Chicken Little has cornered the market on gas price doom and gloom, but the data is inconsistent on whether high gas prices are here to stay.

A near-universal consensus of alarm appears to be emerging concerning North American gas supply adequacy. The steady march upward of spot gas prices and NYMEX futures over the past year confirms this coalescence of market sentiment. Way back in June 2002, you could still buy Rocky Mountain wellhead production for about $1.25/MMBtu, although Eastern U.S. markets had already exceeded $3.00/MMBtu.

Technology exists to sequester carbon-but will utilities ever buy in?

The vision: A nation filled with new, coal-fired power plants that provide inexpensive, secure power for Americans, while emitting few pollutants and sequestering the carbon dioxide produced. In other words, a power plant that not only industry and environmentalists can agree on, but one that utilities can finance and operate profitably.

Vegetation that helps break down toxins debuts at manufactured gas plant site.

Planting swaths of rye grass and mulberry trees and sowing the soil with bacteria are hardly standard operating procedure when it comes to cleaning up manufactured gas plant sites. But if Bill Bogan has his way, it just might be.

To the Editor:

In your recent article about New York's "demand curve" ("New York Throws a Curve," May 15), opponents dismiss the role of installed capacity in restructured electric markets. Instead, they suggest a complete reliance on revenues from the energy market to recover all fixed costs. Yet, as your article notes, an energy-only approach might require price spikes of up to $30,000/MWh to cover the fixed costs of "peaking" units that seldom run but are needed for reliability.