Stressing

In a forum stressing renewables at the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) annual meeting Monday in Park City, UT, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu said the view of natural gas in the energy mix is becoming more bullish for the next 10 years, given the breakthrough in obtaining economic supplies from shale. North American power generators are rethinking gas’s role over the next decade, Chu told the governors group, which issued a new policy resolution on renewable development in the West.

In just three years, the energy merchant sector has evolved from an Internet-based, North American-focused Enron-dominated industry into something the new players say is smaller, but better, where success may turn on a telephone call instead of computer screen, and where future business trades may be global instead of regional.

Stressing that the state has more than adequate power supplies this summer and in future summers, the California Energy Commission (CEC) last week raised its estimates of power reserve levels after 2005 as part of a generally upbeat future power update by the state’s agency handling power plant siting and energy planning. The energy agency sees reserve margins in California as high as 20% this summer.

While stressing it is on target in shoring up its liquidity and balance sheet, San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. Tuesday reported third quarter earnings that were less than half of what they were for the same quarter last year — 36 cents/diluted share, or $161.3 million in net income, compared to 88 cents/diluted share, or $320.8 million, for the same quarter in 2001.

While stressing FERC doesn’t want the pipeline companies to haveto pay “ransom” to landowners, Commission Chairman James Hoeckertold a meeting of the National Association of Regulatory UtilityCommissioners (NARUC) in San Francisco yesterday pipelines have todo a better job of hammering out early, innovative deals withproperty owners affected by their projects.