Thursday, September 25, 2008

A new General Motors Corp. engine plant to be built in Flint is good news for the struggling state

FLINT, Mich. (AP) - A new General Motors Corp. engine plant to be built in Flint is good news for the struggling state of Michigan, which has seen massive job losses as the auto industry has contracted under a slumping economy and high gasoline prices.

But GM's top executive says the new four-cylinder engine factory, which will build powerplants for the new rechargeable electric Chevrolet Volt and a new high-mileage compact car, is also a commitment to investing in the United States.

September 26, 2008

The turmoil in the financial sector is now rattling the utility world. Constellation Energy was about to become the first such casualty, but Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings came to the rescue, finding a fundamentally good company at a garage sale price.

In an unprecedented set of negotiations, the deal took just 48 hours for the respective corporate boards to approve. Constellation, which had been an industry gem with $21 billion in sales revenues last year, was pushed to the verge of bankruptcy because it had underestimated the collateral it would need if its credit ratings were downgraded. Essentially, the crisis underlying the financial sector had severely affected the Baltimore-based company's ability to fund its trading operations. Altogether, it has lost about 70 percent of its value since that emergency had peaked in July.

September 22, 2008

At a shareholder meeting in May, FPL Group Chief Executive Lew Hay III told investors that pending carbon legislation could within a few years boost the company's annual earnings by $690 million a year, depending on how greenhouse gases are priced. FPL is the country's biggest supplier of wind and solar power and a favorite of analysts.

But all the potential in the world can't reverse a general business slowdown. FPL's share price was basically flat in the first half of 2008. Ironically, the utility with the biggest share price gain in the second quarter of 2008 was TECO Energy, which rode the increase in coal prices via its coal production businesses and un-hedged coal positions.

September 19, 2008

Natural gas is regaining the acclaim it achieved in the early 1990s. This time the hype is based on more than its environmental benefits. It's also founded on shale-gas beds that could provide energy for decades given today's consumption rates.

The resulting optimism has led to an insatiable desire to boost production. It's already up 9 percent this year, most of which has come from the Barnett Shale underlying the Fort Worth, Texas area. The increased drilling is not just in the Lone Star state but also around the United States and particularly in Louisiana, New York State and Pennsylvania. That has helped force down natural gas prices from an earlier price of $13 per million BTUs to just under $8 per million BTUs now.

September 15, 2008

Over the past several months, Energy Central has met with the top executives of some of the largest investor-owned power companies, rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities, as well as state regulators from California to North Carolina. Highlights of our discussions are featured in the pages that follow.

Everyone believes that how we power our lives is -- or should be -- the top priority facing America. Most agree that we have lost our way. Jesse Tilton, the chief executive of ElectriCities of North Carolina, told us, "Our biggest challenge is that we lack a long-term federal energy policy that is based on science and economics and produces an acceptable environmental result."