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Fortnightly Magazine - November 2005

Business & Money

Presenting a new management model.

Utility companies are at a crossroads when it comes to managing their pension plans. They must determine the best ways to continue to offer this benefit while controlling the impact these plans have on the overall financial health of the organization.

Byline: 

Jim Morris

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Technology Corridor

The nation's critical electric infrastructure is still too vulnerable to outages.

The Sept. 12, 2005, electricity blackout of most of the city of Los Angeles demonstrates the continuing vulnerability of the nation's electric infrastructure. Although the cause of the Los Angeles outage was accidental, it exposed a glaring weakness: cable line breaks are an attractive, easy target for terrorists, because the U.S. electric network has thousands of miles of unguarded transmission and distribution lines.

Byline: 

Greg Aliff and Branko Terzic

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Regulators Forum: Shifting Winds, Shifting Strategies

State regulators grapple with investments, supply planning, and structural issues.

The opposing challenges of higher gas prices and rising environmental concerns have put utility regulators in a difficult position: How can they bring rate stability while minimizing environmental impacts? At the same time, they are grappling with trends in consolidation, competition, transmission planning, and distribution service quality. Each state brings a different view of the changing utility landscape. For insight, Fortnightly brought together regulators from several states to discuss their plans and priorities for today and the future.

Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

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