Utility News

Forbes:

The Maine Public Utilities Commission begins deliberations Thursday on FairPoint Communications‘ proposal to buy Verizon’s landline telephone operations in northern New England for $2.7 billion.

The three-member commission could issue a decision Thursday on the deal, which also must be approved by regulators in New Hampshire and Vermont. If there’s no decision, then the deliberations would resume on Dec. 20.

Representatives from FairPoint, Verizon, Maine’s public advocate and MPUC staff have held closed-door meetings in the past week in an effort to reach a settlement that is agreeable to all. Labor unions, local phone companies and other intervenors in the case have also participated in the meetings.

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The New York Times:

Until recently, wind turbines were used primarily by those who lived outside the range of local utility lines, or who wanted to live completely off the grid. Now, reductions in their size and cost, along with improvements in their efficiency, are allowing suburban homeowners with no dissident leanings to speak of to install them in growing numbers, with concerns over rising energy costs and global warming driving the demand.

Sales of wind turbines have been growing steadily since 1990, when the American Wind Energy Association, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C., began tracking them. Last year, about 7,000 small wind turbines — defined as those that have a capacity of up to 100 kilowatts, roughly enough to power a large school — were purchased in the United States, according to the group, which said it expects sales to reach about 10,000 this year.

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MarketWatch:

Exxon Mobil Corp. said Tuesday it plans to seek regulatory approval for a floating liquefied natural gas receiving terminal to be anchored about 20 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Exxon Mobil said the $1 billion BlueOcean Energy terminal will have the capacity to supply about 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, enough for more than five million residential consumers in New York and New Jersey.

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Seeking Alpha:

Citigroup’s Michael Rollins wrote a report today which takes a look at the state of the “teleconomy,” and provides some interesting tidbits:

• The telcos continue to lose residential phone subscribers to both cable VoIP and wireless subscriptions at a steady 7%-8% a year.
• By 2010, wireless-only households should rise to 27%, from 13% last year and an estimated 17% this year.
• Cable VoIP penetration should jump from 10% last year and an estimated 14% this year to 25% by 2010.
• Wireless penetration should rise from an estimated 83% this year to 87% by the end of 2008.
• Consumer telephony is only 22% of overall telco revenue.

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USA Today:

“Serious safety problems” plague U.S. nuclear plants because the NRC isn’t adequately enforcing its standards and has cut back on inspections, according to a report released Tuesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a nuclear safety watchdog group.

The report also says that even though security at nuclear plants was increased after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, reactors still aren’t sufficiently protected against terrorist threats such as hijacked jets, and new reactors aren’t being designed to be significantly safer than existing ones. Increasing the number of reactors without creating “unacceptably high safety and security risks” could be difficult, the report concludes.

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Washington Post:

“Lexus lanes” are coming to the electricity grid. Energy conservation programs that died when the power market switched from regulation to competition are back, but with new technology and aggressive demands from government regulators facing anger over rising prices.

Just as long-awaited high-occupancy toll lanes will charge drivers a fee to travel at rush hours, electricity customers will pay more when the grid is congested and less when it’s not. If the strategies succeed, customers will not only slash their bills but also reduce pollution from coal-fired generating plants.

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Department of Energy:

The Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has released a 2007 update to its groundbreaking study, Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements. The updated analysis increases understanding of regional and national water needs and usage in the power industry, and provides input for research and development aimed at water-use reduction…

Water has become a pivotal issue in the Nation since economic development hinges on the availability of freshwater. Public water systems, agriculture, power generation, and other industries all compete for limited regional water supplies. Although the power industry is only responsible for around three percent of the freshwater consumed in the United States, it accounts for nearly 40 percent of withdrawals. Recently, construction of new power plants had to be shelved because water-use permits could not be obtained, and insufficient supplies of water due to extended drought and population growth have resulted in a reduction in plant output in several regions of the country.

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CNN Money:

Federal energy regulators have approved regional utility owner Energy East Corp.’s roughly $4.5 billion buyout by Spanish power company Iberdrola SA.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday said that since Iberdrola owns no U.S. transmission facilities ands relatively little generation in the relevant markets, “the acquisition does not present vertical or horizontal market power issues.”

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AP via Forbes:

Nearly a year after accusing Verizon Communications Inc. of cooperating with the Bush administration to spy on telephone customers in Oregon, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a motion with state regulators to get the case moving again…

The ACLU chapter filed the motion Thursday with the Oregon Public Utility Commission, asking to lift a stay that was ordered on Dec. 11, 2006, while the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considered the consolidation of more than 30 lawsuits over phone records that may have been turned over to the government illegally.

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WITN.com:

Progress Energy is trying to gauge the public’s interest in energy efficiency by discounting compact fluorescent light bulbs by $1 each.

The bulbs use 75 percent less energy than traditional bulbs and last up to 10 times longer, but they’re more expensive. The discount can cut the cost of a compact fluorescent by more than half.

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