Sept. 14-21, 2009
CAPP NEWS ROUNDUP
September 14, 2009 through September 21, 2009
Industry News
Pickens still pushing energy plan
By Claudia Grisales
Austin American-Statesman
September 15, 2009
Last summer, Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens pushed his plan for a new energy future with a slew of TV commercials, a jam-packed media tour and a personal meeting with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. A year later, Pickens' ambitious plan to reduce the country's reliance on foreign oil is a much tougher sell.
ERCOT doesn’t raise fees in 2010 budget
By Elizabeth Souder
Dallas Morning News
September 17, 2009
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state power grid, approved a 2010 budget that doesn't require higher fees. The ERCOT board approved a budget Tuesday of $176.8 million, the company said Wednesday in a news release.
Texans say a climate-change bill in Congress would take too big a toll
By Angel Gonzalez
The Wall Street Journal
September 21, 2009
A bill in Congress to curb global warming has a lot of Texans boiling. The bill proposes to make some companies pay for the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases they emit, gases that scientists believe are contributing to rising temperatures. And that puts the Lone Star State, which produces more emissions than any other state and even some big industrialized countries like Canada, squarely in the cross-hairs.
Advocates concerned Austin Energy plans will hurt poor, elderly
By Marty Toohey
Austin American-Statesman
September 21, 2009
That is a predicament advocates fear an increasing number of low-income and elderly people will soon face in Austin. The city-owned electric provider, Austin Energy, expects bills to rise substantially in coming years, partially because of an aggressive plan to purchase more wind, solar and wood-waste energy and wean the city off fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming.
Winds of change are blowing
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
San Antonio Express-News
September 15, 2009
WASHINGTON — Universities and businesses across Texas are expecting to spend millions in the next few years honing the blades, gearboxes and generators that make up turbines designed to harness power from the wind.
CPS Energy shortsighted, not long, in nuclear power push
By McCall Johnson
San Antonio Express-News
September 15, 2009
But CPS Energy has a different vision. While making some encouraging investments in clean energy, the utility’s primary energy strategy continues to focus on polluting, unsustainable energy sources. They’ve just built a new coal-fired power plant, and now they want to invest in two new expensive and dirty nuclear reactors that San Antonio doesn’t need.
A Mad Dash for Smart-Grid Cash
By John Collins Rudolf
The New York Times
September 15, 2009
By the time the late August application deadline had expired, a Department of Energy program to distribute $615 million to fund projects demonstrating smart-grid technology had attracted 140 proposals requesting a total of $2.3 billion.
The cost of climate goodies
By Dave Michaels
Dallas Morning News
September 18, 2009
We have a piece today on the natural gas lobby's $80 million campaign to influence the Senate's climate change bill. The gas execs are getting into the game rather late, and still sound pretty indifferent about the stated goal of the bill: to arrest global warming.