Stephen P. Reynolds
President & CEO
Pacific Gas Transmission Co.
Standardization has been an issue in every industry since the beginning of the Machine Age. As products continue to evolve, we need something like GISB to help find a prudent and appropriate level of standardization.
Erroll B.
PV technology combined with storage offers a cost-effective alternative to capacity additions.By John Byrne,
Young-Doo Wang,
Ralph Nigro, and
Steven E. Letendre
Until recently, both regulators and electric utilities have considered photovoltaic (PV) technology (i.e., solar cells) an unattractive
energy-supply option because of its relatively high cost. Now, however, a number of utilities have shown interest in using PV for peak-shaving.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has reaffirmed an earlier decision
allotting another
14.8 years of service to two Prairie Island nuclear units owned by Northern States Power Co. The PUC turned back claims that it should shorten the remaining life estimate because the utility might be unable to secure offsite storage for spent fuel from the plant.
Efforts to site new facilities for the disposal of hazardous waste (HW) and radioactive waste have met with utter paralysis. HW disposal companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to site new landfills and incinerators for this waste, but most of this money has gone down the drain. Since the enactment of the chief federal law on HW, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), only one new HW landfill has opened on a new site in the United States (in prophetically named Last Chance, CO).
With this issue I've finished up my first 12 months as full-time editor of PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY. During that time, I've tried to adhere to few simple rules. If I'm lucky, I'm batting four out of five:
s Trust ideas, not facts
s Welcome different views
s Don't shy from difficult subjects
s Make it easy to read
s Take a day off now and then.
Someone once said that an editor's job is twofold: "Simplify and exaggerate." That advice may sound peculiar, but one could do worse.
The winds of competition are blowing. Some find them chilling; others find them exhilarating. Deregulation calls on competitive markets to stand in for regulatory decisions, giving more choice to customers, reducing costs dramatically, and requiring new capabilities.
Competition is already transforming major portions of the electric industry.
Since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued its electric "giga-NOPR" on transmission access, stranded investment, and Real-time Information Networks (RINs), the heat is on (em and rising. Congress is busy, too. It's working hard on telecommunications, nuclear waste, and privatization of the federal power marketing agencies, but the odds may be growing against repeal of PURPA (the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act) or PUHCA (the Public Utility Holding Company Act.
Until a few years ago, the concept of distributed or modular generation was largely academic. Recent developments in the electric power industry, however, have brought this once esoteric subject to the attention of utility executives as well as state and federal policymakers. Centralized, large-scale plans to use modular generators and demand-side management (DSM) to displace utility investments in bulk-power resources and high-voltage transmission projects is unrealistic.
In his recent article, "The Future of Local Gas Distributors" (Feb 1, 1995, p. 20), Vinod Dar presents a vision of executives at the local distribution company (LDC) lining up to buy cemetery plots (em even as the gas marketers, charging on horseback, seize the high ground of "middle" and
core-markets.
That sort of bravado cannot substitute for an in-depth knowledge of gas distribution. Mr. Dar in fact distorts or ignores many realities of the gas business.