by strip mining. Our homes are being blasted apart by the 3 1/2 million pounds of explosives used daily in West Virginia alone. The denuded mountains and forests are blasted of vegetation and that causes increased runoff in rain events that cause flooding. Please stop aiding in the bombing of our homes.

There is no such thing as cheap energy. Our blood is on that coal. If you can't dig it clean, you can't burn it clean. As coal reserves run short the price of coal fired electricity will rise, now the cost of coal is externalized to uneducated consumers. As the very air we breathe is running out due to pollution from coal fired power plants, we will realize that energy conservation and renewable energy is our only choice. We must move forward now. We could have an economic boom with a switch to renewable energy.

There are NO jobs on a dead planet. There is no need for electricity on a dead planet. Only a fool would think otherwise. The only moral, financial and intelligent solution to mountaintop removal is to stop it.

Julia Bonds
Rock Creek, West Virginia

Nuclear Jobs - September 14, 2007

The Experienced Nuclear Engineers, Technicians, Designers, QA, Project Management, Construction Field Engineers and the like are still out there, but they have had to find sustaining employment in other industries. The biggest impediment in getting them back into the new projects is simply better benefits, significantly better salaries, profit sharing, bonus', OT $ and the like. Longevity with a company is not likely unless one is with a major component manufacturer, thus the short term issues and high costs of moves and housing is just not appealing anymore. The utilities and EPC engineering org's absolutely must find them, pay them well and get the process going ahead of schedule to help them mentor/train the younger non-nuke experienced workers. When this realization occurs the flow of latent talent will begin to return to the industry and the knowledge and experience of the nuclear industry will not be lost. I think you need to help address this issue and just maybe the lights will go on in the multi-million dollar CEO heads!

L. T. Brown

Engaging Communications - September 17, 2007

The concept of branding is a very subtle one, and largely irrelevant, in the field of electric utilities. Aside from the obvious fact that most states do not have retail choice, and many that have tried it are moving away from that silly idea, the reality is that in the utility business the "brand's" reputation is based on recent service reliability levels, long-term company reputation, and overall value as perceived by the customer. The claim that effective branding can increase sales is also a strange one, given that most utilities are attempting to curtail load growth.

One can of course try to affect the customers' perceptions regarding the company by spending heaps of money on advertising that tries to brainwash them into thinking you're doing a good job, and some (weak-brained) people will indeed be influenced by these messages. However, the only effective way to develop a sustained, widely-recognized good reputation is by consistently providing excellent service and good value--and doing so for many decades, under the same name ("brand").

Considering these realities, it is puzzling that many utilities have abandoned their respected old names that carried 80 to 100 years' of good will, choosing instead to adopt generic, non-geographic names that don't relate to their communities or to the service provided. One only needs to look as far as Alliant, Ameren, Exelon, NStar, Oncor, Xcel, etc. to see this discarding of valuable reputations in action. There is little in most of these new names to indicate the company is a utility, and nothing to hint at their dedication to any community or section of the country. Most of these contrived names could just as well be applied to a bakery, bank, trucking firm, or software package-and many are, further diluting the new "brand's" potential value.

Richard (Rick) Gonzalez, PE
Principal Engineer, Transmission Planning
Excel Engineering, Inc.

Linking Conservation with Technology - September 19, 2007

"It's a win-win idea that allows customers to pay lower bills and utilities to provide better customer relations. Meanwhile, their power plants don't have to work as hard and they will therefore be able to reduce subsequent emissions."

Problem is that many don't make any profit if they don't make any pollution. They definitely make less if the customer pays less.

Regulators also have to change the rules so that the utility can profit by the customer conserving energy or it won't happen.

"Utilities that offer such programs may also be able to increase their revenues. It's a matter of making the public aware of the initiatives that are available and how those offerings can increase the energy efficiencies of an organization or household."

How about writing about how regulators can change the rules so that everyone benefits.

You can bet the utilities though won't jump at the chance of reducing their bottom line.

David Y. McGee, P.E. CEM
Technology Assessment Division
Louisiana Department of Natural Resources

Lots Riding on TXU Deal - September 21, 2007

I would love to have to sat in on like a fly on the wall at the federal and state regulatory deliberations where it was promulgated the TXU purchase by Wall Street educated equity investment groups would not harm consumers and would result in advancement of clean technologies! I guess one needs to understand what the term "not to harm consumers" really meant in the regulators' minds? If my experiences with such decision making matters in the past is any indication, I'm willing to bet the term had absolutely no meaning in the regulators' minds and was used simply to pacify those few interested consumers willing to voice their disapprovals. After all, the advancement of technologies by an electric utility (TXU) that relies mostly on natural gas to generate its juice would, of course, be of monumental importance in an industry that generates half its juice using coal!

Frank Horgos

I live in Houston--an area where TXU is an 'alternative supplier.' I find it disconcerting that with 'deregulation' of retail electricity prices, our rates have gone up, and ALL the retail offerings are within 5% of each other. We are paying over $0.12 per KWH, one of the highest rates in the country. It seems 'the rate to beat' is really 'the rate to match'

Deregulation in Texas has been a boon for electricity generators and top executives of them, but it HAS NOT been a success for retail consumers.

Why are the interests of consumers likely to benefit from the sale of TXU? Who is going to pay all those fees and service the debt load--why it's those consumers.

The investors in the 'private equity' firms MAY do well--their chiefs certainly will since their remuneration is taxed at long term capital gains rates rather than ordinary income rates.

I cannot see any reason (for the electricity customer) to support this deal--it will simply take $billions out of their pockets in rates and fees and pass it to already wealthy individuals who have only self interest.

The consumer would benefit most from 'nationalizing' ALL utility type (monopolistic) services. We GAVE these companies exclusive territories in which to operate--and they prospered with guaranteed return on investment. Why are we so stupid as to allow them to pluck the cherries and leave us with the pits?

Keith E Bowers

Investing in Gas Pipelines - September 26, 2007

What about coal gasification plants in the Illinois Coal Basin using coal to create natural gas? The Illinois basin area has a large reserve of coal that because of the clean air act isn't being used in electrical generation since it contains high sulfur. By converting the coal to natural gas it then becomes a clean fuel for power plants. Coal mines with on site with coal gasification plants and power plants would be less costly than having them separated as they are now.

Just a thought that would give the nation an additional supply of natural gas and electrical generation without the on going environmental concerns of coal burning power plants.

Dale Anderson, CPL/ESA
Anderson & Associates
Mineral & Energy Land Service

Forget about drilling in our National Parks please. How about bio-methane?

Bio-methane from biomass. New upflow leachbed digesters, developed at Leibnitz Ag Center in Germany, produce 12 million BTUs as methane from a ton of typical biomass. That's a 75% conversion efficiency....crude oil refineries lose 15 to 19% of the energy in each barrel of oil in the refining process for heavens sake. Considering that the bio-methane can be produced for under the wellhead price for fossil natural gas wouldn't you say it is worth considering...as they are now doing seriously in Sweden for example, as well as Germany and numerous other countries that are now in the process of converting their economies to methane. Countries where oil/gas corporations do not make the energy policy for the nation.

The $20billion to $25 billion proposed pipeline from Alaska to Chicago when divided by the BTUs it will carry over a twenty year period amounts to almost $1.50 per million BTUs. There are anaerobic biomass digesters operating in semi tropical climates that can produce the methane for under $2 per million BTUs.

Barry J. Hanson

I enjoyed your article on gas pipelines. There was however no mention of the Prudhoe Bay resource, some 22 T Ft3, and the various schemes to pipe or supply the gas to the USA. Also, I would like to see a currant treatment of LNG resources available in the USA to include development of facilities in Baja California, Mexico, designed to supply the great state of California, which the Californians don't seem to want.

Jim Carlyle
Comfort, Texas

Heading Off a Potential Recession - October 1, 2007

Do you think the CPI should be expanded to again include energy and food prices, like it did before the Clinton administration took those two factors out of the index? Most people are impacted by rising energy and food prices than anything else.

Don Wood
PEPC

One of the problems no one wishes to address is the massive amount of debt this nation has accumulated under the bush tenure. So far no one seems to have a plan. The FED drop in interest rates is a band-aid on a hemorrhage. It is this writer's belief that the very first thing that is necessary is to stop the horrific amount of spending by the bush regime. From a nation that once dominated in producing the finest products obtainable in the world we have slipped badly. From a producer nation we have retreated into a service nation, in effect we have become peddlers instead of builders. These are issues no one wishes to face, we speak about the market, interest rates, everything but the problem. We are spending too much money; we don't produce anything worth purchasing, how are we going to repay the horrific debt we have run up?

Joe Lang

If you think that the Federal Reserve - or other central banks - can always head off a potential recession, try examining their records. Bad things have started to happen in world financial markets, and we are just about at a point where those small decreases in discount rates that central bank governors are so proud of will have little precious little effect on the macroeconomy.

Ferdinand E. Banks
Professor

Being from the "Old School" I am a firm believer in first before you head off anything you are going to need "leaders"....where are they? I don't see any in Washington or in the Federal Reserve, that is for sure! I am an old Army Intelligence man and a former Nuclear consultant. I left the nuclear industry because of what I saw as a total lack of management. You are right....I have a really pessimistic outlook regarding this country and the literal "Garbage" that we have allowed to run it and our corporations! Simply put, if we are to head off a recession, we are going to need the right people and we are going to need to come up with a plan and a list of priorities and than have the discipline to stick to the plan and the priorities. Also we are going to need to type of leaders that surround themselves with advisers that do not necessarily share their viewpoints. In other words, no "yes men". Man, that would be a hard pill to swallow in the nuclear industry, wouldn't it? Geez, I remember morning after morning being in those stupid management meetings at Peach Bottom Atomic Generation Station having to waste time listening to totally useless information from a totally ineffective RP manager.

If we are to head off anything we are going to really have to develop some sort of "Testicular Fortitude" in this nation or we are all going to be paying homage to either Baghdad, Mecca or Tehran. It is time we all start taking more of a role in the workings of this country because it is obvious that the status quo is bringing us to ruin. Just something to think about.

Jack Strassner