(November 2007) Pacific Gas and Electric Co. elected William D. Arndt to the newly established post of vice president, project management and program office. Calpine Corp. promoted Zamir Rauf to treasurer and senior vice president of finance. FirstEnergy Corp. named William D. Byrd director of rate strategy, vice president and chief risk officer. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission assigned David Dumbacher as senior resident inspector at the Callaway nuclear plant, near Fulton, Mo. And others...

A regulator’s “goodness” is defined by four fundamental traits: Omniscience; Solomonic Wisdom; Clairvoyance; and Righteousness.

The large-scale CO₂ reductions envisioned to stabilize, and ultimately reverse, global atmospheric CO₂ concentrations present major technical, economic, regulatory and policy challenges. Reconciling these challenges with continued growth in energy demand highlights the need for a diverse, economy-wide approach.

Tax incentives, renewable portfolio standards, and the creation of renewable-energy credits and carbon constraints are no longer separate considerations when assessing renewable-energy projects. The convergence of these economic considerations will affect the value proposition for every potential generation investment in the United States.

An estimated $900 billion of direct infrastructure investment will be required by electric utilities over the next 15 years, and $750 million already is in place. Nukes, renewables, low-carbon technologies, combined-cycle gas turbines—all have faced cost challenges. The magnitude of the numbers requires a multi-pronged approach.

Utilities are bringing monumental capital-expenditure plans before rate regulators just as they’re dealing with a barrage of rising costs—for fuel and other commodities, as well as labor, pension-fund obligations, and interest payments. Ten energy-finance luminaries elaborate on the industry’s fortunes.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has proposed to bring a modicum of federal oversight to the nation’s intrastate natural-gas pipelines. Given the historical structure and regulation of the nation’s natural-gas industry, it should come as no surprise that FERC’s proposal has polarized the industry in general and the state of Texas in particular.

Hedging programs promise protection against energy-market price spikes, and they can be important to the regulatory goal of sustainable, lowest long-term service cost. But how much price protection is enough in natural-gas markets? What is the most efficient use of risk capital when hedging energy supplies?

We recently conducted research to evaluate whether innovative solutions for meeting future energy needs such as demand response (DR), energy efficiency (EE), and alternative distributed generation (DG) (e.g., photovoltaic cells, wind, energy storage) could become a sustainable and viable part of the future energy infrastructure.

The Northeast energy markets are working hard to establish new levels of regional coordination and cooperation. The region’s concerted effort is essential to resolving some of the industry’s toughest issues since the individual markets evolved. These issues include the elimination, reduction, or bridging of seams issues that prevent the economic transfer of capacity and energy between neighboring wholesale electricity markets, or control areas, as a result of incompatible market rules or designs.