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WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will nominate businessman John Bryson to lead the Commerce Department, a White House official said Tuesday. Bryson's appointment brings another private sector player into an administration that has been making a concerted effort to improve its relationship with the business community.

The Department of Energy and Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the development of a high performance computer cluster at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The solution includes more than 230 Sun Fire V20z servers powered by AMD Opteron processors, and more than 12 Terabytes of Sun StorEdge 6320 storage, the Solaris 9 Operating System, Sun Java Enterprise System and Java development software, Sun Grid Engine Enterprise Edition, Sun's StarOffice 7.0 office productivity platform, as well as advanced on-site training and support from Sun's Services division. The cluster's full-throttle computing power ranks the INEEL...

Other Comments: APS has system concerns that may cause operating problems in the DSW area today. The RDRC reported the following transmission facilities will be out of service today: Note: RDRC daily facility outage report includes PACE facility outages that may impact Rocky Mountain Transmission System. Westwing 500/230-kV T-4.............Westwing 500/230-kV T-1 Atlantic City-Wyopo 230-kV line.....Rapid City DC tie 200 MW Glen Canyon PST.............................Basin-Worland 115-kV line Norton-Hernandez 115-kV line RM/DSW Transmission Facilities Impacting WECC USF Qualified Paths: None

WASHINGTON (AP) - The power industry's disregard of its rules intended to ensure the reliable flow of electricity contributed significantly to last summer's blackout in eight states and Canada, investigators said Monday in their final report. Another major outage could happen unless reliability regulations, with clear penalties for violators, are put in place, according to the report by a joint U.S.-Canadian task force. It also recommended more independence for the private industry-sponsored group that writes voluntary requirements for power grids. "The report makes clear that this blackout could have been prevented and that immediate actions must be taken in both...

Today: March 05, 2004 at 9:26:44 PST Senate panel hears nuke power praises Industry, government officials leave out problems with radioactive waste By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>LAS VEGAS SUNWASHINGTON -- Nuclear industry and government officials touted the benefits of nuclear power at a Senate panel meeting Thursday as they made their pitch for more government incentives to help expansions, but made no mention of how they plan to manage future nuclear waste. The officials listed nuclear power's lack of emissions, price stability and other benefits to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which is guiding the ongoing debate over the...

February 27, 2004 Water released at dam as part of testBy Heather Rawlyk and Jean Reid NormanLAS VEGAS SUNVisitors to Hoover Dam Thursday afternoon witnessed a sight not listed in the tour book, as 130 million gallons of water burst from the Nevada wall of Black Canyon. A white cloud of mist towered over the canyon as a result of the surge of water knocking against an adjacent canyon wall. A flurry of miniature waterfalls cascaded downward, where they intersected in a collective pool below. Close to 600 visitors lined up along the wall on top of the dam to...

What was by most measures the biggest electricity outage in history, surpassing the blackouts in the western United States in the summer of 1996, swept northeastern and Great Lakes states and the Canadian province of Ontario late Thursday afternoon, 14 August. Long before power had been restored to businesses and residences from New York City to Cleveland, Detroit, and Toronto, politicians and commentators on both sides of the border were pointing fingers. But, in fact, major difficulties in the electric power system had been predicted by three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) studies going back to 1998, and had been...

NEW YORK -- Since last month's Northeast blackout, utilities have accelerated plans to automate the electric grid, replacing aging monitoring systems with digital switches and other high-tech gear. But those very improvements are making the electricity supply vulnerable to a different kind of peril: computer viruses and hackers who could black out substations, cities or entire states. Researchers working for the U.S., Canadian and British governments have already sniffed out "back doors" in the digital relays and control room technology that increasingly direct electricity flow in North America. With a few focused keystrokes, they say, they could shut the computer...

<p>3-university manifesto urges California to stick with deregulation, including letting customers choose providers.</p> <p>BERKELEY – California should encourage competition in electricity markets, including letting consumers choose their power providers, a group of university professors and former regulators said.</p> <p>"California will benefit if electricity generation is provided by unregulated producers," said a manifesto signed by professors from Stanford University, Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.</p>

<p>California got no relief Wednesday from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which refused to void $12 billion worth of high-priced power contracts with Sempra Energy, Dynegy Inc., Mirant Corp. and other companies that are accused of manipulating power prices.</p> <p>While most of the original $43 billion in long-term contracts signed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001 have been renegotiated or have expired, state officials had pressed FERC to let California out of the remaining contracts after presenting evidence that prices in the state's power market were artificially inflated by "gaming" strategies employed by power sellers.</p>

washingtonpost.com Suppliers Do and Don't Owe for Power CrisisFERC Upholds West Coast Contracts but Rules 'Unjust' Profits Must Be Returned By Peter BehrWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, June 26, 2003; Page E04 Federal energy regulators, trying to resolve billions of dollars in disputed power charges from the West Coast energy crisis two years ago, yesterday favored energy suppliers in one major case but in another case said companies that manipulated power sales will be required to surrender any "unjust" profits.A series of rulings yesterday by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had conflicting impacts on the politically charged aftermath of the power...

Judge Rolls Out Compromise Plan for PG&E 1 hour, 35 minutes ago Add Business - AP to My Yahoo! By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press WriterSAN FRANCISCO - A federal bankruptcy judge unveiled a compromise plan Thursday that would lift Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (news - web sites), a San Francisco-based utility, out of insolvency. AP Photo Related Quotes PCGDJIANASDAQ^SPC 19.409179.531648.64994.70 +0.71-114.27-28.50-15.39 delayed 20 mins - disclaimerQuote Data provided by Reuters Missed Tech Tuesday?You can still check out our exclusive guide to getting a lot of digital camera for just a little cash - plus more.   The plan will allow...

Calif. Starts Summer with a Power Alert Reuters Wednesday, May 28, 2003; 8:01 PM By James Jelter SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California energy officials declared a power emergency on Wednesday -- the first in nearly a year -- in what could be the start of another long, hot summer for the energy-starved state. Despite state officials' assurances of adequate power, heavy air conditioning during the year's first heat wave nearly depleted supplies, prompting calls for emergency energy from generators and public pleas to save energy. California's 35 million residents, hit by blackouts and daily calls to douse lights during the...

<p>If price-gouging traders and producers aren't forced to pay, smaller states may balk at deregulating their power markets.</p> <p>SACRAMENTO – Most states in the nation won't deregulate their wholesale power markets unless federal regulators order refunds when generators manipulate markets and defraud customers, California officials said.</p>

<p>It appears that I owe Gov. Gray Davis an apology. Over the last four years, I've been accusing him of recklessly destroying our budget, our business climate and our power system with no strategy or concern for long-term costs. But a recent report from the California Independent System Operators (Cal-ISO, our state's incredibly effective energy managers) has now led to me to believe that I haven't been giving our governor enough credit - he's smarter than he looks!</p>

<p>Federal prosecutors conducting a criminal probe of California's energy crisis have shifted their investigation away from Enron and onto the company's Houston neighbor, Reliant Resources Inc., according to sources.</p> <p>Documents released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission depict Reliant traders and plant operators engaging in a range of deceptive practices to drive up energy prices during the crisis.</p>

<p>You know things are a little crazy when consumer groups are pining for the return of monopolies.</p> <p>But that's the shape of energy politics in California today. Democrats in the Legislature and their activist allies are longing to reestablish the monopoly utilities as the sole providers of electricity in the state.</p>

<p>These aren't, one might say, the best of times for Gray Davis. His approval ratings are in the cellar, he faces a potential recall election, and he's wrestling with the largest budget deficit in the history of any state.</p> <p>Not surprisingly, therefore, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission declared last week that energy traders had manipulated, or at least tried to manipulate, California's convoluted electric power market in 2000 and 2001, Davis seized on it with almost desperate intensity.</p>

<p>It was just before 10 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2001, when the people who operate California's electricity grid ran short of juice and started cutting off power to about 600,000 customers from Bakersfield to the Northern California border. Later that day, Gov. Gray Davis declared a state of emergency, and the state Senate voted to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers' money to keep the power flowing as two big utilities edged toward bankruptcy.</p>

<p>From his 18th floor office in a downtown high-rise hard by the Sacramento River, Steve Westly has a majestic view of the capital city, the fertile fields that surround it and the snow-capped Sierra Nevada in the distance.</p> <p>Too bad he can't also see the future.</p>