  |
| Utilities Struggle With How to Cut Carbon Emissions |
As business gets serious about reducing greenhouse gases, its biggest hurdle is the uncertainty over which approach to cutting carbon emissions makes the best financial sense. Nowhere is that more evident than in the utility industry, where companies that produce electricity account for 37 percent of all carbon dioxide produced in the United States.
As they continue to build new, cleaner generation capacity to meet growing demand while working to clean up existing plants, power companies are placing long-term bets with billions of dollars of shareholders' and ratepayers' money. That's why many in the industry are pushing the government to set mandatory caps on emissions with consistent rules for all players. Without them, these bets on cleaner power generation are turning into a bigger gamble than they would like.
Full Story  |
|
Cutting carbon emissions will be no easy task at aging coal power plants. |
|
Climate-Change Proposals Stall Amid Hurdles, Disagreement
When they swept into the U.S. Congress in January, leading Democrats promised to use their party's new dominance to quickly pass climate-change legislation.
A steady string of congressional hearings and growing bipartisan momentum on Capitol Hill seemed to bolster the Democrats' pledge. But opponents of mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions are still putting up a tough fight. And even lawmakers who support policies that would force companies to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions disagree on how it should be implemented. Overcoming the hurdles, reaching consensus and gathering the votes needed to pass a climate-change bill could take two years or more.
"I'd be a little surprised if we saw a big, sweeping global-warming bill enacted into law before the next elections" in 2008, said Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell. "The science is showing we need to get moving now. At the same time, people are counting heads."
The drive is there, with a growing number of lawmakers agreeing on the need to curb global warming. Full Story |
Supply is Weak Link in LNG Chain
The global liquified natural gas industry is developing an "obsession" with supply, and delays with gas exploration projects are likely to curb both short- and long-term growth in the industry, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
Speaking at the triennial LNG 15 conference in Barcelona , Wood Mackenzie's head of global LNG, Frank Harris , said: "With strong demand and a positive outlook for shipping and regasification capacity, the weak link in the LNG value chain increasingly looks like LNG supply."
The industry is building new liquifaction facilities in response to booming demand, but the challenge is ensuring the new capacity is in place in time, Harris said.
Full Story |
FERC Rejects Requests Pipeline Requests for LNG Costs
In a long-awaited ruling expected to impact liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers, FERC recently said it will not accept requests from interstate natural gas pipelines to compensate customers or other downstream entities for any costs they may incur in using gas supplies, including revaporized LNG that meets approved standards for gas quality and interchangeability.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced the new gas interchangeability policy in a case involving a complaint filed in 2004 by AES Ocean Express LLC against Florida Gas Transmission Co. (FGT) (Docket Nos. RP04-249-001, et al.).
The new policy generally affirms an administrative law judge (ALJ) ruling last year (see Daily GPI, April 13, 2006), which approved the standards proposed by FGT to receive AES Ocean Express' revaporized LNG. The LNG would be imported from facilities that would be built in the Bahamas. Imported LNG has a higher heat content than domestically produced gas supplies.
Full Story |
FERC Approves Rockies Express
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a significant natural gas project that would help ship supply from the Rocky Mountains to major markets in the Midwest and eastern U.S. The Rockies Express-West project consists of three related expansion projects - the Rockies Express project, Overthrusts' Wamsutter Expansion project and TransColorado's Balnco-Meeker expansion project - which together carry a price tag of almost $2 million.
The project is one of the largest greenfield projects approved by FERC in recent years, the commission said. FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher said that increased access to Rocky Mountain gas supplies will help offset production declines in other areas of the U.S., like the Gulf of Mexico. The Rockies Express pipeline is sponsored by ConocoPhillips (COP), Sempra Energy (SRE) and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP). The related Blanco-Meeker expansion portion of the project is sponsored by Kinder Morgan, and the Wamsutter expansion is backed by Questar Corp.'s (STR) Overthrust Pipeline.
Overall, the Rockies Express project consists of almost 800 miles of new pipeline that could ship more than 1.5 million dekatherms a day of Rocky Mountain gas to key markets. New facilities will span portions of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and New Mexico. |
Save The Date – National Association of Power Engineers Meeting
May 31, 2007
Steam Savings through 24/7 Steam Trap Monitoring
Chris Gibbs – Account Manager – Armstrong International
All meetings are held beginning at 12 noon at Citizens Gas, 2020 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN.
For more information please contact Rick Ratliff at DLR Mechanical at (317) 253-6822. |
|
|