Energy News Digest for May 14, 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)

- China says troops rush to plug dangerous cracks in dam
- The Water-Industrial Complex
- Alcoa spent $410,000 in first quarter on lobbying, including BPA issues
- Chelan County PUD considers rate hikes
- McCain tries to ease nuclear-power worries
- Documents shed light on Grays Harbor PUD mill plan
- Wire Thieves Costing You Money
- News Release – Shawn Anstey, PUD 3 Customer Service Manager Retires After 23 years at the Utility
- TVA revenues up, net income sinks 42%
- Australia – Electricity workers march on parliament
- Power Lines and Your Health
- Energy Pulse Commentary – Competition vs. Regulation: Have We Achieved Conversational Clarity?
- Farm bill includes salmon aid
- Idaho anglers report damage to fish habitat
- Springer numbers lead to Willamette, Columbia salmon changes
- A pitch to fix Duwamish: Private firm hopes to profit from riverbank restoration
- North Mason County Fourth-Graders Get the Straight Poop on Belfair Watersheds
- How not to save salmon – Criticism for predator control programs, oh…and the Snake River dams
- Washington oyster a winner in competition – Comes from Shelton Area
- Paying landowners to protect Puget Sound
- Seattle Times Columnist – Being green is in the bag when it's shoved down our throats
- Trash-to-ethanol firms get digging
- Juneau, Alaska – A City Cooler and Dimmer, and, Oh, Proving a Point
- New York – Officials Decry Long Island Power Authority Conservation Surcharge
- McCain polishes "green" credentials in WA visit
- Firms Seek Patents on 'Climate Ready' Altered Crops
- Montana panel cold toward climate proposals
- Huge study documents changes from climate warming
- Counterfeit Cisco Products – FBI Fears Hardware Backdoors “BPA may have been bilked”
- Douglas PUD to supply TV programming over fiber
- EarthLink to pull the plug on Wi-Fi in Philadelphia
- When It Comes to Broadband, There’s Never Enough
- Metal Thieves Targeting South Sound Railroads
- Oklahoma – Copper thefts cut into telephone services
- Worker accused of faking cancer to steal from state

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

WORD OF THE DAY

Effloresce • \eff-flor-ESS\ • verb – 1: to burst forth: bloom 2a: to change to a powder from loss of water of crystallization b: to form or become covered with a powdery crust

Donna was getting impatient. The time had come for her garden to effloresce into a rich tapestry of red, blue and yellow. But by June she had become increasingly worried that the silk flower seeds she purchased from the door to door salesmen had been a complete waste of money.

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

China says troops rush to plug dangerous cracks in dam (Associated Press)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake

The Water-Industrial Complex – In 2001, a water shortage in America's Pacific Northwest wiped out nearly a third of the U.S. aluminum industry (Forbes Magazine)
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/13/water-electricity-industry-biz-energy-cx_bp_0514water.html

Alcoa spent $410,000 in first quarter on lobbying – “…and access to electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration in Portland, Ore…” (The Associated Press, via the Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5773608.html

Chelan County PUD considers rate hikes – Predicted 'net assets' of $18.5 million are 27 percent lower than budgeted (Wenatchee World)
http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEWS04/605006022

McCain tries to ease nuclear-power worries (Seattle Times)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004412459_mccain14m.html?syndication=rss

Documents shed light on Grays Harbor PUD mill plan – Newly released documents show how the Grays Harbor PUD plans to structure its financing of the Cosmopolis Pulp Mill’s powerhouse purchase to make money on the deal and meet new state “green power” requirements (Daily World, Aberdeen)
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2008/05/13/local_news/02news.txt

WIRE THIEVES COSTING YOU MONEY – The Lewis County PUD continues to be hit by wire thieves. The latest theft in the Toledo area includes 2,700 feet of line stolen from the Cedar Creek Road. The value of the stolen line is estimated at $650. But the manpower required to replace it is considerably higher (KELA Radio, Centralia)

News Release – Shawn Anstey, PUD 3 Customer Service Manager Retires After 23 years at the Utility (Mason County PUD No. 3)
http://www.masonpud3.org/News/display.asp?NewsID=434

TVA revenues up, net income sinks 42% (Memphis Business Journal)
http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2008/05/12/daily16.html?ana=from_rss

Australia – Electricity workers march on parliament – workers from across Queensland have stopped work to march on state parliament to protest against stalled pay talks (The Herald Sun)
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23696880-5005961,00.html

Power Lines and Your Health (MSN Health & Fitness)
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cancer/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100202335&GT1=31025

Energy Pulse Commentary – Competition vs. Regulation: Have We Achieved Conversational Clarity? (This one is NOT a quick read folks)
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1744

FISH & WILDLIFE

Farm bill includes salmon aid (Times Standard, Eureka)
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_9253567

Idaho anglers report damage to fish habitat – Two Sandpoint outfitters say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fouled a tributary of the Clark Fork River and destroyed protected bull trout habitat during a $250,000 flood-control project (Spokesman Review, Spokane)
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=14919

Springer numbers lead to Willamette, Columbia salmon changes(Salem Statesman Journal)
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/OUTDOORS/805140442/1034/SPORTS

A pitch to fix Duwamish: Private firm hopes to profit from riverbank restoration – Let's restore the banks of the Duwamish River to make them more natural, help shelter young salmon -- and make money in the process. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/363006_duwamish14.html?source=rss

North Mason County Fourth-Graders Get the Straight Poop on Belfair Watersheds (Kitsap Sun)
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/may/13/fourth-graders-get-the-straight-poop-on/

How not to save salmon – Criticism for predator control programs, oh…and the Snake River dams (High Country News)
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.WOTRArticle?article_id=17706

Washington oyster a winner in competition – The winner? A surprise Washington invader: the Totten Virginica, which matures on a secluded beach at the end of a dead-end road between Olympia and Shelton (The News Tribune, Tacoma)
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/story/359973.html

WATER & THE ENVIRONMENT

Paying landowners to protect Puget Sound (Seattle Times)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004412432_growth_tdr15m.html?syndication=rss

Seattle Times Columnist – Being green is in the bag when it's shoved down our throats
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004411952_rams14.html?syndication=rss

RENEWABLE/ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Trash-to-ethanol firms get digging (CNET News)
http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9939613-54.html?tag=nl.e703

CONSERVATION

Juneau, Alaska – A City Cooler and Dimmer, and, Oh, Proving a Point – Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more than 30 percent in a matter of weeks (NY Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14juneau.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

New York – Officials Decry Long Island Power Authority Conservation Surcharge – Is the latest planned surcharge - as much as $3 a month beginning in January 2009 - a way to encourage conservation or a back-door approach to raising rates? (Suffolk Life Newspapers)
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19688440&BRD=1776&PAG=461&dept_id=6365&rfi=6

CLIMATE CHANGE SEQUESTRATION VAULT

McCain polishes "green" credentials in WA visit (The Associated Press, via the Columbian)
http://news.columbian.com/news/state/APStories/AP05132008news317071.cfm

Firms Seek Patents on 'Climate Ready' Altered Crops (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051202919.html?nav=rss_technology

Montana panel cold toward climate proposals (Billings Gazette)
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/05/13/news/state/47-climateproposals.txt

Huge study documents changes from climate warming (USA Today)
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-05-14-climate-study_N.htm?csp=34

TELECOMMUNICATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Counterfeit Cisco Products – FBI Fears Hardware Backdoors In US “…Marine Corps, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI, US Navy, and Bonneville Power Administration…were allegedly sold counterfeit products…” (Ziff-Davis)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39417171,00.htm

Douglas PUD to supply TV programming over fiber (Wenatchee World)
http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEWS04/881951556/1001

EarthLink to pull the plug on Wi-Fi in Philadelphia (San Jose Mercury News)
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9244577?source=rss

When It Comes to Broadband, There’s Never Enough (GigaOM)
http://gigaom.com/2008/05/13/when-it-comes-to-broadband-theres-never-enough/

GENERAL NEWS

Metal Thieves Targeting South Sound Railroads – Thieves looking to cash in metal for money took railroad crossing arms from a location south of Olympia, and railroad tracks were stolen in Grays Harbor County (KIRO-TV, Seattle)
http://www.kirotv.com/news/16258704/detail.html?rss=sea&psp=news

Oklahoma – Copper thefts cut into telephone services (The Muskogee Phoenix)
http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/local/local_story_134232421.html

Worker accused of faking cancer to steal from state – The woman received $21,000 in paid leave after forging letters from doctors, prosecutors allege (The Everett Herald)
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080514/NEWS01/956613429/-1/RSS02

DIVERSIONS

Kittens Credited With Saving Lives In Fire – Two-Alarm Blaze Damages Three Houses
http://www.kirotv.com/family/16251627/detail.html

Man Refuses To Turn Off Cell On Flight – Southwest Traveler Cited For Cell Phone Call
http://www.kirotv.com/travelgetaways/16252931/detail.html

Ohio man finds someone already buried in his grave
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004413071_apmistakenburial.html?syndication=rss

Solitaire-y Confinement – Why we can't stop playing a computerized card game “…solitaire is the most-used program in the Windows universe…”
http://www.slate.com/id/2191295/?from=rss

Pull plug on automated toilets, panel says – Seattle's City Council say it's time to get rid of the city's five automated, single-stall toilets
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/362987_toilets14.html