The Financial Meltdown and Our Energy Future - Getting Some Perspective [PDF]

Perspective one year ago, I took advantage of a Boston business trip to call on one of the world's leading researchers looking into the promise of clean coal, Howard J. Herzog, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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New Era, New Rules - Making the Hard Choices - State Regulators Ponder the Options [PDF]

The states are increasingly viewed as emerging laboratories of change in energy. This is particularly true with the federal government's failure to forge a clear national energy policy.

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Inventing Our Energy Future - A Tectonic Shift Ahead [PDF]

In recent years, billions of people have been rising out of poverty and participating more fully in the global marketplace. This is good news, but it has put the world in a tight spot.

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Entergy's Spin-off - Redefining a Nuclear Mission [PDF]

Entergy Corp.'s planned spin-off of it's unregulated nuclear generation units is creating a lot of stir among shareholders and activists alike. The idea is to create additional value for those shareholders willing to incur more risks.

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Overcoming Obstacles to Transmission - Getting the Job Done [PDF]

You don't have to look far to see how concerns about climate change can affect the electric industry. On the supply side, growth in wind generation and new nuclear plants, and a reconsideration of whether to use new coal plants or shut down existing ones, could significantly alter the profile of the generation fleet that serves the nation.

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Strong Wind Buffets Bonneville - Surging Need for Northwest Transmission [PDF]

When the Bonneville Power Administration recently asked Northwest energy developers to declare their interest in obtaining transmission for their proposed projects - and to put money down to hold their spots - the federal agency was stunned by the response.

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Fuel Surcharge Report Card - Coping with Volatility [PDF]

In a world in which the price of natural gas can drop several dollars in a month and the cost of coal has doubled in less than a year, utilities are increasingly looking to isolate themselves from that volatility through fuel adjustment or power supply clauses.

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Legal Nightmares - What Keeps Executive Up At Night [PDF]

Utilities faced major regulatory and legal issues this year that will continue to pose challenges well into 2009. Issues include how to raise capital to fund new power plants at a time when credit sources are drying up, how to deal with a changing political environment and how to build nuclear plants for the first time in 30 years.

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Catching Rays - From Berkeley to North Carolina [PDF]

Until now, to equip your home or business with solar power you had to come up with a lot of scratch up front. Unfortunately, that often left access to the technology to the financially well off, to the curious or to highly motivated tree huggers.That appears to be changing.

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The Energy Shadow Government - Coping with Change [PDF]

Washington civil servants are bracing for that personnel hurricane that sweeps through the federal bureaucracy every eight years or so, when a new administration places thousands of political appointees in all the top jobs - and some not-so-top jobs.

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Growing Waste to Energy - Combating Global Warming [PDF]

In the 1970s and 1980s, federal and state environmental agencies and more than a few experts were touting the virtues of managing municipal solid waste by using it as fuel in a high-temperature process to generate electricity.

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New Coal Economics - Rising Exports Shape Prices [PDF]

Coal-fired power plants remain the backbone of the U.S. electrical generation fleet, accounting for more than 50 percent of America's energy.

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Building Wind Manufacturing - Industry Gears Up [PDF]

The forces driving the development of new wind generation in the United States are reaching Category 4 hurricane strength.

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Utilities Find New Ways to Cope [PDF]

From winter's ice and heavy snow to summer's tropical storms and hurricanes, extreme weather has been offering North America's electric utilities repeated lessons in emergency preparedness.

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Entergy Focuses on Trees [PDF]

Since 2005, Entergy has dealt with four of its worst hurricanes ever: Katrina, Gustav, Rita and Ike. Combined, the storms inflicted at least $2 billion in damage and counting in the company's operating territory in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

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Mixed Gas Outlook - Economy Down But Generation Demand Up [PDF]

Power generation is likely to be the only driver for increased natural gas demand this winter as warmer weather and a sluggish economy dampen retail and industry demand, the Natural Gas Supply Association forecast in its annual winter outlook for 2008-2009.

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Constellation Explosion - Background of a Financial Disaster [PDF]

In the deafening roar that accompanied the collapse of the markets in October, the whooshing sound that accompanied the deflation of Constellation Energy could easily have been missed, but in the energy sector it was significant and it raised unsettling questions.

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Deep Sea Injection - A Place for Carbon Dioxide [PDF]

Many scientists have long said that carbon dioxide generated by human activity is changing the climate. Now that they seem to have the attention of business, some scientists are proposing action that does not depend solely on cutting emissions.

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Let's Build a Superhighway - Moving to a Better Power Grid [PDF]

The nation's transmission system is the critical link between the power generators and the power consumers. The traditional role of a transmission system is to provide the most cost-effective generators with access to the loads and to enable an efficient electric power supply market, where the price of electricity varies little over a large geographical region.

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Underground Treasure - Coal Gasification Revisited [PDF]

Changing economic conditions and concerns over emissions are reviving interest in underground coal gasification. The technology burns coal in place in the ground creating a mix of gases including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

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The Wonders of Compressed Air - A Route to Energy Storage [PDF]

Using compressed air for energy storage has been discussed for decades. And several plants around the world - notably one opened in the 1990s in Alabama - use the technique to squirrel away excess energy for later use.

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The Best of Utility Information Harvesters - CIOs of the Year [PDF]

From Toronto, Canada, to Jacksonville, Fla., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Los Angeles, EnergyBiz's 2008 KITE Award winners represent the best thinking and latest technology as utilities across the United States, Canada and the rest of the world work to meet the energy challenges that have become front-page news.

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Hydro Revisited [PDF]

Hydropower, the United States' largest and arguable oldest renewable energy generator, is making a 21st-century comeback."We haven't seen this much interest in hydro in many years," says Jeff Leahey, senior manager of government and legal affairs for the National Hydropower Association.

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Strengthening Cyber Security - Center Advises Utilities [PDF]

Remote attacks on systems that control power production and distribution are no longer hypothetical events. At least four utilities have been subjected to extortion demands by criminals who used the Internet to infect the utilities' computers and caused or threatened power outages.

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The Green Circuits Project - Focusing on Transmission and Distribution Efficiency [PDF]

We live in a world where the demand for electricity continues to increase, not only as a result of normal load growth but also as a result of new loads like electric vehicles. It is becoming increasingly important to look beyond traditional generation for alternatives to meet supply needs including energy efficiency, demand management and renewable generation.

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Metrics [PDF]

• Costly Outages
• Renewables and Gas Generation Surge
• Flat Growth in Electricity
• Residential Electric Prices Climb

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The Sheriff on Smart Grid - Sergel on Outages and Failing Financial Markets [PDF]

Richard P. Sergel sits atop an organization that strives to maintain the reliability of the bulk power system in North America. Sergel, 58, is president and chief executive officer of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., based in Princeton, N.J.

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Manure Power - Gas to Energy [PDF]

During the past decade, American farmers have built more than 100 anaerobic digesters to extract energy from livestock manure. Most of the farms use the methane-rich biogas produced by bacteria in the digesters to generate electricity; project capacities range from a few kilowatts to several megawatts.

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