Maryland Business

It’s just a hunch, but my guess is Mayo A. Shattuck III won’t be home tonight.

That probably won’t stop the Power 4 the People Project from holding a candlelight march on the Constellation Energy Group CEO’s Baltimore home to “demand” that the guy stop power shut-offs for customers who are behind on their bills. They’d also like him to “roll back gas & electric rates.”

“We are holding a candle light march to CEO Mayo Shattuck’s home on the day before 84,000 people are slated to have their utilities shut-off to symbolize the many families and individuals who will be in the dark with only candles,” said Steven Ceci, spokesman for the group, which is a branch of the Bail Out the People Movement.

The group is urging a moratorium on shut-offs one day before local utilities meet with state regulators to discuss how they plan to handle the slew of late payments and power shut-offs that will result from particularly high bills this winter. Power 4 the People will be in attendance at the Tuesday hearing, which should add some excitement to the day.

Up next, look out for a statewide petitioning campaign from the group to keep the lights on.

Be honest here: Do you turn off your computer when you leave work for the day? Most of you probably don’t. It’s not your energy bill, right? I have a few coworkers who seem to think shutting down their system is an annual occasion.

Well, now’s the time to start doing it regularly: as companies cut costs and staff, the state faces rolling blackouts and the world works - in varying degrees of diligence - to go green.

Shutting down our systems at night could save companies billions in cash while saving the environment.

There are 108 million PCs in the United States, and about half of them aren’t shut down at COB, according to 1E, an energy-management software company that’s released a report on the issue. Leaving computers on emits 20 million tons of carbon dioxide - about four million vehicles’ worth.

1E projects that a company with 10,000 PCs can save $260,000+ each year simply by shutting the machines off at night. Maybe they could save a few jobs, too.

“PCs can be a tremendous drain on electricity,” Doug Washburn, an analyst at Forrester Research, told Jon Swartz of USA Today. “During a nine-hour workday, [they aren't] always in use because of lunch, meetings and other things.”

So if you’re looking for a way to save your company money - and save your job - look at your power strip.

If new legislation proposed by U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen passes, homeowners would be able to access up to $10,000 in interest-free loans to make their homes more energy efficient.

Van Hollen’s plan may have a clunky title — the National Home Energy Savings Revolving Fund Act — but it would allow local governments to loan out cash to residents who want to save some money over the long run, instead of just offering tax rebates that seem to get snatched up in milliseconds. Homeowners would repay their loans through their property taxes over a maximum of 15 years.

The fund — which would get $5 billion installments in 2010 and 2011 — would help more than 1 million homeowners to retrofit their homes and get “on the path to an energy efficient future,” according to a statement from Van Hollen’s office.

The proposal sounds like it could be promising, but the statement lacked some details, like where the government would get the $10 billion needed to make this thing work.

At a Thursday Public Service Commission hearing, commissioners were looking to get information about why customer bills have skyrocketed this winter and how to keep customers from falling behind on their payments.

Before the hearing began, Chairman Douglas R.M. Nazarian mentioned that the hearing was for utilities and advocacy groups to discuss the problem and suggest some solutions — but it was not a forum for customers to complain.

“It’s a public hearing in the sense that everybody is invited to watch, it is not a public hearing in the sense of anyone who wants to speak today is going to be allowed to speak. We’re going to hear from parties, but we’re not going to hear from the public at large,” Nazarian said.

Despite Nazarian’s insistence that the public would not be able to discuss their personal bill issues, Read the rest of this entry »

In his speech before Congress last night, President Barack Obama promised that as part of the country’s economic recovery, an investment would be made in renewable energy.

Along with all of those solar panels and wind turbines, he said, we will build a more robust grid able to handle all of that power coursing through its lines.

“We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills,” Obama said.

It’s a plan I think many Americans — especially in this region — would agree is worthwhile, given the particular attention that’s been focused on our overworked energy infrastructure and the need to cover predicted energy shortfalls in our near future.

But not everyone feels the same way. The people who live in the communities where the president wants to lay down power lines aren’t pleased.

An editorial in Tuesday’s Loudon (Va.) Times-Mirror decried plans by Allegheny Energy to run a 10-mile line through northern Loudon as “so wrong on so many fronts that it’s difficult to know where to start.”

One main complaint is that the energy that runs through the PATH (Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline) will benefit residents of New Jersey, while leaving Virginia to deal with the greenhouse gases generated by the coal-fired plant in nearby West Virginia.

There’s also the pesky problem of NIMBY — Not In My Backyard — politics that acts as an albatross to nearly every proposed energy project. No one wants a power line interrupting their view or to risk living “under an electromagnetic field and test the theory that it doesn’t really cause cancer,” the Times-Mirror wrote.

So what’s the alternative? The editorial suggests solar panels on schools and solar sheds in backyards. And, if the panels produce more energy than the home or school needs, the power will run back onto the grid — bringing us back to heart of the problem, the need for updated power lines.

DANIELLE ULMAN, Business Writer

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has gotten more than a handful of letters from concerned citizens and environmentalists asking the group for more time to comment on its complex and lengthy final review of the proposed Sparrows Point LNG plant.

FERC Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher (who announced last week that he would step down from his post when President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in) has even gotten requests from some U.S. Senators, including Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter and Bob Casey, to expand the public comment period to 60 days. The proposed pipeline will run from Maryland to Pennsylvania.

In separate response letters to Specter, Casey and Pennsylvania Reps. Joseph Pitts and Jim Gerlach, Kelliher said that all comments made in the 30-day public comment period would be considered before the commission voted. He also knocked the idea that holding more public meetings would provide the commission with new information, saying that the commission has already held six meetings and done four site visits.

Kelliher stressed that the commission has not made a decision on the project yet, but that could change as early as this week. The item is on the agenda for FERC’s Thursday meeting, although that’s not set in stone.

Once FERC votes on the project, interveners to the case can petition for a fresh chance to air their concerns once again.

DANIELLE ULMAN, Business Writer

Constellation Energy Group’s shareholders may have thought they were getting a raw deal with the offer of $26.50 a share from MidAmerican Energy Holdings, but things haven’t been looking up since that deal went south about two weeks ago.

Shareholders seemed hell bent on getting more out of their stock — several filed lawsuits against Constellation, and there were rumblings that they might not approve the merger deal at a planned Dec. 23 shareholder vote — but it doesn’t seem like they’ll be getting much more in the near term.

One day after Constellation announced it was rejecting the MidAmerican takeover bid in favor of a nuclear partnership with Electricite de France, the Baltimore-based firm’s share price fell to $23.97, and has since lingered in the $24 to $25 range.

In the days leading up to Constellation’s split with MidAmerican, the stock climbed above $28 in anticipation of the break up, and hit $30.15 on the day of the announcement.

Paul Justice, an analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, told me it’s hard to compare the share price between then and now.

“You’ve extended the time horizon and basically made this a stock that’s going to sit on the market; before you had a time frame for an end date,” he said. “To reflect back on the trials and tribulations of 2008, you’re probably looking two or three years out to determine how well this worked out for Constellation,” he added.

If it takes that long to see this deal bear fruit, imagine how long it could take for investors to make their money back. I wonder if they’ll wait around long enough to find out.

DANIELLE ULMAN, Business Writer

At first blush, French energy giant Electricite de France SA’s offer to block the sale of Constellation Energy seems to address the majority of the issues that led the company to accept a buyout from billionaire Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.

EDF has offered up a $4.5 billion deal, which includes a $1 billion cash infusion and the option for $2 billion more in cash if Constellation wants to sell non-nuclear assets. Plus, the deal is centered on creating a joint venture solely around Constellation’s nuclear energy business.

EDF even says its deal would overcome the break-up fees associated with the MidAmerican deal. The company says the $175 million termination fee is covered by the cash infusion and, considering the deal could be for as much as $6.5 billion altogether Constellation could also afford the “costly” 14 percent senior note attached to MidAmerican’s $1 billion cash infusion.

The board of directors of Constellation said it would review the deal, but did not make any immediate changes to its current recommendation for the MidAmerican deal. Will shareholders who have seen stock prices wither from $100-plus a year ago though be as willing to vote for the $26.50 per share MidAmerican deal?

Or, will the EDF deal prevail because it keeps the company a publicly traded one, and could give shareholders the chance to recoup some losses?

BEN MOOK, Assistant Business Editor

I walk to work and spend so much time away from my car that I often forget where I left it in my building’s parking garage, forcing me to trudge up and down the levels, remotely beeping its horn.

However, to those people who use their cars daily, I present you with the latest info on the cost to fill up your tank, courtesy of the AP:

Gas prices fell for the 20th week since early July and hit $1.811 per gallon (48 cents a liter), according to the government’s Energy Information Agency.

I was shocked to discover how far prices had plummeted recently. I filled up my car for about $24 this weekend. The previous fill-up set me back more than $50. (The average gallon of gas in Maryland costs $1.799, according to MarylandGasPrices.com.)

A big reason for the decrease in oil and gas prices — as well as other energy sources — has been the lousy economy, according to the story. U.S. analysts say prices could drop farther with a decrease in demand, due to fewer people having jobs to which they need to drive. I find it fascinating that economic factors such as inflation could screw everything up so badly that prices actually go down as a result — and people still don’t have the money to pay them.

Have to admit I really hadn’t considered the economy from that point of few. So many stories have revolved around climbing prices, and the hope that when costs came back down people’s lives would go back to normal. Now I’m reading that even the lower costs might not help — any price is too high if you’re broke.

So I suppose my question is: how low will we go? Thoughts?

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune raises a very interesting question: with gasoline prices now at about half the cost this summer’s prices, will those “gas guzzling” SUVs and trucks make a comeback?

According to the article, “SUVs remain, as ever, politically incorrect,” but dealers from Texas to Montana report “the big vehicles clogging up their lots for months like so much radioactive waste have started moving again, albeit at slashed prices.”

While the author reports General Motors plants making Tahoes, Yukons and Escalades have their workers on overtime, “car sales on the whole remain a bust, and this comeback barely lives up to the name, considering the bleak conditions overall.”

Maryland Automobile Dealers Association President Peter Kitzmiller said that whatever comeback some vehicles may be making in other states because of gas prices hasn’t happened here.

“If everything was normal, I think we’d being seeing an uptick in those sales,” he said. “But nothing’s selling right now so I don’t think we’re seeing that. If you compared pickup sales this October to last October, they would be off significantly because nothing’s selling.”

Kitzmiller said that it also isn’t worth it to people who bought a larger vehicles during the rush a few years ago to trade them in today for a more economical car because the gas prices of this summer have severely deflated their value.

We’re getting people saying they’re going to lose $4,000 or $5,000 if they trade them in so we’re not seeing a lot of that,” he said. “I think if gas prices stay down we will start seeing the used car values of those vehicles stabilize, and we’ll see more of that activity.”

In the meantime, what are people doing with their SUVs? Are they hanging tight and waiting to trade them in next year? Or are you out on the roads more now that gas is below $2 a gallon?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer