Measuring

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is challenging a Pennsylvania policy for measuring air emissions, including those from Marcellus Shale development.

Energy efficiency continues to make a dent in the national energy markets, with more states than ever formally measuring the annual impact of utility driven energy savings programs, according to two reports from the independent nonprofit American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Twenty-four states have implemented energy efficiency resource standards (EERS) in the past six years, following the lead of Texas and Vermont, and 13 of the 19 states with EERS policies in place for two years or longer achieved 100% or more of their goals; three states reached 90%; and the remaining three achieved 80%, according to ACEEE’s first report, “Energy Efficiency Resource Standards: A Progress Report on State Energy Saving Targets.” The second report documents how utilities are planning to increase their efforts to hit these higher energy saving levels. Six states with reportedly the largest and most successful efficiency programs — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Vermont — are highlighted in some detail in terms of their ongoing and planned programs. Another six states among the next tier are also highlighted — Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Forecasts of freezing highs Friday failed to keep Northeast citygates from measuring their declines in triple digits as they led across the board price softening Thursday. With spring-like conditions already established in the South and nonmountainous sections of the West, and a still-chilly Midwest continuing a warming trend, light heating load was the chief instigator of Thursday’s drops.

Spurred by rising energy demand, majors and independents alike ramped up ambitious exploration and production (E&P) growth plans in the mid-1990s, but in the end, virtually none have yet cleared their upstream “highbars,” according to a new study co-authored by consultants John S. Herold Inc. and London-based Harrison Lovegrove & Co.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has called on the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) develop a “systematic process” for measuring the progress of its research and development (R&D) programs that are designed to improve the safety of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines, and to report the results to Congress each year.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has recommended that the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) develop a “systematic process” for measuring the progress of its research and development (R&D) programs that are designed to improve the safety of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines, and to report the results to Congress each year.

Rather than make the lower just and reasonable standard the default measuring stick used in reviews of wholesale power contracts, FERC should instead adopt an approach touted by FERC Commissioners Nora Brownell and Linda Breathitt that would apply the more stringent public interest standard by default to such situations, a number of industry participants recently told the Commission.

PG&E Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) already has started deliveries through a 21-mile section of its 2002 mainline expansion project, and is making significant progress on proposed future expansions. The new 21-mile pipe section put into service last Friday increases the company’s ability to deliver natural gas to western markets by 42,000 Dth/d a year earlier than expected and in time for the 2001 winter heating season.

If the Texas Public Utilities Commission is measuring the projected success of its deregulation program by the pilot program set to begin this summer, officials might wonder if they’re doing something wrong. Electric deregulation takes effect across the state on Jan. 1, but so far, it appears that customers — especially residential ones — are a little wary of how it works and what they will get out of it.