http://blog.fortnightly.com Industry perspectives and analysis from Fortnightly.com Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:34:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en -Mark T. Williams, Boston University Finance & Economics Department For several decades, the top four U.S. independent investment banks—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers—have been instrumental to the growth of America’s power and gas utility industry. With the sudden shotgun marriage of Merrill Lynch, the bankruptcy of Lehman, ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/09/24/plea-to-wall-street-be-good-to-our-i-bankers/ By Michael J. Zimmer I like the fundamentals of the biomass footprint even more now this year. Wind is facing trouble with the PTC extension, turbine product availability, a nagging de minimis capacity factor, and need for transmission that isn’t being developed nationwide. Transmission constraints could strand many new renewable energy ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/06/26/scaling-up-biomass/ By Michael T. Burr Every article we publish in Public Utilities Fortnightly is incomplete. The virtual cutting room floor is always littered with content that didn’t fit for one reason or another. For this year’s CEO Forum feature story, we asked several utility leaders about climate change regulation. Very little of what ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/06/24/ceos-on-carbon-regulation/ By John A. Bewick The Presidential candidates increasingly are including energy-policy issues in their stump speeches. And the Democratic contenders propose enormous spending programs—from $50 billion (Sen. Hillary Clinton) to $150 billion (Sen. Barack Obama)—with a New-Deal style appeal for investing in the country’s energy future. Last year, Obama said, “This ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/04/02/new-energy-deal/ By John H. Herbert Traditionally, when Wall Street is stuck in a bear market, utility stocks enjoy relatively strong performance. But will utilities maintain their defensive posture when talk of a recession turns into reality? The answer may be no, because the most pressing current economic problems—specifically ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/03/11/mattress-money/ By Courtney Barry Environmental advocates in Texas are crying “bird kill!” over potential damage to a fragile ecosystem caused by proposed wind turbines. But is that really the issue driving opposition? Aligned as “Coastal Habitat Alliance,” environmentalists, Audubon Societies, and the 825,000 acre King Ranch in South Texas seek to halt progress ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/02/18/texas-bird-blender/ A recent consumer backlash against demand-response programs in California seems to have caught the industry off guard. The blogosphere (and some traditional media) erupted in a rhetorical bacchanalia after the California Energy Commission proposed including programmable thermostats in the state’s new building codes. This episode shows just how badly informed consumers ... http://blog.fortnightly.com/2008/02/01/big-brother-and-the-green-police/