I don't know about you, but the Internet is driving me carzy. Every week I discover a half-dozen new home pages to add to my reading list. Some may view NetscapeÔ as an investment play. I see it as drama.
As a magazine editor (em someone who gets paid to follow the news (em I feel guilty if I don't click on every link and download every file. I call it the "obligation to surf." And the problem grows worse as more government agencies post their decisions online.
Paper trading is here, introducing an element of speculation in wholesale electric markets.The electric power industry joined the commodity markets on March 29, 1996, when power futures began to trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). This first tentative step in the commoditization of electricity promises the emergence of a paper market for power, which, as in the case of other commodities, will likely prove substantially broader and more complex than electricity's physical market.
for closure or removal of long-lived assets
will bring costs out into the open.
But is it rational?
On February 7, 1996, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued for comment an "Exposure Draft" of a new proposed statement of financial accounting standards pertaining to nuclear plant decommissioning and other similar legal obligations,
Giving up today's customer to retail wheeling could help cut losses tomorrow.
Estimates of stranded investment for U.S. investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) range from as little as $20 billion to as much as $500 billion (em more than double the shareholder equity in U.S. utilities.
Investors are taking stock
of utility exposure to price competition.The utility trade press and even the general financial press have featured the views of regulators, utility executives, legislators, and various consumer advocates on the stranded-cost question. Stranded costs easily represent the most contentious issue facing the electric industry as it moves to an era of competition.
of charitable giving at 11 investor-owned electric utilities from across the country.
Of those companies surveyed, one pegged its charitable contributions budget as a percent of revenue. Some indicated that they
followed the "utility average" of giving 0.5 percent of income before taxes. (The national average for all companies is 0.9 percent.) Four utilities reported donations at or above that figure.
A New York appeals court has upheld a 1994 decision by the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) authorizing a qualifying cogeneration facility (QF) to make retail sales to certain industrial customers in the service territory of a retail electric utility. The PSC had authorized Sithe/ Independence Power Partners L.P. (em developers of a 1040-megawatt natural gas fired QF (em to sell electricity to steam host customers Alcan Rolled Products Co. and Liberty Paperboard L.P. See, Re Sithe/Independence Power Partners L.P., 155 PUR4th 149 (N.Y.P.S.C. 1994).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has ruled that Florida Power and Light Co. (FP&L) is protected by the state action immunity doctrine from liability to cogenerators (QFs) for alleged antitrust violations. The QFs had claimed that FP&L violated federal antitrust laws when it refused to wheel their power to offsite end users.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) has authorized Mountaineer Gas Co. to set up a method to compensate interruptible transportation customers for "banked" over-deliveries eventually used by other sales customers. The company historically permitted its transportation customers to bank excess volumes, and used the gas to reduce purchases for sales customers.
Under the new method, the company will buy current and future banked supplies at a "market determined" rate.
The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) has endorsed location routing number (LRN) technology as the most viable long-term solution to telephone number portability, although it does not expect LRN to become generally available for installation on most major central-office switching equipment until the second quarter of 1997.
The PSC noted that LRN minimizes the impact on network architecture by preserving existing routing logic and hierarchy, thus minimizing switch modifications and changes to databases and operating systems.