Energy News Digest for April 1, 2008

All the links in today’s news digest lead to current stories. Please note that some media organizations update their web sites regularly, which may result in broken links in the future.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS (Details Below)

- Do you care about PSE rate increases for electricity and gas?
- Scheduled Maintenance Cuts Power To Washington State Nuclear Reactor
- Cleanup crews at Washington nuclear site find buried reactor fuel
- A Rare Sight: 370-Ton Rotor Removed From Dam Generator
- Montana – Great Falls rejects opportunity to buy electricity from Texas company
- Energy companies plug coal's 'clean' benefits
- Constellation, Maryland accord could boost utility's credit rating
- Oil Prices Tumble, but Natural Gas Rises
- Columbia River gillnetting to begin Tuesday
- Montana – Into the breach - Clark Fork, Blackfoot rivers punch through Milltown Dam
- Tenino ready for sewer work, but residents have questions
- Florida – The profits on water are huge, but the raw material is free
- Treated Wastewater Could Water Lawns, Recharge Lakes
- Finches Die on Stevens Pass; Reasons Unknown
- Plans for Oregon wind farm in limbo
- California – Pacific Gas & Electric backs 3 solar plants in the Mojave
- 'Hydrogen Highway' stuck in first gear
- Small hydro, big potential – 'Run of river' projects set for a boom?
- Fish And Wildlife Employee Named To Wind Power Advisory Group
- New traffic signals slash energy use
- Maryland – Sparks fly over energy conservation
- Seattle's plans for future shaped by climate change still in infancy
- Critics say Canada's submission to UN climate change conference 'deceitful'
- Madison Avenue Sells S.U.V.’s. Can It Sell Climate Action?
- Who's to say Comcast won't meddle with Net again?
- Can they keep video from clogging the Web?
- At Cisco, Online Video Boom Helping Router Sales
- Government temporarily bans IBM from deals
- Home building tumbles for 24th month
- Some homes worth less than their copper pipes
- Portions of North Shore Road in North Mason County to Close
- Mid-Columbia businesses fighting fuel costs
- "God Pods" Coming to Washington Prisons?
- News Tribune Opinion – State agencies building computers to nowhere?

These and links to more stories in today’s Energy News Digest

WORD OF THE DAY

Tarantism • \TAIR-un-tiz-um\ • noun – A dancing mania or malady of late medieval Europe

“I guess you could call it neo-tarantism, but one would expect the frantic dancing would at least be good,” said the music critic. “Spinning around until you collapse from dizziness is a performance, but is it art?”

From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary – Between the 15th and 17th centuries, Taranto, Italy, was hit by a dance craze unlike any other. The town was afflicted by a malady that would come to be known as "tarantism" and was characterized by a hysterical impulse to dance. Some people claimed tarantism was caused by the bite of the European wolf spider, which is also known as the tarantula (and is also named after Taranto); such folks declared that dancing off the venom was the only cure. Musicians supposedly traveled to the region to help cure the epidemic, and some believe that the Italian folk dance called the "tarantella" resulted from the craze.

WEATHER

Forecast for Mason County, Washington
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?site=sew&smap=1&textField1=47.21528&textField2=-123.09944

(NOTE: Some readers have noted that the NWS forecast has not been updated regularly. Apparently there is a refresh issue with the weather web site. If you visit and the forecast isn’t updated, press F5 or refresh the web page. That should take care of the issue)

ENERGY & UTILITY ISSUES

Do you care about PSE rate increases for electricity and gas? Even if you don't care, the state Attorney General's office does. Puget Sound Energy wants to raise the rates customers pay for electricity, up an estimated 12 percent, and natural gas, up 6 percent. (News Tribune, Tacoma)
http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/business/2008/03/31/do_you_care_about_pse_rate_increases_for

SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE CUTS POWER TO NUCLEAR REACTOR – Energy Northwest reduced power at its Columbia nuclear reactor near Richland for scheduled maintenance. The reactor was listed as running at 65 percent of capacity in a report Sunday from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The maintenance includes work on control-rod and feedwater-pump systems, company spokesman Brad Peck said Monday in an e-mail. He described the work as "short term." Energy Northwest is a joint operating agency with 20 public power member utilities in Washington. Power from the Columbia reactor goes to the Bonneville Power Administration. The unit's capacity is about 1,150 megawatts, according to Energy Northwest. That's enough power for about 920,000 average homes, based on a U.S. Energy Department estimate. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Cleanup crews at Washington nuclear site find buried reactor fuel (The Associated Press, via the Olympian)
http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/405547.html

A Rare Sight: 370-Ton Rotor Removed From Dam Generator – Mossyrock: Tacoma Power Officials Continue Major Rebuild of Hydroelectric Facility (The Chronicle, Centralia)
http://www.chronline.com/story.php?subaction=showfull&id=1206985000&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1

Montana – Great Falls rejects opportunity to buy electricity from Texas company (Billings Gazette)
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/04/01/news/state/62-greatfallsenergy.txt

Energy companies plug coal's 'clean' benefits (McClatchy Tribune Business News, via the Power Marketing Association Online)
http://powermarketers.netcontentinc.net/newsreader.asp?ppa=8knpp%5E%5CjjoqqoqZVhc%216%3C%22bfen%5Fv

Constellation, Maryland accord could boost utility's credit rating (Baltimore Business Journal)
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2008/03/31/daily6.html?ana=from_rss

Oil Prices Tumble, but Natural Gas Rises (Associated Press, via the Seattle Times)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004311869_apoilprices.html?syndication=rss

WATER, FISH & THE ENVIRONMENT

Columbia River gillnetting to begin Tuesday –The commercial fleet will start its spring Chinook salmon season beginning Tuesday in the Columbia River between Hayden Island and Beacon Rock (The Columbian)
http://www.columbian.com/sports/localNews/2008/03/03312008_Gillnetting-to-begin-Tuesday.cfm

Montana – Into the breach - Clark Fork, Blackfoot rivers punch through Milltown Dam (The Missoulian)
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/03/29/news/top/news01.txt

Tenino ready for sewer work, but residents have questions – A modern sewer system is coming to Tenino, but so far the ride is bumpy at best (The Olympian )
http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/405239.html

Florida – The profits on water are huge, but the raw material is free – Nestle came into Florida and managed to pull off quite the coup: The Company got a permit to take water belonging to Floridians — hundreds of millions of gallons a year from a spring in a state park — at no cost to Nestle (St. Petersburg Times)
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article418793.ece

Treated Wastewater Could Water Lawns, Recharge Lakes (Kitsap Sun, may require free registration)
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/mar/31/treated-wastewater-could-water-lawns-recharge/

Finches Die on Stevens Pass; Reasons Unknown (NW Public Radio)
http://www.nwpr.org/07/HomepageArticles/Article.aspx?n=3722

RENEWABLE/ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Plans for Oregon wind farm in limbo (The Oregonian, via Examiner.com)
http://www.examiner.com/a-1313507~Plans_for_Oregon_wind_farm_in_limbo.html?cid=rss-Oregon_Headlines

California – Pacific Gas & Electric backs 3 solar plants in the Mojave – Oakland firm will design, build installations; sunlight, groundwater will generate power for 375,000 homes (San Francisco Chronicle)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/01/BUA1VTCJT.DTL&feed=rss.business

'Hydrogen Highway' stuck in first gear – Four years ago, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed an order to create a network of hydrogen fueling stations. Today, not a single one has been built (Contra Costa Times)
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_8768270?source=rss

Small hydro, big potential – 'Run of river' projects set for a boom? (Grist online)
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/27/183942/200

FISH AND WILDLIFE EMPLOYEE NAMED TO WIND POWER ADVISORY GROUP – Greg Hueckel of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife has been appointed to serve on the national Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee, sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Hueckel, who heads the state agency's Habitat Program, is one of 18 people from across the nation who serves on the federal committee, which will be in place for two years. The multi-stakeholder group will provide recommendations to the secretary of the interior on developing effective plans to minimize the effects of land-based wind energy facilities on wildlife and habitats. These recommendations could serve as the foundation for a national policy on the use of wind power as a renewable energy source. (The Olympian)

CONSERVATION

New traffic signals slash energy use – Municipality to receive a rebate check for $85,000 Monday after converting 441 traffic lights to efficient light-emitting diode (LED) signals that cut energy use by 70 per cent (Canwest News Service)
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=fecaf277-f0db-4227-8012-3694d0f23a05&k=45159

Maryland – Sparks fly over energy conservation (Baltimore Sun)
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/assembly/2008/03/sparks_fly_over_energy_conserv.html

CLIMATE CHANGE SEQUESTRATION VAULT

Seattle's plans for future shaped by climate change still in infancy (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/357223_port01.html?source=rss

Critics say Canada's submission to UN climate change conference 'deceitful' (Canwest News Service)
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=f6d9ed61-44ba-411d-bac8-f64655283d61&k=84923

Madison Avenue Sells S.U.V.’s. Can It Sell Climate Action? (NY Times)
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/madison-avenue-sells-suvs-can-it-sell-climate-action/index.html?ex=1364702400&en=00c5e2782ec40511&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

TELECOMMUNICATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Who's to say Comcast won't meddle with Net again? (San Jose Mercury News)
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8755316?source=rss

Can they keep video from clogging the Web? BitTorrent scores as Comcast changes its mind and says it will cooperate to manage, rather than stifle, peer-to-peer traffic (The Oregonian)
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1206768307287470.xml&coll=7

At Cisco, Online Video Boom Helping Router Sales (GigaOM)
http://gigaom.com/2008/03/31/at-cisco-online-video-boom-helping-router-sales/

Government temporarily bans IBM from deals – the company has been temporarily banned from receiving future contracts with federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed on Monday (Tri-City Herald)
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/991/story/142934.html

GENERAL NEWS

Home building tumbles for 24th month (Associated Press, via Yahoo! News)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080401/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy_14

Some homes worth less than their copper pipes (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2527885420080401?feedType=nl&feedName=ustopnewsearly

Portions of North Shore Road in North Mason County to Close (Kitsap Sun, may require free registration)
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/mar/31/portions-of-north-shore-road-in-nm-to-close/

Mid-Columbia businesses fighting fuel costs (Tri-City Herald)
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/915/story/135313.html

"God Pods" Coming to Washington Prisons? (NW Public Radio)
http://www.nwpr.org/07/HomepageArticles/Article.aspx?n=3719

News Tribune Opinion – State agencies building computers to nowhere? Lawmakers are betting mightily on their ability to deliver paid family leave and tax rebates, even as the odds are stacked against them
http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/story/323260.html

DIVERSIONS

After Drinking, Man Wakes Up In Nick Of Time Inside Garbage Truck
http://www.kirotv.com/irresistible/15751744/detail.html

Texas University's Honor Code Plagiarized? Part Of Code's Wording Matches Another University's
http://www.kirotv.com/education/15746646/detail.html

Teen Tweaks Police With Root Beer Kegger – No-Alcohol Party Makes Point About Suspensions
http://www.kirotv.com/news/15740008/detail.html