The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in a report analyzing the July power outage in

14 Western states, notes that New England is "challenged" by the shutdown of 3,000 Mw of nuclear capacity in Connecticut. The mid-Atlantic will be likewise challenged over the coming years by delay in the construction of a 765,000-volt transmission line between West Virginia and Virginia.

UtiliCorp United amended an electric-supply contract with Public Service Co. of Colorado to reduce electric costs for 78,000 electric customers by as much as $1 million a year. The amended contract calls for 168 Mw of firm power supply through December 2001. (The original contract was effective through 2008.) It also delays, for at least three years, UtiliCorp's planned construction of a 141-Mw power plant in Pueblo, CO.

Siemens Power Generation Group will work on four power plants in as many countries. Total value of the contracted work is nearly $1 billion. The largest plant (em a $700-million, 990-Mw, combined-cycle facility (em will be built in Batagas City, the Philippines, with joint partners First Philippine Holdings Corp. and British Gas, plc. In Chile, Colburn Machicura, a regional utility, signed a $132-million contract for a combined-cycle plant. In Peru, PADESA S.A. signed a $60-million pact for a two-stage, 300-Mw, gas-fired plant. And Public Power Corp. of Athens, Greece, contracted the company to lead a consortium working on a hydropower plant. Siemens's portion of that contract is $27 million.

By this fall, Jim Swisher of E&A Associates expects to know whether seven tons of his zinc titanate pellets (em a sulfur absorber that can be cleaned and reused (em passed a performance test. If so, Swisher has found a way to help coal-gasification plants remove sulfur emissions while cutting capital costs and increasing power plant revenues. The pellets' price: $7.60/ pound. That figure could drop to $5 when the pellets are produced in larger quantities. t

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