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In what has to be a wilder ride than anything available atDisneyland’s soon-to-open new “California Experience,” theelectricity high jinx caromed all over the nation’s most populousstate last week. It included: rolling blackouts through northernCalifornia; enactment of crisis legislation, the most immediate ofwhich provides $400 million to the state water resources agency soit can buy bulk power for California; a last minute temporaryrestraining order by the California Public Utilities Commissionrequiring Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edisonto continue supplying power to all their customers; variousfinancial downgradings and defaults; and suggestions for compromiseactions by outgoing FERC Chairman James Hoecker.

“Hope” was the operative four-letter word in California last week if you had anything to do with the energy industry or government as Friday saw the previous day’s specter of rolling blackouts from razor-thin electricity reserves ease.

The lights will shine in the city of Columbus, OH, for at leastthe next five years if CMS Energy Corp. has anything to say aboutit. CMS Marketing, Services and Trading (CMS-MST) reported lastweek that it has been awarded a long term contract to providewholesale electricity and other energy services to the city’s13,000 residential and commercial customers.

The lights will shine in the city of Columbus, OH, for at leastthe next five years if CMS Energy Corp. has anything to say aboutit. CMS Marketing, Services and Trading (CMS-MST) reportedyesterday that it has been awarded a long term contract to providewholesale electricity and other energy services to the city’s13,000 residential and commercial customers.

California Gov. Gray Davis is focused on anything but energythis week as he sorts through 1,400 pieces of new state legislationawaiting his signature by a Sept. 30 deadline, but he is expectedto re-focus on the simmering electricity issues next month,according to aides in Sacramento, CA.

The electric industry is traveling down the highway ofrestructuring like a car whose every cylinder is misfiring. Thatmay sound pessimistic to some, but at least one industry watchersees much unevenness in how generation, transmission andlegislation are evolving and predicts a lot of uncertainty down theroad.

If Y2K doesn’t bring an end to the gas and power industries, itcertainly won’t do anything to stop them from hooking up. Judgingby what’s happened so far, gas and power will never stand alooffrom one another again.

Absent anything in the way of new influences from weather orfutures, most of the market went into a holding pattern Thursday.Mild softness permeated much of the general flatness as what wasconsidered a bullish storage injection report Wednesday afternoonfailed to provide support for cash prices. Northeast citygates fellabout a nickel, resuming their decline after a brief respite fromthe softness that had prevailed since the first of the month.

Finding little if anything impressive in the way of newinfluences, cash prices in general decided to take it easy Monday.Other than some sizeable western increases, which consisted mainlyof regaining price territory lost on Friday, most quotes were flatto slightly higher. A moderately softer screen combined with hotweather and no sign of an Atlantic tropical storm gave the marketlittle guidance, a Midcontinent trader said. Storage activityseemed little changed from last week, he said.