Fortnightly Magazine - July 15 1996

Madison Gas and Electric Co. (MGE) has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) not to approve the proposed merger of Wisconsin Energy Corp. (WE) and Northern States Power Co. (NSP) to form "Primergy." MGE claims that the merger would not only subject Wisconsin's electric consumers to higher prices, but severely impair competition.

According to Mark Williamson, MGE senior vice president of energy services, the Primergy merger would create market concentration in generation and transmission, resulting in market power abuses and anticompetitive conduct.

electric industry restructuring.

That's what Matthew Freedman, energy policy analyst, announced at a Public Citizen briefing on the advocacy group's Power for the People, a "public interest blueprint" for the new electric market.

"Competition in the electric power industry could either usher in a new era of cleaner, more affordable energy services or prove to be the biggest customer shakedown of our time," the report reads.

Former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger told a gathering of utility and renewable energy executives that he supports conservation efforts to reduce the risk of another major oil crisis, but that the government's role in renewables should be limited.

"I think you're not going to get more energy efficiency simply by spending more money," Weinberger said at the Seventh Annual Energy Efficiency Forum sponsored by the U.S. Energy Association and Johnson Controls in Washington, DC.

The Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (em a group of 36 state regulatory agencies, Attorneys General, and utilities from 20 states (em has renewed calls for storage and disposal facilities since the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) accepted 20 metric tons of radioactive waste from 41 countries. The waste derives from nuclear fuel originally provided by the United States to foreign power plants. The bulk, 19 tons, goes to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory receives the remainder. U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab: about $1 billion.