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To: Think4Yourself who wrote (71219)	8/19/2000 10:54:31 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

Electrical storm \| SDG&E wants to cut the natural gas it supplies to 3 plants Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune Publication date: 2000-08-17 San Diego Gas & Electric wants permission to cut back on natural- gas supplies to area power plants, despite protests that such curtailments would have dire consequences to the environment, and to the delivery of electric power. SDG&E filed a request early this month with the California Public Utilities Commission, seeking permission to curtail supplies of natural gas to plants in Rosarito, Mexico, as well as Carlsbad and Chula Vista in an effort to cope with high electricity consumption. The ability to curtail natural-gas supplies during select periods would last until Nov. 1. SDG&E says its supply of natural gas is being threatened by heavy demand. SDG&E said that because of the recent high demand for electricity, the plants, particularly those in Carlsbad and Chula Vista, are consuming natural gas at levels that threaten supplies to "core customers" -- residences and businesses that also use gas. Cutbacks to the plants are needed to "ensure that those residential and business customers have a reliable gas supply." The utility notes that the three plants can operate on fuel oils to generate electricity if natural gas delivery is curtailed. But lawyers for Cabrillo Power I LLC, the owner of the Encina plant, and Duke, which has a lease on the Chula Vista plant, have called SDG&E's request "an unlawful attempt to alter contracts . . . that will have serious negative effects on reliability of the San Diego and potentially, the entire Southern California power market." The California Independent System Operator also is protesting the request, saying that switching the power plants from natural gas to fuel oil could cause the plants to trip off-line, compromising the systems' reliability at a time when power plants are already struggling to meet the demand for electricity. And two environmental agencies are asking the PUC to deny the request for air-quality reasons. Forcing the plants to switch to fuel oil would result in higher contaminants being released into the atmostphere, said the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District in a letter to the PUC. SDG&E sold the two plants in 1999 as part of an effort to restructure the state's electricity industry. The possibility of curtailment was something the plants' owners knew when they entered into their contracts with SDG&E, said Gary Cotton, senior vice president of fuel and power supply for SDG&E. "When they bought the plants all that information was available to them," Cotton said. "The fact that generation is on a curtailment basis is nothing new and they were certainly aware of it." Attempts to reach the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission, owners of the Rosarito plant, were not successful, but the PUC has no letter of protest from them. Cotton said the plants would see only about a 10 percent to 15 percent reduction in natural-gas delivery during the periods of curtailment. But representatives of the Encina and Chula Vista power plants said even that could severely compromise the plants' operations. In the Chula Vista plant, switching would take an hour, during which the plant would have to operate at 50 percent capacity. In Encina, retrofitting of the plant's largest boiler to reduce nitrous oxide emissions during the burning of fuel oil will not be done until November because the ISO would not let Cabrillo Power, owner of the plant, shut it down during the summer due to concerns about energy needs during the season. "They are concerned in the middle of the summer that by shutting it down, if there is another heat wave, they need to call on that plant," said Joe Paul, regulatory counsel for Dynergy, one of the partners that make up Cabrillo Power. Without the retrofitting completed, he said, the boiler cannot burn fuel oil. Critics also maintain that SDG&E was aware of a potential for natural-gas supply problems a year ago when Sempra, SDG&E's parent company, entered into an export agreement to supply gas to the Rosarito plant. "The bottom line is that the use of the gas system this summer by the former SDG&E plants is no different than the usage in other summer peak demand periods," lawyers for the Encina and Chula Vista plants said in their letter to the PUC. "The real difference . . . is that Sempra has sold pipeline transportation capacity for exports into Mexico for use without adding gas facilities needed to meet the demand." Michael Shames, executive director of the San Diego-based Utility Consumers' Action Network, said the export contract was secured after SDG&E told the PUC they had an excess supply of natural gas. SDG&E, he said, has not answered why it would enter into an agreement to supply gas to the Rosarito plant when SDG&E knew -- or should have known -- about the potential for supply problems. Greg Blue, director of government affairs for Dynergy, said "now that there's a potential for there to be some type of shortages in their gas supply system, their concern is that if they have to curtail people they would rather curtail the large generating plants than the small industrial customers because they're already getting so much bad publicity on the electric side." Kyle Devine, a spokeswoman for the PUC, said this week that no decision had been made about SDG&E's request.

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (71219)	8/20/2000 8:33:40 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

All right, who is taking matters into their own hands?? First a 30 inch pipeline near Carslbad and now this just a day later? 08/20 19:07 North Carolina Mall Evacuated After Nearby Explosion, AP Says By Ashley Gross Concord, North Carolina, Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A shopping center northeast of Charlotte was evacuated after a natural gas explosion at a nearby construction site blasted debris and flames about 100 feet in the air, Associated Press reported. No injuries were reported, and it wasn't immediately known what caused the explosion. A fire at the site was still burning two hours later. Shoppers at Concord Mills mall, about 20 miles northeast of Charlotte, said they felt the heat and vibrations from the explosion, AP said. The construction site is located several hundred yards from the mall. Firefighters were waiting for the gas to be turned off before starting to control the blaze, AP said, citing Concord Fire Department spokeswoman Sherry Lee.