Energy Shortages

A severe fuel shortage has crippled the provision of basic goods and services throughout Ukraine as the government of this fledgling country grapples with erratic deliveries of oil from its neighbor and sole supplier, Russia. About 40,000 Kiev residents could not buy bread earlier this week after the city's transport service failed to deliver 11 1/2 tons of bread to stores because of the fuel shortage.

California energy officials are working to stave off the potential for summer power shortages if the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station remains out of service. San Onofre has been shut down since Jan. 31, when a tube that carries hot, radioactive water in one of the plant's newly installed steam generators in the Unit 3 reactor sprang a leak. The mishap released a small amount of radioactive steam. The reactor was taken offline and Southern California Edison, the plant's operator, began pressure-testing 129 tubes that showed excessive wear, while the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission dispatched a team to investigate the issue.

When the sun drops low in the winter sky, the landscape fades to gray and the squat houses of monochromatic concrete are swallowed up by the night. Not even a dim lightbulb or an oil lamp flickering through a broken windowpane interrupts the expanse of darkness. It is as though this entire village of 3,000 people has disappeared, along with all other signs of human habitation.

Chinese electricity plants are cutting output in the face of soaring coal prices, setting up what could be the worst summer energy crunch in years and threatening to slow the nation's manufacturing sector. State Grid Corp., China's biggest power distributor, has warned that shortages this year could exceed those of 2004, when dry weather cut hydroelectric production, prompting rolling blackouts through much of the country. The current crisis is linked to coal, which fuels most of the nation's electricity plants.

Enron documents released Monday show the company sought to manipulate power prices in California, creating artificial shortages through the use of aggressive trading tactics during the energy crisis. The disclosure by federal energy regulators marks the first time that a company's own documents have provided clear evidence of market manipulation, critics said, which contributed to soaring prices and blackouts. "What we have here is a blueprint of ...

Lineman Ernie Lopez has been rousted out of bed on countless cold, rainy nights. He's climbed 100-foot utility poles in heavy winds and grabbed live electrical lines with nothing but a pair of rubber gloves to protect him. But the hardest thing Lopez has done in 20 years at Southern California Edison is walk away from a darkened apartment building while residents pleaded for their heat. It happened in late January.

In the back of a dingy duplex in South-Central Los Angeles, utility investigator John Foegen pulls two battered electric meters from their wall sockets and smiles. "Well looky here," he said with satisfaction, pointing a gloved finger at two thick strands of red wire jammed into the guts of the utility panel. Someone has helped himself to free electricity, using a hot-wiring technique that skirts the meter.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is fighting a decision by Southern California Edison to make the agency and its rail lines subject to rolling blackouts during energy shortages. Edison sent the MTA a letter two weeks ago informing the agency that it "does not meet any of the definitions of an essential use customer" set by the California Public Utilities Commission and would therefore be reclassified.

Demand for power may outstrip supplies in Southern California if the temperature this summer is higher than usual, the state's electric grid operator said in its latest summer power forecast. The Southland will have inadequate power resources if the heat reaches a level that occurs about 10% of the time, the California Independent System Operator said in a report posted Monday on its website. California's Energy Commission made a similar forecast Feb. 22.

Two former Enron Corp. traders accused of driving up energy prices during California's power crisis were each sentenced Wednesday to two years of court-supervised release. Timothy Belden, the former head of trading in Enron's Portland, Ore., office, was sentenced in federal court after pleading guilty in October 2002 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. His plea was the first prosecution of anyone related to the West's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.

Every Friday, your average 9-to-5 worker is worn down and ready to punch out, thankful for a Saturday to kick back and chill. USC knows the feeling ? except for that last part. Leading up to Saturdays, the Trojans too seem tuckered out as their seven-man roster looks dead-legged, usually from playing a game two days prior. Which partly explains why more than half of USC's losses this season (seven) have come on Saturdays, with the Trojans' only wins coming in its season opener and after a six-day break between games.

The Texaco station on the hill had been open only an hour Sunday, and already it was a mob scene. Mack trucks with 50-gallon tanks vied for space near the pumps alongside young men on motorcycles. Sedans and SUVs battled to nose their way into the scrum. Scores of people who had hiked up the road on foot carting buckets, old vegetable oil jugs, blue spring-water containers -- anything that could hold liquid -- jostled to be next in the melee that passed for a line. Men shook their fists and yelled at one another above the blasts of horns and revving of engines.

More than $1 trillion in annual investments to find new fossil fuels will be needed for the next two decades to avoid an energy crisis that could choke the global economy, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. The warning from the Paris-based agency comes as major oil companies pull back investments amid the most severe economic downturn in a generation.

Gasoline shortages hit towns across the southeastern United States this week, sparking panic buying, long lines and high prices in the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. In Atlanta, half the gasoline stations were closed, according to AAA, which said the supply disruptions had taken place along two major pipelines that have operated at well below capacity since the hurricanes knocked offshore oil production and several refineries out of service along the Gulf of Mexico.

When the gas gauge on Jada Burns' Kia wagon was on empty Tuesday afternoon, she lucked out, catching her neighborhood Chevron station at a time when its pumps were open. But the clerk, Mamadou Diallo, said he expected to be sold out by rush hour. With drivers already forming a line, it was about 20 minutes before Burns could fill up. "This is the first time I've had to actually wait," said Burns, 33, who earlier had passed by a station where the line was much longer. "This is crazy, isn't it?"

Federal energy officials say they have approved more than $4 million in settlements over losses in Southern California during the state's electricity crisis in 2000 and 2001. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said the money would be paid with funds from the now-defunct California Power Exchange, a nonprofit energy broker created in 1997 as part of deregulation. The settlements are between the cities of Riverside, Anaheim and Azusa and a group of utilities and other state entities, including Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern California Edison Co. and the California Public Utilities Commission.

The city of Glendale has agreed to pay $25,000 to settle charges that it engaged in Enron-style trading schemes to create artificial shortages during the California energy crisis. Under a preliminary deal with staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the city Thursday reaffirmed its innocence. Federal regulators agreed to end their probe of Glendale's market strategies, including partnerships with Enron Corp. and Coral Energy.

President Bush today will order federal workers across the country to lower the lights, turn off office equipment not in use and take other steps to conserve electricity in an effort to ease possible energy shortages this summer in California and other states. The president's directive will call for setting thermostats in federal buildings at 78 degrees--and allowing casual dress on hot days--during power emergencies in California. In Sacramento, a spokesman for Gov.

Malah abu Lashin lay in the intensive care unit of Nasser Children's Hospital here Sunday, her frail 20-month-old body attached to a ventilator, an oxygenator and an intravenous pump. The lifeline that kept those devices functioning was equally fragile: a tenuous flow of electricity from a generator with just enough diesel in the tank to last 10 hours. "If the power goes off, we can pump those machines by hand," said Anwar Sheikh Khalil, the hospital's director.

It is a rare three-day summertime weekend, and that means a headlong rush out of sweltering, smoggy Tehran toward the shores of the Caspian Sea. The narrow highway is hopelessly jammed; drivers abandon their cars for the kiosks selling sodas, ice cream bars and hand-woven souvenir baskets along the roadside. Families despairing of a hotel room spread out straw mats four rows deep on the sidewalks and parking lots of this beach town, snoozing for the night alongside itinerant rice harvesters.