Below are a few letters received at EnergyBiz Insider on topics that appeared in the past few weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel.
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August 04, 2010

The pursuit of carbon capture and sequestration technologies is a national priority. As such, the U.S. Department of Energy will award $67 million over three years to those projects that are developing the relevant tools.

While the Obama administration is best known for its stimulus funds aimed at producing more green technologies, it has also begun emphasizing carbon capture and sequestration. The White House has set a goal of bringing 5 to 10 demonstration projects on line by 2016 -- an endeavor that would focus for now on coal, which provides half of the nation's electric generation mix.

August 02, 2010

Utilities are busily crafting plans to add some smarts to their grids, which will enable them to monitor usage information in real time. For these new capabilities to take shape, they will need networks capable of moving information from their data centers to customer sites.

Wireless communications are appealing because they are easier to deploy and less expensive than wired connections. Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular, Wi-Fi and WiMAX wireless options could fill this void, but recently WiMAX has emerged as the most likely selection.

July 30, 2010

The Gulf Coast has always indulged the power sector more than the rest of the country. Getting permission to build fossil-fired generation, as well as nuclear plants and LNG facilities, has been typically easier there than elsewhere.

The same is true for both deep and shallow water drilling for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, the region's economy is dependent on that industry. But the BP oil spill has changed some attitudes and forced some additional study. The Obama administration has thus proposed a new moratorium on drilling in the deep waters for oil while giving the less-risky shallow water natural gas developers some latitude.

July 28, 2010

Equilar, a compensation research firm, reported that in 2009 the median compensation of CEOs for the top 200 companies declined 13 percent from the previous year to $7.7 million. The decline was attributed to stock and option awards losing value because of the 2009 stock market plunge. Yet an SNL Financial study of utility CEO compensation in 2009 reveals that the top 25 utility CEOs saw their executive compensation increase by 39 percent to 123 percent and 49 of the top 50 showed rising packages.

The utility industry "may have had a bigger recovery over that time period when data was collected," explained Kevin Hollock, director of Cornell University's Institute for Compensation Studies. Since consumers rely on electricity and don't cut back significantly even in a recession, the energy industry is much "less cyclical than buying fancy shoes," he added. Yet Hollock was surprised by the rise in compensation for energy CEOs compared with other industries.