Gas turbines are expensive. Although peaking units aren't as costly as baseload units, letting them sit idle is still a waste. Yet that is what peaking units spend nearly all their time doing. Some operators only fire up their units a few days a year. That is like putting money in the bank and collecting interest a few hours at a time, rather than all year round. That strategy only works when the payback is extremely high for those short periods....

What's on the agenda for the utility industry today and into the future? Platts and Capgemini asked the industry leadership in their latest survey. The answers revolve around regulation, finance, and human resources....

Both the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl catastrophe prompted worldwide retreats away from nuclear electric generating technologies. Despite brave rhetoric from nuclear supporters around the world, a number of countries with a large number of nuclear plants are having second thoughts about the future of nuclear power....

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is starting to sort out the often mysterious and vexing issues surrounding reliability penalties as the federal agency and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. work through their evolving relationship. The case involves an outage at the Turlock Irrigation District in California....

U.S. Supreme Court rulings in two recent cases further advance the rights of employees in disputes with employers, continuing a long-term trend in federal law on employment discrimination....