Rancho Cordova, Sacramento County — An administrative law judge on Thursday rejected as too lenient a $26 million fine against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. that the utility agreed to with state regulators for a 2008 natural gas pipeline explosion near Sacramento that killed a homeowner.

Instead, the judge recommended that PG&E be fined $38 million for breaking state and federal safety laws. If upheld, it would be the largest regulatory penalty ever against a California utility.

Judge John Wong, an administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission, said a $38 million fine “is appropriate given the allegations in this investigation, PG&E’s acknowledgement and admissions, and the gravity and severity” of the blast in Rancho Cordova (Sacramento County) on Christmas Eve 2008.

The explosion happened after gas leaking from a distribution line that PG&E had earlier repaired using substandard pipe filled the home of 72-year-old Wilbert “Bill” Paana. His granddaughter lit a cigarette and the house exploded, killing Paana and badly injuring the granddaughter and her mother.

3-hour wait for help
Wong noted that it had taken PG&E almost three hours to dispatch properly equipped and trained workers to respond to a report of a gas leak in the neighborhood. The workers finally arrived just before the explosion.

The $26 million fine that PG&E agreed to in June with the Public Utilities Commission’s staff, Wong said, is “unreasonable and not in the public interest.”

Boosting the fine to $38 million will “send a clear message to PG&E that safety and reliability of its natural gas system must be its No. 1 priority,” Wong said. The company needs to be taught a lesson, he said, that its “lack of action and lack of initiative” on safety measures are unacceptable.

PG&E and the state commission have 30 days to decide whether to accept the higher fine.

David Eisenhauer, spokesman for PG&E, said the company was reviewing the decision and giving it “the full attention it deserves.”

If PG&E doesn’t agree to the fine, an administrative law judge will hold a hearing on the matter. Wong said that the company, if found guilty of every alleged violation, could be fined as much as $97 million.

Substandard pipe

Please call 800-508-4782, or email us at MMoeller@vistaenergymarketing.com.

SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- PG&E Corp. (PCG) won approval Thursday to collect more money from customers and the company named a new executive to oversee a major overhaul of its natural-gas operations following a fatal pipeline explosion last year.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a plan for PG&E’s utility to raise electricity and natural-gas rates this year by $395 million, or 7%, over the $5.58 billion it currently collects through rates. The utility can raise rates an additional $180 million a year in 2012 and 2013.

The decision also allows PG&E to collect $38 million a year over six years, plus a 6.3% return, to compensate the company for its investment in older, analog utility meters that the utility has replaced or plans to replace with advanced meters.

Earlier, PG&E said it has hired former National Grid PLC (NGG) executive Nick Stavropoulos as executive vice president of its gas operations. Stavropoulos, who will start June 13, was executive vice president and chief operating officer for National Grid’s gas distribution business in the U.S. Northeast.

PG&E’s natural-gas transmission pipeline in San Bruno, Calif., exploded Sept. 9, killing eight people, injuring several others and destroying dozens of homes.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the CPUC have been investigating the cause of the explosion. The CPUC has been conducting a separate investigation to determine whether poor record-keeping by PG&E, which the NTSB has suggested contributed to the pipeline rupture, violated any rules.

The rate decision Thursday requires PG&E to submit pipeline-safety reports twice a year. The decision also requires the company to explain the reason for any decisions it makes not to complete a project that it previously said it would complete.

-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468; cassandra.sweet@ dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc

The natural gas market has undergone tremendous change in the past few years. We have recently moved from having a view that natural gas supplies would continue to come from imports to new found perspective of energy dependence. This realization was triggered by discovery of massive domestic reserves. American ingenuity and research has assisted in natural gas production from shales to increase fourteen-fold over the past decade. This brings about the potential for decreased dependence on LNG (liquefied natural gas) imports. Therefore lessening dependence on foreign oil and putting America’s economy to work and making it more sustainable and prosperous.

There are many environmental benefits to using gas as well. Using Natural gas in place of other fuels has helped ease the number of environmental concerns – Greenhouse gas emissions, smog, acid rain, and water pollution. Natural gas burns much cleaner, and produces far lower no emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides than any other hydrocarbon fuel. In addition, unlike oil, coal, and nuclear energy production natural gas produces virtually no solid waste and has much lower impact on water quality. Attesting to this there have been several movements to switch from reliance on harsher energy sources to natural gas.

The New York Times building has a combined heat and power unit that supplies cleaner natural gas fueled power to the building, and then sells any excess power back to the grid.

Xcel Energy Inc. said last week that it plans to shut down two coal-burning electric generating units at its Black Dog Power plant in Minnesota and replace them a with Natural Gas fueled facility. Dow Jones Newswires reports that the company plans to use combined-cycle technology where heat from gas fired turbines is used to generate electricity. This will greatly reduce emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, soot and carbon dioxide.

Tulsa World reported on 3/7/2011 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a Proposal to require three of Oklahoma’s oldest coal fired power plants to switch to natural gas that is much cleaner burning or add sulfur dioxide scrubbers or a combination of both to control pollution. The EPA said the companies have three years to implement these changes, and that these actions are necessary to meet regional haze requirements under the Clean Air Act. All other Oklahoma State sources of air pollution except these three coal fired plants meet the level of control needed to address the legal requirements.

As 2011 continues we will see much growth in natural gas capacity primarily due to the increased use of natural gas in generation of electricity. The benefits to continued advancement in research and drilling are seen both economically and environmentally.

One might ask how this works and why the savings?

When a business buys natural gas directly from the utility, it is buying a “bundled service” under which the utility handles all phases of moving natural gas to the customer, including purchasing the customer’s natural gas. When a customer buys natural gas from a competitive gas supplier like Vista Energy Marketing, a portion of the utility’s rate components are unbundled and charged separately.

Customers who choose to participate in our program pay the utility only for local gas transportation. The utility still transports the customer’s gas – similar to the process of purchasing electricity in Texas. However, the largest component of a business’ natural gas bill is the cost of the gas. Buying from a competitive supplier allows the customer to receive a custom rate, based on its own actual energy use, rather than the rate paid when bundled with all other utility customers.

Additionaly, customers have options for both price and volumes. Customers can elect to pay a price that floats with the market, in which case their price would go up or down monthly depending on market fluctuations. Or, customers could lock a price for future months based on current market prices for set monthly volumes. In this case, regardless of whether the future market price increases or decreases, the customer would be paying the fixed price for the requested volumes, which is especially helpful for budgeting a customer’s natural gas costs.

Customers can also mix their options, purchasing some natural gas at a fixed price, while floating the remaining volume with the market.

Other benifits include:

•Competitive pricing and services

•Fixed or variable pricing options

•Personal account executive to help customers understand options

•Up-to-date market information to help customers make informed purchasing decisions

1. Use natural lighting where possible (e.g., windows, skylights), and where it’s not use T-8 fluorescent lighting.

2. Use ceiling fans where practical so you can raise the AC temperature.

3. Turn off anything that’s not being used..

4. Turn off computers and other equipment at night if no shifts are running. If employees can’t be counted on to turn off equipment, put them on timers. This will save not only on the equipment that’s turned off, but AC costs will go down because you won’t be paying to remove the heat generated by the unused equipment.

5. Don’t cool the building too much at night when no shifts are running. If you thought you needed to keep your computers super-cool, you don’t: You’ll spend more to keep the equipment cool then it would cost you to replace the equipment a hair sooner than you’d have to replace it otherwise. The lifespan of computers is pretty short, anyway; you’ll likely replace your equipment long before it breaks.

For any but the smallest business, it may pay to have an audit performed. You have three choices for audits:

Many utility companies provide such audits for free. Call yours to see if they do.
Hire a professional. For example, one company in the Dallas area is LPG Energy Consultants.
Do it yourself. Check out books like Handbook of Energy Audits and Retrofitting for Energy Conservation.

With this winter expected to be colder than last year, Christine Cordner, PG&E’s spokeswoman for rates, offers some tips for Bay Area residents on saving energy while still staying warm.

What can PG&E gas customers expect for their winter bills? PG&E’s gas rate is going to be the same in January compared to last January, but the average residential bill is expected to be slightly higher because of increased usage driven by normal cold temperatures. Last January, we saw abnormally warmer weather across our service territory.

What are some quick things people can do around the house to save gas? Lowering your thermostat just one degree in the 60- to 70-degree Fahrenheit range can save you up to 5 percent on your heating bills. People can also wrap their older water heaters with insulation and save up to $30 a year. We recommend people check out pge.com/wintergassavings for more tips.

What incentives does PG&E offer to encourage customers to conserve? We just announced our 2011 Winter Gas Savings Program where our customers can earn up to a 20 percent credit on their spring gas bills if they use less gas in January and February than what they used for those months the year before. We see it as a win-win, customers lower their gas bills by using less and again by earning the bill credit.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/3-minute-interview/2011/01/pge-spokeswoman-offers-ways-save-money-while-not-freezing#ixzz1AwXK9ufv

* Barrels or gallons for petroleum
* Cubic feet for natural gas
* Tons for coal
* Kilowatt-hours for electricity

To compare different fuels, we need to convert the measurements to the same units.
Units for Comparing Energy

Some popular units for comparing energy include British Thermal Units (Btu), barrels of oil equivalent, metric tons of oil equivalent, metric tons of coal equivalent, and terajoules.

In the United States, the Btu, a measure of heat energy, is the most commonly used unit for comparing fuels. Because energy used in different countries comes from different places, the Btu content of fuels varies slightly from country to country.