Archive for March, 2008
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 31 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
AP via Forbes:
FairPoint Communications Inc. will become northern New England’s biggest phone company Monday after an eleventh-hour regulatory tussle.
Though FairPoint’s purchase of Verizon’s wired phone lines and Internet operations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont is the largest telecommunications deal in the region’s history, the only change most customers will notice is the logo and contact numbers on their April phone bills.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 28 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Electric, Energy
Central Penn Business Journal:
PPL Electric Utilities reiterated its expectations for 2010 price increases between 23 percent and 43 percent for commercial and small-industrial customers.
The Allentown-based company yesterday announced it bought its third installment of power for 2010, when a state-imposed cap on PPL’s generation prices will expire. The latest acquisition led PPL to recalculate its projected 2010 prices, but the adjustments were minor. Slight changes in other parts of the company’s rates also were factored into the new projection.
The average residential customer is expected to see monthly bills increase by 34.4 percent, according to PPL.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 26 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: General, Electric, Energy
Baltimore Sun:
Anxious about soaring electricity costs, a Senate committee voted to give households a break on monthly bills by using money that had been set aside by Gov. Martin O’Malley for energy efficiency and conservation.
The proposal would provide a credit estimated at $5 a month to help consumers cope with double-digit increases in electricity rates. O’Malley, a Democrat, has pledged to address rising rates and Maryland’s energy crunch, but lawmakers said yesterday that he hasn’t done enough to help consumers.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 26 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Nuclear
PennLive:
Federal regulators are investigating a security violation at Three Mile Island that could be of moderate to serious safety significance, but they aren’t saying what it is.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not disclose any potential weaknesses in the security systems at commercial nuclear facilities in the belief it would further weaken plant defenses.
More from the York Daily Record.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 25 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: General, Electric, Energy
Washington Post:
Monitors of the Mid-Atlantic electricity grid will be moved outside the control of the grid’s operator after a probe into the alleged silencing of an internal critic.
Under the settlement announced by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the market monitoring unit will operate independently from PJM Interconnection management, take concerns directly to members and regulators through defined processes, and issue reports to interested parties at the same time.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 25 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
AP via Forbes:
FairPoint Communications Inc. said Monday it reached a tentative agreement with the two unions representing the roughly 2,500 workers who will join the phone company after it buys Verizon’s northern New England land line assets.
FairPoint is acquiring Verizon Communications Inc.’s land lines and Internet accounts in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont for $2.35 billion. The deal is expected to close this month.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 21 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Natural Gas, Energy, Environment
The New York Times:
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a $700 million liquefied natural gas terminal on Thursday for Long Island Sound, but the project faces opposition on environmental grounds and the possibility of a catastrophe should the terminal become the target of a terrorist attack.
New York officials have yet to decide whether to issue permits for the project, and Connecticut officials have warned that they will fight it to the United States Supreme Court.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 20 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: General, Energy
Washington Post:
Long considered an abundant, reliable and relatively cheap source of energy, coal is suddenly in short supply and high demand worldwide.
An untimely confluence of bad weather, flawed energy policies, low stockpiles and voracious growth in Asia’s appetite has driven international spot prices of coal up by 50 percent or more in the past five months, surpassing the escalation in oil prices…
World consumption of coal has grown 30 percent in the past six years, twice as much as any other energy source. About two-thirds of the fuel supplies electricity plants, and just under a third heads to industrial users, mostly steel and concrete makers.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 20 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Natural Gas, Energy
Wall Street Journal (subscription):
Natural-gas prices are near two-year highs and outpacing price increases for oil, driving up costs for companies and consumers.
But many market watchers predict a fall in coming months, as new supplies come to market following years of flat production.
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Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 20 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Electric, Energy, Environment
The New York Times:
In the absence of clear federal mandates for emissions from smokestack industries, states that have been proving grounds for new environmental approaches to energy are becoming battlegrounds as well…
In Kansas and Washington State, the battles are over individual plants. Other fights, as in California, are over how to structure carbon controls — essentially, who will have to pay, and how much. Some, as in Minnesota, are over how much renewable energy must be created and what forms are appropriate.
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