Utility News

AP via Boston.com:

A report to Maine utility regulators recommends against the proposed merger of Fairpoint Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications’ landline business in northern New England.

A hearing examiner’s report to the Public Utilities Commission says the $2.7 billion deal would subject ratepayers and shareholders to substantial risks that are not outweighed by benefits of the deal.

The report also sets forth conditions for the transaction in the event the PUC disagrees with its overall assessment.

No Comments »

San Jose Mercury News:

Google today said that it will spend “tens of millions” to research clean-energy alternatives to coal-fired power plants and “hundreds of millions” to bring projects to market.

The goal is to create clean power that Google can use as well as to accelerate the pace at which clean-energy technologies are developing.

“Our goal is to build one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal,” Google co-founder Larry Page wrote in a Web post. “Within years, not decades.” One gigawatt is enough to power a city the size of San Francisco.

No Comments »

The New York Times:

If litigation is war by other means, then the Supreme Court case of New Jersey v. Delaware is nothing less than civil war — the latest battle in a dispute over the two states’ Delaware River boundary, which has flared up periodically for well over a century.

Earlier Supreme Court face-offs involved the two states fighting over fishing rights and oyster beds. The case that was argued Tuesday morning has a more modern focus: a huge liquefied natural gas storage and processing plant that BP wants to build on New Jersey’s Delaware River shore in Logan Township.

New Jersey wants the $600 million plant and the economic boost that its construction and operation would bring. Delaware declared in 2005 that the project would violate its Coastal Zone Act and refused to issue a permit.

No Comments »

EarthWeb News:

The FCC has approved a plan to reform the Universal Service Fund that could lead to new subsidies for broadband services to rural areas.

The plan, when turned into new regulations, will also reform to the way subsidies are paid out to telecommunication providers and put a cap on the rapidly growing USF, which is funded by taxes on consumer’s phone bills.

No Comments »

The New York Times:

Recycled water, also called reclaimed or gray water, has been used for decades in agriculture, landscaping and by industrial plants.

And for years, treated sewage, known as effluent, has been discharged into oceans and rivers, including the Mississippi and the Colorado, which supply drinking water for millions.

But only about a dozen water agencies in the United States, and several more abroad, recycle treated sewage to replenish drinking water supplies, though none here steer the water directly into household taps. They typically spray or inject the water into the ground and allow it to percolate down to aquifers.

No Comments »

Web India:

By 2025, an estimated 3.5 billion people will live in areas facing severe water shortages — and providing them potable water would be a challenge that may be best met by nuclear-powered desalination

This was one of the solutions presented at the recent Trombay Symposium on Desalination and Water Reuse…

This and other solutions discussed at the symposium have been published in a special issue of the International Journal of Nuclear Desalination.

No Comments »

Business Week:

Duke Energy Co. received approval Tuesday from Indiana utility regulators to build a $2 billion coal-burning power plant using technology that could eventually allow the plant’s global warming emissions to be captured and stored underground.

As part of the order from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, Duke will shut the state’s oldest coal-burning plant and build a new 630-megawatt unit with so-called integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC, technology, which transforms coal into a synthetic gas before running it through generation turbines. The process allows carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, to be captured before it’s released into the atmosphere.

No Comments »

NorthJersey.com:

New Jersey’s lawmakers are poised to impose new pollution penalties on power companies — the first step in determining who pays for contributing to global warming and who profits from preventing it.

By year’s end, the Legislature is expected to approve a plan requiring the companies to pay for the greenhouse gases they produce, a charge that could amount to $70 million or more each year…

New Jersey’s plan would put a cap on carbon emissions statewide, starting at 23 million tons a year and ratcheting downward over the coming years. The state would give “allowances” to companies, one per ton of greenhouse gas. Businesses that find a way to lower emissions could sell allowances to those needing more. In theory, the market finds the best way to cut pollution.

No Comments »

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Allegheny Energy Inc.’s electric delivery unit said Tuesday that it filed with the state Public Utility Commission to offer a wind energy program to its 707,000 Pennsylvania customers.

Allegheny Power will partner with Community Energy Inc., the Radnor, Delaware County-based subsidiary of the world’s largest wind energy developer, Spain’s Iberdrola. Community Energy also offers a wind energy program to Duquesne Light Co. customers.

No Comments »

CNN Money:

Shareholders of Energy East Corporation today overwhelmingly approved the agreement and plan of merger with Iberdrola, S.A., whereby Energy East will become a wholly- owned subsidiary of Iberdrola. Approximately 93% of the votes received were voted “for” the merger.

No Comments »