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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (148217)	5/24/2001 1:43:02 AM
From: ZenWarrior	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

No, we've built more power plants than Cheney even recommends! Republicans would like to blame it on regulation, but in fact it was DEregulation which kicked our butt... sadly so. usnews.com Power up the power plants Cheney wants more of them; we may already be building too many By David Whitman The statistic is so startling that it makes the power crisis seem almost hopeless. To meet the nation's electricity demands during the next two decades, Vice President Cheney says U.S. industry will have to build "more than one new [power] plant per week, every week, for 20 years running–it's time to get moving." But Cheney's call to construction exaggerates, if not misconstrues, the nation's future energy problems. In fact, the power plant industry is already in the midst of an unprecedented building boom–and is adding more new power than the plant a week called for in Cheney's production schedule. Within the next two years, Americans should face a power glut, not shortages. As Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, says, half tongue in cheek: "The only way to meet the vice president's target is by building power plants more slowly." Last year, 158 new power units were completed nationwide, or three plants a week, according to federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. The new units had an average capacity of about 150 megawatts–1 megawatt can power 1,000 homes a day–so the country added about 20 percent more power last year than it would have under Cheney's schedule of 65 new 300-megawatt plants a year. President Bush has stated that the nation is "not building enough power-generating plants to meet demand," and Cheney's energy task force, slated to release its report this week, is expected to call for more plants and fewer permitting restrictions. Cheney Press Secretary Juleanna Glover Weiss says the vice president "applauds the new production in the next four years" but adds that "it will take vigilance for decades to make sure we have enough power." The roots. Like the current electricity shortages afflicting California–which suffered through two more days of rolling blackouts last week–the power plant boom has its roots in the deregulation movement of the 1990s. When states first started debating deregulation, utilities and independent power generators were reluctant to build new plants because of uncertainty about the impact of the new legislation. California and New York were particularly hard hit. No major power plants were built in California for more than a decade, and New York went without a new plant for six years. But as the new laws finally took effect, and as power generators discovered they could make big profits, power plants starting popping up all over the country in 2000. Construction this year is slated to set a record for new power generation. A March report by the firm Energy Ventures Analysis found that power units already in operation or under construction will add 51,805 megawatts in 2001–enough to power half the homes in the nation. Utilities and generators have announced plans for equally ambitious additions for 2002 through 2004. According to filings with the EIA, the electricity industry expects to build 1,453 new power units from 2000 through 2004. Taking time off for weekends, that amounts to just over one new plant a day for five years running. Not all of the planned additions will ultimately be built. But if even just half go up, consumers will be cranking their air con- ditioners, not sweating out blackouts. Cheney's team may have exaggerated electricity demand by basing its plan on a forecast released by the Department of Energy in December. DOE projected that 1,310 plants of 300 megawatts each would need to be built by 2020 to meet demand, a little more than one a week. The Energy Department forecast allowed for some continued improvements in energy efficiency. But it did not count savings from recent rules adopted by the Bush administration that reduce the electricity consumption of energy hogs like central air conditioners; nor did it factor in energy-saving technology that could eliminate the need for several hundred new power plants in coming decades. The power plant glut won't end the nation's electricity woes. Electricity travels through transmission lines, and several power grids contain bottlenecks that are expected to fuel crippling blackouts this summer in California, and perhaps in parts of the Pacific Northwest and New York City. But within a couple of years, the threat will no longer be, as President Bush said earlier this month, that "we're running out of energy in America."