Contenders

In the midst of this week’s power alerts exacerbated byCalifornia’s shortage of electric generating capacity, theSacramento Municipal Utility District drew only three responses toa proposal put out for bids early in the summer to have a developerbuild, own and operate a natural gas-fired 500 to 1,000 MWgeneration plant on part of a 2,000-acre site owned by the nation’slargest municipal utility. The earliest the plant would beoperational would be in 2004.