Chernobyl

The road to the current reliability crisis is paved with four decades of bad policy decisions.

 

The technical causes of the great Northeast blackout of August 2003 are coming into focus. For reasons yet unknown as of press time, transmission lines in northern Ohio were lost to the grid, and within seconds 50 million people in the United States and Canada were without power. Soon we will no doubt know the specific reasons for the blackout, and technical corrections and improvements will be made.

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.

 

Industry hopes its centralized assets aren't in the crosshairs.

When the topic of U.S. energy security comes up, OPEC typically springs to mind. Sure enough, following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, politicians and energy executives quickly rallied before the public for less reliance on oil supply from OPEC member nations, and for bolstering domestic energy production.

AS A FOLLOW UP TO OUR APRIL 1 ARTICLE ON CANADIAN-U.S. energy convergence, Public Utilities Fortnightly interviewed Ontario Energy Minister Jim Wilson to find out what's in store for the province as it moves ahead with restructuring its electricity industry.

Courts

ENERGY SUPPORT SERVICES. An Illinois appeals court affirmed a 1997 decision by the state commission that had denied authority to Commonwealth Edison to offer "energy support services," such as design, engineering, construction, analysis and management of electrical power equipment and energy systems. The court made this decision despite the utility's argument that no evidence existed to support the commission's finding that ComEd enjoyed a monopolist's advantage over competitors.

A Contentious Bill Passes Senate (em Two Votes Shy of Blocking a Veto

Recently passed by the U.S. Senate, nuclear waste bill S. 104 lies mired in quicksand, facing a promised presidential veto, not to mention attacks from senators representing those states targeted for possible waste storage sites. Disposal of waste from the nation's nuclear generating plants has turned into possibly the most contentious issue on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Frank H.

The other day I heard a short news item on National Public Radio that made me stop and think. The item ran something like this: "Maxwell House has announced it will cut the price of its loose ground coffee to reflect a drop in the coffee futures market several months out."

Wasn't that easy? Call it integrated resource planning in the espresso lane. Note what Maxwell House did not do. It did not solicit a demand forecast or run the PROMOD computer model.