Utility News

WTAJ (Altoona, PA):

The slowing national economy will pay off for consumers in this one way. Natural Gas heating bills may be lower than expected. A number of natural gas suppliers are cutting their rates….

These gas prices are falling because the cost of natural gas generally follows the price of oil on the international markets. And as the price of petroleum has fallen, the price of natural gas is also going down. While gas rates are now lower than they have been for the last couple of months, rates are still higher than they were last year at this time. But the increase is not as drastic has had been predicted before the recent drop in international markets.

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Reuters:

Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon…

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

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Allentown Morning Call:

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, PPL cut electricity to 28,561 customers, according to figures released last week by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

That’s a boost of 111 percent over the number of PPL customers whose power was shut off during the same period in 2007.

The number of people who’ve lost electricity statewide is up as well versus the same period last year, but only by 24 percent.

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HomeTownAnnapolis.com:

After watching Constellation Energy’s stock tumble 60 percent since Monday, famed investor Warren Buffet stepped in this morning to buy the Baltimore-based utility for $4.7 billion.

The transaction announced shortly after 9 a.m. has Mr. Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. engaging in a cash-and-stock deal to buy Constellation — the parent of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., which provides gas and electricity to most homes in Anne Arundel County.

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Dow Jones via Lloyd’s:

Power went out for as many as 350,000 Entergy Corp. (ETR) customers in and around New Orleans, La., the regional electricity company reported Monday, as Hurricane Gustav lashed areas of coastal Louisiana with rains that witnesses described as horizontal.

Gustav whipped up shrieking winds, fearsome rain and isolated tornadoes as it made landfall just before 1500 GMT Monday west-southwest of Cocodrie, La., about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans.

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Palm Beach Post:

Florida Power & Light officials told state regulators today that nuclear power should join solar and wind as a renewable energy source in Florida…

The definition of renewable energy in Florida statutes includes energy from ethanol, biodiesel, biomass, biogas, hydrogen fuel cells, ocean energy, hydrogen, solar, hydro, wind or geothermal. Nuclear power is not included.

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The New York Times:

Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

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The New York Times:

American natural gas production is rising at a clip not seen in half a century, pushing down prices of the fuel and reversing conventional wisdom that domestic gas fields were in irreversible decline.

The new drilling boom uses advanced technology to release gas trapped in huge shale beds found throughout North America — gas long believed to be out of reach. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, releasing less of the emissions that cause global warming than coal or oil.

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The New York Times:

Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.

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The Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News:

In what it sees as a wake-up call for electric customers, the state Public Utility Commission released a study showing residential electric bills in Pennsylvania would increase an average 43 percent if rate caps came off tomorrow.

The PUC plans to run the numbers quarterly, in part to warn customers about what will happen when rate caps expire in 2010 and 2011.

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