Economic Shock Could Be Therapeutic

摘要

Turmoil in the financial markets has injected the words "volatility" and "uncertainty" with steroids. Will the electric power sector feel the pinch? Of course, but frozen credit markets and belt-tightening could cause some surprising shifts in our industry. We've been in wait-and-see mode when it comes to building new generation in this country for quite a while, even though all long-range forecasts called for additional power. The Energy Information Administration, for instance, projected that total U.S. electricity supply must rise at an average rate of 47 TWh a year from 2008 to 2030 to meet demand growth. Now the economic crisis has many questioning these forecasts. What if the economy slows down? Will we over-build?