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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (53681)	11/18/2005 11:09:12 AM
From: ChanceIs	Respond to of 206291

The utes aren't all bad. Maryland's Eastern Shore was a mess after Hurricane Isabel back in Sept 2003. I think we had line folks down from Canada helping out. There is some admirable cooperation and team spirit there. This Mark Golden article from Sept 2003 makes me furious. Last week DOE was supposed to have a report out on "economic dispatch" addressing the issue. There is no doubt in my mind that with the wave of the legislative pen, congress could immediately reduce SOME natural gas consumption while keeping electrical output constant. SOME is of course a big question mark. As a gassy investor, you should be watching this issue. _______________________________________________________ September 12, 2003 4:06 p.m. EDT POWER POINTS: Clean New Plants Idle As Dirty Plants Run By MARK GOLDEN A Dow Jones Newswires Column NEW YORK -- Since it began operating last year, Calpine Corp.'s (CPN) Acadia power plant in Louisiana hasn't run much. Meanwhile, incumbent utility Entergy Corp.'s (ETR) decades-old Louisiana plants have continued to chug along, producing higher costs for the utility's customers and about 50% more pollution for every megawatt-hour than what the Acadia plant could have produced. Hard to believe, but that's the wonderful world of monopoly utilities that the U.S. energy bill may set in stone, at least for the Southeast. If a lot of the region's members of Congress - well funded by big southeast utilities - get their way, electricity deregulation could be bounced out of at least their region as a failure, even though it was never tried. "We encouraged these merchant power companies to come here and build plants. We gave them permits and tax incentives. Now what are we going to do with the power they make?" asked economics professor David Dismukes, of Louisiana State University's Center for Energy Studies. "Are we going to take any of it?" Every day, a lot of new-plant power offered at $40 a megawatt-hour goes unsold while southeast utilities run their own gas-fired plants at $60/MWh. There are some small signs of change. Louisiana's utility commission, for example, is looking at forcing Entergy to retire some old plants that aren't needed any more. Entergy, for its part, is buying more power in the spot market this year than last. But there are also plenty of impediments. more....