Power Measurement

What's causing price volatility, and will it last?

Coal markets have changed dramatically in the last year, but uncertainty lingers over how permanent the changes will be. After relative stability in the 1990s, coal markets, like other energy commodities, have become increasingly volatile, although high prices should not be confused with increased volatility.

Russia resurrects the Kyoto Protocol and the prospect of either mandatory CO² emissions cuts for U.S. utilities, or the start of a global trade war.

In June 2001, the Bush administration withdrew an earlier campaign pledge to support the Kyoto Protocol, claiming that the treaty was fatally flawed in not requiring China and India to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and that the science underpinning the treaty was not yet definitive enough to justify the costs of compliance.¹

With its own private power grid, Texas thinks it's got restructuring licked.

Former coal lobbyist Glenn Schleede plays Don Quixote, crusading against the DOE's 20-year initiative to boost investment in windmills.

News Digest

A former state regulator notes serious problems in Northeast power markets, and offers remedies.

Eight states blame upwind sources. Agency to revisit emissions targets.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Sept. 24 rule for 22 eastern states to file plans to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions would ostensibly reduce transport of ground-level ozone, or smog, in so-called "nonattainment areas." But eight of these affected states have filed petitions arguing that NOx emissions blowing in from nearby jurisdictions must be controlled before they can comply.

So far, in preliminary statements, the EPA has indicated that at least some of these petitions have merit.