The Future of Nuclear Power in A Restructured Electricity Market

Restructuring is causing fundamental changes in the market for electricity across North America including changes in the framework for decisions about investment in generation capacity. In a restructured market the generator is no longer guaranteed a reasonable rate of return on assets; instead new investments will earn whatever the spot market or contract market will pay. The market price will be determined by the marginal cost of existing price setting units, the market structure, demand, and the cost of new capacity. Environmental regulations may have a significant impact on that price. This paper summarizes the principal features of restructured electricity markets and their implications for the future price of electricity and for the future of nuclear power, using the emerging rules for the Ontario electricity market as an example.electric utilities, electricity restructuring, nuclear power, nuclear generation, air pollution, emission trading, Ontario, spot market

Electricity Restructuring and Regulation in the Provinces: Ontario and Beyond

Competitive electricity markets are artificial markets with extensive rules for all participants arising from the complex interconnections of the electricity network. Governments or regulatory agencies oversee the market design process and the operation and maintenance of the market, so market design is necessarily a political process. The conceptual design of the market must recognise the political forces that will operate on the market design process so that the political process will not thwart the intended outcome of the market as it has in some jurisdictions including Ontario. The limited ability of consumers to understand changes in the electricity sector in the short run poses a real constraint on what can be achieved politically. Letting the market set the price means that governments cannot ensure any particular future price level and both theory and experience tell us that prices may increase after restructuring (California, Ontario, Alberta). This makes it difficult to sell restructuring to consumers who will be interested in the price they pay and not much interested in abstractions like efficiency. Another challenge for electricity restructuring is that the starting points differ from one jurisdiction to another and the starting points matter. The problems are different if you begin with a crown monopoly than if you have investor-owned utilities; if expected prices are higher than recent prices rather than lower; if governments have been deeply involved in the electricity sector rather than distant from it; if the public has experience with stable electricity prices rather than fluctuating prices. Finally, the situation in neighbouring jurisdictions matters as well. Restructuring in a low-price jurisdiction surrounded by high prices will increase the prospect of price increases at home, while a high-price island is more likely to see its prices decline. If workable competition will be difficult to achieve at home, strong interties to neighbouring jurisdictions can improve competitive performance if the market is appropriately designed. Air pollution, like electricity, moves across borders, so one must assess and evaluate the pollution implications of competition and make any appropriate adjustments to the market design.electricity restructuring, electric utilities, market design, electricity price, electricity market, spot price, retail competition

The Price Isn't Right: The Need for Reform in Consumer Electricity Pricing

Electricity prices should fully link the consumer price to peak-period generation costs, environmental costs and the high cost of new generation, according to an expert analysis released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. The author says such pricing reform is required to reduce both financial and electrical stress on the system and help prepare Ontario – and other provinces – for the rising costs of new generation.Economic Growth and Innovation, electricity pricing, Province of Ontario, conservation, environmental cost, real-time pricing

Emissions Trading: ERCs or Allowances

There are two principal choices of the baseline from which emissions trading may take place: 1) emission reduction credits (ERCs) in which the baseline is existing regulations which are often activity-based; and 2) cap-and-trade which specified the total allowable emissions. This paper examines the effects of these two tradable permit systems on marginal and average costs for the firm, using electricity generation as an example. The ERC system subsidises the activity level to which it is tied, failing to incorporate the full cost of external harm into the product price. The cap-and-trade system is more efficient.air pollution, emissions trading, allowances, emission reduction credits, cap and trade, electricity generation, externality

Price and Environment in Electricity Restructuring

One purpose of electricity restructuring is to create a market in which prices reflect costs to which both generators and consumers may respond efficiently. Yet in many jurisdictions, spot prices may be quite volatile, and both consumers and generators of electricity have made it clear that they do not prices that are highly volatile. This paper examines price plans that have been and might be used in restructured electricity markets assessing their ability to face consumers with efficient prices at the margin but to minimize their exposure to volatility, considering the welfare losses that may be associated with them. It notes that electricity markets are necessarily artificial and that few have managed to create price plans that seem to improve on the efficiency of pre-restructuring prices. Moreover in the California market, the operation of a separate market for air pollution emissions gave rise to emission prices far above reasonable estimates of environmental harm, further exacerbating wholesale price fluctuations in 2000. Solutions to these problems are explored.electric utilities, electricity restructuring, air pollution, spot market, price volatility, price structure, Ontario

Operation of the University of Hawaii 2.2M telescope on Mauna Kea

NASA's planetary astronomy program provides part of the funding for the 2.2 meter telescope. The parameters for time on the telescope are laid out. A major instrumental highlight has been the commissioning of a 256 x 256 near infrared camera which uses a Rockwell NICMOS-3 array. At the f/10 focus, image scales of 0.37 and 0.75 arcsec/pixel are available. A new, high quantum efficiency Tektronix 1024 x 1024 CCD saw first light on the telescope in 1991, and was available regularly from April 1991. Data from both of these detectors are transmitted directly to the Sun workstation for immediate analysis by the observers. The autoguider software was enhanced to permit guided tracking on objects have nonsideral motions (i.e., solar system objects)

Differences in Emergence Date and Size Between the Sexes of \u3ci\u3eMalacosoma Americanum\u3c/i\u3e the Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae)

Malacosoma americanum males were smaller and began to pupate earlier than females. Since the sexes spent the same amount of time as pupae, males also emerged earlier. The adaptive significance of these results is discussed. Emergence data revealed an interesting sidelight; no moths emerged from cocoons inside tents

The Impact of Sub-Metering on Condominium Electricity Demand

Growing concern about the environmental effects of electricity generation is renewing demands for electricity conservation and efficient usage. With a substantial fraction of the population insulated from energy price signals in bulk-metered apartment and condominium buildings, some jurisdictions are considering mandatory metering of individual suites. This study analyses data from a Toronto condominium building to assess the impacts of suite (or sub-) metering. We estimate the aggregate reduction in electricity usage arising from sub-metering to be about 20%. Financial savings to residents are much smaller. We analyze large variations across units in electricity consumption after sub-metering finding that unit characteristics explain much but not all of this variation. We perform both private and public cost-benefit analyses of sub-metering and find that the social net benefits depend strongly on the value assigned to externalities from generation and that net social benefits may often be positive when private benefits to the residents are negative.electricity demand, electricity sub-metering, energy conservation

An experimental investigation of the aerodynamics of a NACA 64A010 airfoil-flap combination with and without flap oscillations. Part 1: Steady-state characteristics

A NACA 64A010 airfoil with a sealed-gap 1/4-chord flap was tested between splitter plates in the NASA Ames 11- by 11-Foot Transonic Wind Tunnel at Mach numbers from 0.50 to 0.85, and Reynolds numbers based on chord from 3 to 13 million. Although the main purpose of the test was to obtain unsteady pressure data with the flap oscillating, no unsteady data are presented in this paper. The steady-state data are presented and compared with other test data to provide a basis for evaluating the results. Pressure data at two span stations are used to deduce early boundary-layer transitions at the midspan at higher Mach numbers, angles of attack, and flap angles. The effects of flap angle on pressures, normal force, pitching moment, and hinge moment are also presented in the report. Mach number errors caused by the splitter-plate configuration and the angle of attack are evaluated using pressure measurements near the floor and ceiling of the wind tunnel