Financing Clean Coal
No single type of financial incentive closes the cost gap between clean coal and modern conventional coal technologies.
How can the cost gap between IGCC plants and pulverized coal plants be closed?
Fortnightly Magazine - June 2005
EPA's Big Bet on Green Trading
Environmental Emissions: The cost to power markets of the Clean Air Interstate Rule depends on the ability to trade mercury.
The decision to limit mercury provides cover for utilities reluctant to spend on controlling NOx and SO2, while boosting other companies
From Jet Set to Green Set
Corporate Environmental Programs: How can utility employees participate in greenhouse-gas reduction? Start with sustainable travel programs.
How can utility employees participate in greenhouse-gas reduction?
Revenge of the ’70s
A guide to the galaxy of low growth, high interest rates, and the dark side of the Force.
Many executives are hoping to avoid a repeat of the 1970s, when first hit the big screen, and when inflation, nuclear cost overruns, and diminishing returns came calling in an economic climate that today's markets threaten to emulate.
People
Exelon appointed Tom Ridge and Dr. William C. Richardson to its board of directors. NiSource Inc. has restructured its leadership team. Hydro-Québec appointed André Caillé chairman of its board of directors and Thierry Vandal as president and CEO of the company. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) Chairman Wendell F. Holland recently was named president of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners. And others...
Mercury: Much Ado About Nothing?
How the Clean Air Mercury Rule will affect coal prices.
The Clean Air Mercury Rule impacts new and existing coal-fired electric generating plants through a market-based cap-and-trade program similar to the EPA’s highly successful Acid Rain Program. The first phase of the program in 2010 reduces mercury emissions to 38 tons. The second phase goes into action in 2018 with a final mercury emissions cap of 15 tons. The key question is: what extent will the new rule reduce coal’s dominance in the electric generation market?
Building a Better Utility
Many of the obstacles and strategic issues that utilities face today are all too familiar. This time they must be solved with a different business model.
We overbuild, run short, then overbuild again. You'd think we'd learn, because when the forecasts aren't accurate, when overcapacity plagues the industry, companies fail. Can we get the forecasts right? Probably not. But we can plan for forecasts that will be wrong. They always are. And they will be until the system is redesigned to let prices clear the market.
Reliability Wars
Power System Planning: Who gets paid (and how much) for backing up the system?
“Confining transmission projects to FTR payments is like confining generators to energy-only payments,” says Ed Krapels, the electric industry consultant from Boston who helped dream up the initial idea of the Neptune project. These words speak volumes on what’s happening in today’s power industry, and on what the ISOs and RTOs are trying to achieve, not only for merchant-grid projects but for merchant generation and system reliability.
Going to the Bank
Financial buyers are snapping up power plants faster than at any time in history. The asset shift represents an interim step in a wholesale-market transformation.
A dam broke last year, releasing a wave that even now is spreading through the U.S. power industry. Deals that had been languishing on the auction block for months suddenly surged forward in 2004, and assets began changing ownership at a torrential pace. Understanding what this means for the power industry requires a long-term perspective on wholesale-market trends.
The Hazards of ElectroMagnetic Terrorism
And why North American power plants should take note.
Electromagnetic terrorism has huge implications for the international power industry. The North American electric power network is vulnerable to electronic intrusions launched from anywhere in the world, according to studies by the White House, FBI, IEEE, North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), and National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). Is there a solution for this situation?