Second, how sure are we that all of that CO2 would stay buried? As I understand it, the plan is to inject CO2 - a gas - into existing underground rock formations. If it doesn't stay underground (due to earthquakes or other natural leakage), what would be the environmental consequences of a large volume of CO2 being released unexpectedly into the atmosphere?

Why don't we focus instead on increasing the natural recycling of CO2, such as is done by trees, algae, and other plant life. Plants take the carbon out of CO2, storing it in a stable, solid form (the plants themselves), and release the oxygen to the atmosphere for the use of us animals.

Mark Calvert

Curbing Demand - April 24, 2006

Excellent piece. You hint at a particularly important piece of the recent CT and Ontario policies that deserves more fleshing out. Specifically, the treatment of distributed generation as DSM. Practically speaking, a generator at the end of the wire that reduces local load has an identical impact on overall grid management as a customer who replaces their electric chiller with a thermally-driven technology. However, while the latter has historically been eligible for DSM incentives and various other correctives to fix the inherent throughput-bias of regulated utilities, the former has not been eligible for such programs and often faced explicit penalties in the form standby rates, exit fees or other such mechanisms. In effect, this creates a policy signal that says, "efficient electricity consumption is good, but efficient electricity generation is bad." While traditional DSM is certainly a good thing, our failure to fully incentivize all end-of-the-wire load reduction strategies has contributed in part to the inability of grid managers to keep pace with load growth, and thus to the proximate causes of the recent CT and Ontario rulings.

It is noteworthy that ISO-NE has been at the lead of this more holistic approach, as they have to date been one of the more truly independent ISOs.

However, even they have struggled with how to handle on-site generation that is not under their dispatch. An emergency generator that never runs except when called upon by the local utility is fairly easy to incentivize under DSM-type markets (or, in the case of NY State, installed capacity markets).

However, the same generator that runs baseloaded 24/7 has never fit very well into those programs, in spite of the fact that its benefit on peak-load congestion is identical. On the one hand, some have argued that the complexities of incentivizing such generators are daunting (e.g., how do you know it will operate during system peak? If it's running anyway, why does it need an additional incentive to stay on line?). On the other, many have recognized that it is economically - not to mention environmentally - inefficient to provide cash incentives only to the least efficient generation sources. It is also apparent that every other commodity market, from oil to tomatoes has a financial incentive for peak supply that applies equally to all market participants, suggesting that the problem is one of regulatory vision rather than any inherent technical problem.

Taken to its natural conclusion, one hopes that the recent developments in Connecticut and Ontario are the start of a larger trend towards full market transparency all the way down to the end of the wire. Worth watching.

Sean Casten
Turbosteam Corporation

Is Mountaintop Removal Overblown? - April 26, 2006

You folks are in the energy business so the title can be forgiven. The realities of this practice cannot, however, be so easily dismissed. As a nation, trade-offs must clearly be made for the sake of our economy. But this practice is, from the perspective of any medium resolution satellite, a matter of ruthlessly short-sighted efficiency, greed, and ignorance. Simply put, it is an unfortunately haunting practice that gives rise to an unspeakable legacy of pain and destruction.

Joseph Healy
Available Systems, Inc