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Jim Fuquay

market for their product. "It's a bit of frenzy, I would say," Lane Kadel said of demand for the natural gas-fired turbines brokered by his

company, UtilityWarehouse.com of Portland, Ore. The 5-year-old enterprise, originally started to help electric utilities buy and sell surplus

With electricity already in short supply in parts of the country, headlines of rolling blackouts in California, and growth projected

to require more power, U.S. electricity generators have announced plans for 312,836 megawatts of new capacity. That's equal to about

Bush's plan also aims to speed up additions to generating capacity by easing licensing, permitting and other regulatory

to discourage the industry's push to add supply. "If there is, we haven't seen it," said Mark Stultz, vice

president of the Electric Power Supply Association, a group of independent power producers. The plans for new capacity that have already

been announced represent more than $150 billion in potential investment in new electricity supply.

Not all the planned capacity will be built, at least not right away, said Tom Rose, vice president of public affairs at TXU in

Dallas. But a lot will, and the projects that are postponed will probably still go through permitting and land acquisition, "things

that don't cost a lot of money," Rose said.

With that groundwork done, new capacity could come on line all the faster when the market justifies it, he said. The emphasis on adding

supply doesn't please everyone in the electricity business.

Jerry Davia, president of Orion Energy in Sausalito, Calif., would rather see the government encourage investment in energy

efficiency. Davia's company consults with companies, including San Antonio-based H.E. Butt Grocery Co., to design and finance

energy-saving systems.

"There's tons of new, energy-efficient technology out there all the time," he said. "There's enough conservation to tackle any

problems we have."

Energy users are probably in the best position to decide which energy efficiencies make sense financially, but the government

could make the economics more attractive with tax credits and other incentives, he said.

"I don't see anything that bodes well" in the Bush plan as far as subsidies and credits, he said. "And there's nothing just for

California."

That's fine with Karl Rabago, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a not-for-profit organization that advocates

efficient use of resources, including energy.

Rabago said he doesn't want energy use subsidized, because that short-circuits the market mechanism that forces users to reduce

consumption in response to higher prices. At the same time, he also doesn't like aspects of the Bush plan that he believes subsidize

energy production.

Jesper Michaelsen, sales manager for wind turbine manufacturer NEG Micon USA of Rolling Hills, Ill., said he was disappointed that

Bush's plan doesn't set any specific goals for increasing the amount of power generated from renewable sources. Wind and solar

sources account for just 2 percent of the nation's total electricity market.

But Allen Barnett, who heads solar panel maker AstroPower of Newark, Del., said he's thankful for any attention at all, given

the oil-and-gas backgrounds of many Bush advisers. The Bush plan does include tax credits for people who purchase solar panels.

"It's the most we could hope for," Barnett said. "I didn't expect them to abandon their roots."

The Bush electricity measures that don't deal with adding generating capacity address ways to build a bigger transmission

system to carry power from generators to users.

Two major recommendations include the creation of a national electricity grid and giving federal regulators power to condemn

private property for infrastructure improvements such as new electrical transmission lines and natural gas pipelines to deliver

fuel to new generators.

Today, the United States has three regional electricity transmission grids: Western, Eastern and Texas, which is mostly on

its own grid and - unlike energy-strapped states such as California - has a surplus of electricity. Texas is virtually unconnected to

the two regional grids, and the two regional grids likewise aren't efficiently linked.

"It's going to lead to a lot of new investment," utility analyst Barry Abramson, of the UBS Warburg investment firm, said of Bush's

proposals. "Right now, the country is full of transmission bottlenecks that make the system less efficient and hinder

competition and the delivery of power."

The 1995 Texas Legislature commissioned a study into tying Texas into the national grids and concluded that it would cost $500

million to $600 million, TXU's Rose said. "It is not easy," he said. "It all has to be done at the same

time," because the amount of electricity moving between grids would quickly overload one or two connecting lines.

Rose also said many states, including Texas, already allow governments to condemn private property, a process called eminent

domain. Public transportation projects provide the most common use of eminent domain,

along with the construction of pipelines.

Kadel said boosting the nation's electricity infrastructure might be just as important as adding generating capacity. "Right now you

don't have any way to move the electricity, so prices are high," he said.

This report includes material from The Associated Press.