Energy articles from March 2000

Energy archives from March 2000

Outlook: Strong Chance of Shortages.(Review)
March 22, 2000... The reformulated gasoline supply "mini-crisis" in the Midwest reminds me a little of the bumper sticker aphorism, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!" Here, the entity failing to "get an education" is the Energy Department,...

How Much Is Energy R&D Worth?
March 22, 2000... It's supposed to be insurance for the future but how much should we be willing to pay? The value of R&D is estimated conservatively to be at least $12 billion/year. However, only about half of this total may be warranted because some R&D...

Paths to Retail Competition.
March 22, 2000... Will we end up with a utility checkerboard or a silicon nation of energy end users? Total on customer-centric activities among electric and gas utilities and their affiliates will increase 30% over the next few years, approaching $8...

Strategies for Open Power.
March 22, 2000... Fast and reliable ramp rates are highly desirable in this new market environment. As power markets become more sophisticated, conventional oil- and gas-fired units will be required to adapt if they are to survive. Every unit is either...

B2B Revolution in Oil Patch.
March 22, 2000... One oil company is saving millions with a new procurement process. An oil company's supply chain can loop around the globe, weaving across continents, time zones and languages to link together field crews, authorized approvers, purchasing...

In Brief: Tools.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Latest Version of Energy Profiler. Energy Interactive (101 Myrtle St., Oakland, CA 94607; Tel: 510/987-7111: Fax: 510/987-7123: Website: www.energyinteractive.com) has released version 3.2 of Energy Profiler, an energy usage and pricing...

Gas Looks Great.
March 22, 2000... U.S. natural gas Reserves have grown by 23 percent since 1992. The National Petroleum Council, an oil and natural gas advisory committee to the Secretary of Energy, recently completed a comprehensive update to its earlier 1992 study on the...

The Hydrogen Effect.
March 22, 2000... How much greenhouse gas will be released in the production of hydrogen? The actual greenhouse gas reduction attributable to shifting to the hydrogen fuel cell depends heavily on the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide...

In Brief: Conservation.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Idling Trucks Waste Fuel. According to estimates by Argonne National Laboratory (9700 S. Cass Ave., #D140, Argonne, IL 60439-4803; Tel: 630/252-4215), the average long-haul truck idles away up to $1,790 in profits each year. Instead of letting...

Gold in Fly Ash.
March 22, 2000... Ash modification creates new markets for utilities and cement manufacturers. It is an unfortunate fact that coal ash derived from coal power generation plants often exhibits high levels of unburned carbon and low reactivity, which limits...

In Brief: Technology.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Wind Power at 4 cents per kWh. ABB (PO Box 8131, CH-8050 Zurich, Switzerland; Phone: +41-1-317-7334; Fax: +41-1-311-7958; Website: http://www.abb.com), the global technology company, unveiled a new wind power technology that makes wind farms...

Too Much of a Good Thing?
March 22, 2000... Why companies using decision analysis may be making suboptimal decisions. Petroleum industry firms are increasingly using decision-analytic (DA) techniques to aid decision making. However, a technical paper recently published in Operations...

EIA Sees Rapid Growth in World Demand.(Energy Information Administration's International Energy Outlook 2000)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... The world's use of energy will continue its rapid growth at least to the year 2020, particularly in the developing nations, according to the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) International Energy Outlook 2000 (IEO2000 on the Web at...

Start Looking for New Energy.(U.S. House of Representatives approved bill number H.R. 1753 for research on methane hydrates)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... In a voice vote, the U.S. House of Representatives approved bill number H.R. 1753 (see House hearing posted at: http://www.house.gov/science/ 106_hearing.htm), which is intended to initiate more research on methane hydrates which are ice-like...

Coalition Seeks EPA Documents.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... The Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of two dozen think tanks and other nonprofit organizations including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), filed suit in mid-March against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the...

Pole Access Generates More Heat than Light.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... On April 3rd, the Federal Communications Commission issued a Report and Order on Pole Attachment Cost Components (CS Docket No. 97-98). Under these updated rules, utilities, instead of the carriers and cable operators that attach lines to their...

Conoco Loses Big in Patent Case.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... In a significant "turn-of-the-tables," a Gainesville, Va., research company with five employees won a $55 million judgement against Conoco, Inc. for patent infringement. The court finding was that Conoco's Liquid Power petroleum additive...

Utility Petitions FERC to Suspend Market.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... The Independent Power Producers of New York, Inc. (IPPNY) have strongly condemned a recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filing by New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) as an attempt to strangle fledging competitive electricity markets...

Nuclear Agency Misled Congressman.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... An Inspector General report finding that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) invited a nuclear industry group to help shape policy and later misled a congressman about the matter reinforces the widespread contention that the agency...

Fuel Cell, Gas Turbine Hybrid Opens New Vistas.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... A new fuel cell, gas turbine hybrid power plant is the latest innovation in the Department of Energy's fuel cell research program. The new power plant, which will be moved to a test installation in Irvine, CA, is the first in the world to...

Methane Conversion May Reduce Risk.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Microbiologists Derek Lovley and Robert Anderson of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have found that bacteria living just below the earth's surface can be coaxed to rapidly convert oil to methane gas in oil-rich soil. Their findings,...

Projects to Boost Stripper Gas Production.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... The United States is projected to increase its demand for natural gas by more than one-third during the next 10 years. The U.S. Department of Energy has selected two research projects that could help sustain, or perhaps boost, production from...

Prospects Bright for West Canada Basin.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... According to GRI's (GRI, 8600 West Bryn Mawr Ave., Chicago, IL 60631-3562) latest assessment of future gas prospects for Western Canada, with 31.4 Tcf of reserve appreciation potential and 166 Tcf of new pool potential, gas production from the...

Competitive Situation Said Deteriorating.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Despite the fact that U.S. coal production increased during 1998, recent events have led many to believe that the coal industry is facing a difficult period. Exports have fallen, natural gas has become the fuel of choice for almost all new...

`Cap-and-Trade' Program Successful.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... The Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have jointly released a report which demonstrates the gains that OTC's air pollution trading program have made in cleaning up the air of the Northeast and...

EPRI Says Customers Will Pay for Reliability.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... At least half of American electricity consumers are willing to buy electricity even at prices 30 percent to 40 percent higher than they presently pay. A new study from EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) offers insights that could make a...

Coke Prices Will Peak in 2000.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... According to WEFA Energy Group's US Energy Outlook, prices paid for petroleum coke will peak in 2000, about 25 percent above current price levels. Prices gradually decline after 2001, falling below their 1999 level in 2005. The weighted average...

Long, Long Wait for Gas Turbines.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Power plants are facing a wait of more than three years for delivery of gas turbine engines due to soaring demand for gas-generated electricity. Analysts say that with more nuclear plants being phased out and fossil fuels such as coal and oil...

Big Investments for Greenmountain.com.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... GreenMountain.com (www.GreenMountain.com), which claims to be a provider of environmentally cleaner energy, has entered into an agreement under which BP Amoco, and others will invest up to $100 million to fund the company's continued growth....

Utilities Continue March Toward Telecom Services.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Six energy and telecommunications companies have just formed a high-speed fiber optics company with plans to connect major eastern cities in the U.S. with secondary markets. The company, called America's Fiber Network, plans to reach about 35...

Acoustical Technique Predicts Power Line Trouble.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... One of the biggest headaches faced by U.S. utility companies could be consigned to history with the development of an acoustical system that constantly checks the health of power lines by listening to them. Called the Electro-Magnetic Acoustic...

First 5 MVA D-STATCOM Installed in U.S.(Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. (MEPPI; Website: http://www.meppi.com) has installed and commissioned the first 5 MVA, 4.16 kV-rated distribution static compensator (D-STATCOM) in the United States. The installation is at Seattle Iron...

Utility Clean Up Plan Rejected.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... As readers may recall, the Winter 2000 issue of Energy featured an article by Attorney Clifford Case on the nationwide problem of manufactured gas sites. Since that article appeared, an important new development has occurred at a large...

Technique Cleans Up Uranium Contamination.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Costs of cleaning up U.S. hazardous waste sites, including those at energy facilities and uranium contaminated sites, have been estimated at between $373 billion and $1.694 trillion. An innovative "natural" alternative to cleaning up uranium...

Method Removes MTBE from Water.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... A Purdue University chemist has developed an experimental technique that could be used to remove the gasoline additive MTBE from polluted groundwater. Reynaldo Barreto, an associate professor of chemistry at Purdue's North Central campus in...

1999-2000 Winter Warmest in 105 Years.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Trends in weather have a significant impact on energy industry forecasting. In this regard, it is noteworthy that according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the winter of 1999-2000 was the warmest in the U.S....

Business and the Environment--A Review.(Review)
March 22, 2000... Business and the Environment--A Review Harvard Business School Press $19.95 Business and the Environment -- A Review is the fourth volume in a five-book series. The content comprises reprints of eight articles, a total of 251 pp., by 13...

Biomass Ethanol Production and Demand.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... Outlook for Biomass Ethanol Production and Demand published by the EIA discusses the state of biomass ethanol production and demand. Ethanol has been used as fuel in the United States since at least 1908. Although early efforts to sustain a...

The Radiation Legacy of the Soviet Nuclear Complex.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2000... The Radiation Legacy of the Soviet Nuclear Complex, published by Earthscan (120 Pentonville Rd., London, England NI 9JN: Tel: 01903 828800: E-Mail: jhurdle@kogan-page.co.uk) in association with the International Institute for Applied Systems...

The Virtual World of Solar Electricity.
March 22, 2000... The photovoltaic industry is just as far from being off its life support as it ever was. The March 30, 1998 issue of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) contains a six-page article about "The New World of Solar Energy -- Demand in Japan,...