States

The transmission market has become one of the most politicizedissues of the day, and while the United States needs moregeneration, there remains no clear vision of how to make the entiresystem work more efficiently, according to panelists who spoke atPowerMart 2000 in Houston yesterday.

In an effort to comply with Executive Order 13123, which statesthat government agencies must cut energy use 30% by 2005 and 35% by2010, based on 1985 emission levels, Goodfellow Air Force Baselocated in San Angelo, TX, has entered a 15-year energy savingsagreement with Sempra Energy Solutions (SES).

In simplest terms, the two men leading the charge to become thenext president of the United States view the energy issue inopposite ways. Republican candidate George W. Bush sees the glassas half empty, and wants to replenish it with new supplies.Democratic challenger Al Gore sees the glass as half full, andwants to conserve and re-use it as much as possible.

If the U.S. government would allow energy companies to drill onmore federal lands in the Rocky Mountain states, natural gasproduction could increase and prices then would fall, according toa report issued last week by the Energy Information Administration(EIA), the U.S. Department of Energy’s statistical agency.

If the U.S. government would allow energy companies to drill on more federal lands in the Rocky Mountain states, natural gas production could increase and prices then would fall, according to a report issued last week by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. Department of Energy’s statistical agency.

The California power debacle, with its political and financialramifications, coupled with high natural gas and heating oil pricesand dire government warnings of even worse prices this winter, hasled to a host of actions by those who deal with retail customersand constituents.

Top energy regulators from Canada, Mexico and the United Stateswill head the list of speakers at the Sixth Annual Meeting of theGas Industry Standards Board (GISB), to be held Sept. 25-26 in SanAntonio. Commissioner Linda Breathitt of the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission, Commissioner Raul Monteforte of Mexico’sComision Reguladora de Energia, and Deborah Emes, member ofCanada’s National Energy Board will deliver key addresses at themeeting, whose theme is “Convergence: Making it Work.” Stan Horton,chairman of the GISB board of directors and CEO of Enron GasPipeline Group; and Jim Buccigross, chairman of GISB’s ExecutiveCommittee, will report on the state of the standards-settingorganization. Other speakers include representatives of the FederalTrade Commission, and public utility commissions in Texas,Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio.

As the western states generally, and California in particular,faced another blast of power-draining summer heat, Duke EnergyNorth America (DENA) last week proposed to California Gov. GrayDavis a combination of long- and short-term new generation and afive-year, fixed-price electricity option to buffer mass consumersfrom electric price volatility.

Canadian producers, inspired by optimism about continued growthin exports to the United States, have staked new claims on northernnatural gas drilling prospects and taken a step into Alaska. TenCalgary-based gas developers secured 2,950 square miles of resourcerights in the central Mackenzie Valley district of the NorthwestTerritories.