Frontlines & Op-Ed

Utilities on Steroids

What's behind today's oddball mergers?

Look at the gargantuan, gerrymandered service territories you would get with the latest pending merger deals: Exelon-PSEG, Duke-Cinergy, and Warren Buffet's bid to combine PacifiCorp with his MidAmerican Energy. Now ask yourself if they make any sense.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros, Executive Editor

Read Entire Article

Revenge of the ’70s

A guide to the galaxy of low growth, high interest rates, and the dark side of the Force.

Many executives are hoping to avoid a repeat of the 1970s, when first hit the big screen, and when inflation, nuclear cost overruns, and diminishing returns came calling in an economic climate that today's markets threaten to emulate.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article

A New Solid South

Where Entergy leads, will Wal-Mart follow?

Everyone is talking about Entergy's move to form a single-company RTO-lite across its service territory in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article

Guns, Butter, or Green?

Utilities will face stark tradeoffs in meeting the next round of emissions controls.

Some utility execs gasp at the shear breadth of environmental proposals being bandied about during the past few weeks. Even the environmentalists are calling "historical" the extent to which different kinds of emissions will be regulated.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article

Letters to the Editor

Why not let the industry make its own decisions on how to meet economy-wide reductions in greenhouse-gas intensity as a percentage of GDP? It can be demonstrated easily that the land requirements for biomass to replace fossil fuels far exceed what is available in the world and the United States, including croplands, pastures, and meadows.
Byline: 

Henry R. Linden

Read Entire Article

Frontlines

Can utility executives find happiness in back-to-basics?

Frontlines

Can utility executives find happiness in back-to-basics?

We've read the pitch a number of times in these very pages. Top investment bankers have told us that a "back-to-basics" strategy will never produce a high-enough return to please electric utility stockholders; that the only solution to bridge this "earnings gap" would involve a rash of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) between utilities.

Byline: 
Richard Stavros, Executive Editor
Read Entire Article

Monopolists in Our Midst

What happens when economists and state regulators give up on electric restructuring?

It’s not to be taken lightly when several high-profile economists reverse themselves on electric competition—giving up on policies they had pushed for years. It’s also quite serious when regulators and legislators in pro-competitive states become willing to discuss a repeal of electric restructuring laws. These developments, seen over the fast few months, have set the industry buzzing.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article

A Better Merchant Mousetrap?

The failure of the Empire Connection spells trouble for private transmission projects.

It’s at the very heart of all policy initiatives for both electric generation and transmission: How do you attract the right amount of investment without creating an overbuilt market, or a boom-bust scenario? In recent months, utility executives, financiers, and policy-makers have been asking this question with even greater zeal than usual.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article

Letters to the Editor (December 2004)

While we are concerned about the effects of ratings linkage on regulated utilities, in no respect do we blame credit rating agencies. In fact, we strongly believe that the rating agencies are critical gatekeepers that point out for investors and regulators the potential linkages among holding company subsidiaries that could result in utility abuse or its credit downgrade.
Read Entire Article

The New, New Thing?

At a posh dinner event and conference, industry experts speculate on the issues that could affect the industry in 2005.

It was the most exclusive, and one might say, one of the most extraordinary dinners. Never have I seen so many prominent CEOs, regulators, and financial gurus all in one room, discussing the future of the electric industry.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

Read Entire Article