People
The California Independent System Operator board of governors hired Yakout Mansour to be its president and CEO. And others...
Commission
Perspective
Renewable Energy in the 21st Century:
Perspective
Renewable Energy in the 21st Century:
State involvement in promoting renewable technologies has profound implications for the future of the energy industry.
Election-year posturing seems to have prevented the federal government from reaching consensus on a number of energy issues ranging from standard market design to global warming, MBTE to Kyoto, ANWR to nuclear waste disposal.
Commission Watch
What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.
Commission Watch
What everybody missed in setting up the regional grids.
While the electric utility industry has largely agreed on what elements to include in a standard market design (SMD) to govern wholesale power trading in a given region, recent experience shows that the regulators from time to time have overlooked a number of things.
Efficiency and Demand Response: Twins, Siblings, or Cousins?
Analyzing the conservation effects of demand response programs.
Does demand response increase or decrease overall electricity usage?
The Global LNG Gamble
The Geopolitical Risks of LNG
The Geopolitical Risks of LNG
To many energy-industry analysts, 2005 is a make-or-break year for the U.S. gas market. If we don't have at least several liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in construction by the end of the year, the country arguably will face serious gas-supply shortages and price spikes beginning in about 2008.1
Alaskan Gas Development: One Pipeline, Two Systems
FERC may have to carve out a special set of rules if it wants to bring Arctic gas south to the lower-48.
When President Bush signed the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act of 2004, one might have thought that North Slope gas was on the fast track. With all the special provisions that Congress has added to the bill, the reality may prove otherwise.
The Need for Nuclear Now
States will play a significant role in the resurgence of nuclear power plants in America.
At times, various conditions align and set the stage for achieving goals that may have appeared to be unreachable. Last summer, the Boston Red Sox were all but eliminated from contention, but then won an amazing stretch of baseball games that resulted in a World Series championship.
A similar scenario can be applied to the U.S. nuclear industry-producer of a steady, low-cost, environmentally important electricity source poised to thrive with the possibility of new plant construction in the not-so-distant future.
Europe: Picture of a Stalled Competitive Model
Several hurdles remain to further liberalization and full competition in the electricity sector.
Two major trends can be observed in Europe’s electricity sector. First, the increasing importance of private-sector participation in a sector that was traditionally viewed as belonging to the state. The second major trend in Europe is that of the massive amount of merger and acquisition activity across the continent. At the same time, several hurdles remain to further liberalization and full competition in the European electricity sector.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A New World Order
Pressure for national legislation builds as the Northeastern U.S. goes it alone and carbon trading takes off in the European Union.
Domestic and international pressures are building rapidly on the United States to enact some form of legislation to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, as a spate of recent developments turns up the heat on the Bush administration. Internal pressure is building on several fronts
The Exelon-PSEG Super Merger: A Nuclear Liability?
Experts debate the risks of a proposed acquisition that would increase the largest nuclear fleet in the country.
Even as many energy and financial experts are touting the so-called “synergies” of the proposed merger between Exelon and PSEG, some are growing concerned over one of the deal’s chief selling points: the high concentration of nuclear power.