Author: Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson

At the time of the initial announcement that Lubbock Power & Light would acquire the distribution assets of competing electric utility Xcel within the city, leaving LP&L as a monopolist, I took note of several inconvenient statements about the benefits of competition included in official LP&L history.  (See “The (soon to be revised) history of electric competition in Lubbock,” November 5, 2009.)

At the time I wrote, “I’m guessing the official story is about to change.” Guess what? Now available on the LP&L website, a somewhat revised version of the document, “The History of Lubbock Power & Light.”

Here is a comparison of selected old and new paragraphs from “The History of Lubbock Power & Light.”  Old first paragraph (emphasis added in this quote and in quotes below):

In the electric utility industry, retail competition for electric customers is a relatively new concept. Not so in Lubbock, Texas. The good people of Lubbock have benefited from retail competition for electricity since 1916.

In the new history the first two sentences are:

Lubbock was a relatively new town at the time having been created in 1891 when two smaller settlements both moved their towns from several miles away to our present location. The first county court house was built at this time with the county itself having been created in 1876 by the Texas State Legislature.

Obviously a shift in emphasis (and a somewhat awkward first sentence) produced by the revision.

The old version of the history noted that the emergence of competition in the city immediately produced lower rates. This paragraph remains the same in both versions:

The effort by those early Lubbock leaders was realized a success on September 28, 1917 as the municipal power plant began producing electricity priced at only ten cents a kilowatt-hour. The other utility cut its rates accordingly soon after. Imagine that!

In the older version of the history, that early success was followed by a report of steadily falling prices in subsequent decades and then the following claims about the continued value of competition: low rates and high quality customer service:

Today, the vast majority of Lubbock remains dual-certified and customers still have a choice of electric utility providers. Customers whose account balances are current are allowed to switch from one company to the other at their discretion. The competition for the electric dollar in Lubbock has resulted in some of the lowest electricity costs in the state of Texas and in the nation. Another major benefit of competition is that customers enjoy increased levels of customer service than would be found in cities this size with only one electric provider.

Lubbock Power & Light’s mission is to provide low cost, reliable electric service. We feel we’ve been successful in that mission. All electric customers in Lubbock have benefited from the decision of those early pioneers to begin retail competition.

In the new view of Lubbock’s electric power history, the report of steadily falling prices jumps directly to a claim about LP&L’s mission:

Lubbock Power & Light’s mission is to provide low cost, reliable electric service. LP&L has competed with many private companies, but in the end the majority of the customers have chosen LP&L, leaving the private companies looking for other options.

Compare the final sentence above, in bold, with the final sentence in the old paragraph.  The old paragraph emphasizes the benefits to consumers, while the new official story shifts the viewpoint to that of the utilities.  The shift seems to me a possible harbinger of the future of utility service for LP&L customers: a shift in viewpoint from customer benefits to a utility perspective.

Michael Giberson

After over 90 years of operating in competition with a rival electric utility in town, late last year Lubbock Power & Light and Xcel announced a deal in which municipal electric utility LP&L would buy out Xcel’s distribution assets and customer accounts in the city for $87 million, leaving LP&L as a monopoly electric utility in the city.

Regulatory filings with the state reveal much more of the details of the deal.  A newspaper story in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal notes, for example, that the $87 million will buy assets that Xcel values at $64.2 million.  Lubbock’s electric power consumers may wonder what the city is getting for that extra $22.8 million payment.

It is a complex deal that, in addition to paying Xcel to get out of town, accommodates changes in numerous existing contracts between the two companies.  For example, a few years ago when LP&L was on the brink of bankruptcy, LP&L and Xcel entered into a deal under which Xcel controls operations at LP&L’s generating plants and LP&L began buying all of its power supply needs from Xcel.  That deal expires in 2019, but under the acquisition plan Xcel would continue to make available some wholesale power to LP&L.  Xcel purchases waste water from the city for cooling a power plant, and that agreement would be revised as well.  All the complexities make it hard to evaluate what, exactly, the deal is worth to citizens of Lubbock – putative owners of the municipal utility – and the value to be created by the deal (if any).

One question to be asked, as a starter, is why LP&L needs to pay anything above scrap value for the Xcel distribution system in the city.  After all, the city claims its existing system is sufficient to serve the entire city and that maintaining two utility systems is town is wasteful.  So LP&L doesn’t need Xcel’s distribution assets to take on current Xcel’s customers, and adding the distribution assets will simply result in a costly, wasteful, and over-built local distribution system.

Scrap value would be too low, since some of the Xcel distribution system may be incorporated into LP&L’s system (in cases in which the Xcel system is superior to the LP&L segment that it duplicates), but book value on the assets seems a reasonable upper limit.  In any case it is hard to believe LP&L should pay a premium over book value for Xcel’s assets.

Is having a monopoly going to be so valuable to LP&L that they are willing to pay Xcel a $20+ million bonus to get out of town? What does that imply for future electricity rates in the city?

BACKGROUND – Earlier posts on electric utility competition in Lubbock:

• BREAKING NEWS: RETAIL POWER COMPETITION TO END IN LUBBOCK AFTER MORE THAN 90 YEARS
• The (soon to be revised) history of electric competition in Lubbock
• Local TV news coverage of the proposed end of 90+ years of electric competition in Lubbock
• Even in Texas competition between electric wires companies is prohibited, except in Lubbock

Note that, technically speaking, one or two small neighborhoods will still have a choice between LP&L and South Plains Electric Coop, but otherwise LP&L becomes the monopoly provider in the city of Lubbock.

ADDED: The related regulatory filings at the PUC of Texas can be found via the PUCT’s Interchange document system.  Start on this page, enter 37901 as the “Control Number,” and press the “Search Now” button.

Michael Giberson

I’m not necessarily opposed to government funding for research, but does General Electric really need taxpayer funds in order to do research on high-temperature electronics intended to support high tech oil and gas drilling?  Isn’t this exactly the kind of applied product research that, together, patent protections and markets can manage just fine?  Really, couldn’t General Electric, perhaps with the support of the oil and gas industry or the oil and gas equipment manufacturing industry, come up with a few million dollars more without U.S. Department of Energy support?

Michael Giberson

Are their barriers impeding integration of variable energy resources to the electric grid? FERC wants to know:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) seeks comment on the extent to which barriers may exist that impede the reliable and efficient integration of variable energy resources (VERs) into the electric grid, and whether reforms are needed to eliminate those barriers. In order to meet the challenges posed by the integration of increasing numbers of VERs, ensure that jurisdictional rates are just and reasonable, eliminate impediments to open access transmission service for all resources, facilitate the efficient development of infrastructure, and ensure that the reliability of the grid is maintained, the Commission seeks to explore whether reforms are necessary to ensure that wholesale electricity tariffs are just, reasonable and not unduly discriminatory. This Notice will enable the Commission to determine whether wholesale electricity tariff reforms are necessary.

Hmmm, “variable energy resources”?  Does that mean things like steam generation units that can be adjusted up and down over some range (but not things like a gas turbine that is either on or off, but not adjustable in between)? No, they mean “variable but not very controllable energy resources” such as wind and solar power.  They write: “For purposes of this proceeding, the term variable energy resource (VER) refers to renewable energy resources that are characterized by variability in the fuel source that is beyond the control of the resource operator.”

I wonder why they didn’t just use the term “renewable energy resources”? Were they afraid of offending hydro and geothermal interests?  Are they hoping to ease the taint of not-very-controllable from renewable energy resources?

The proceeding is “Integration of Variable Energy Resources” (FERC RM10-11-000). In paragraph 10, FERC states:

Our goal is not to adopt rules that favor one type of supply source over another. Instead, the Commission’s purpose in this proceeding is to investigate market and operational reforms necessary to achieve two goals: first, to ensure that rates for jurisdictional service are just and reasonable, reflecting the implementation of practices that increase the efficiency of providing service; and second, to prevent VERs from facing undue discrimination. These goals are consistent with the requirements of sections 205 and 206 of the FPA.

The challenge here is in separating the “due discrimination” from the “undue discrimination,” which is to say the charges and special terms and conditions applied to VERs that are reasonable given the character of the resource from the charges, terms and conditions which are unreasonable.

Michael Giberson

Reports from Haiti suggest that prices for many useful and necessary goods have jumped considerably since the earthquake.  Candles, matches, ice, water, food items, bus trips from the capital, petrol, plastic sandals, charcoal, rice, sugar – the list of items now selling at dramatically higher prices seems endless.  Last week I suggested that claims of price gouging that were heard in Venezuela and Alaska were stretching the meaning of the term a bit, but if anything represents pure price gouging it is sharp price hikes on necessary items amid the current devastation in Haiti.

I don’t know whether or not Haitian law prohibits or limits price increases on necessary goods during emergencies, but surely the ethics of price gouging are the same in Haiti as in other places.  Consider some of the episodes that are described as price gouging in news articles.

• Wall Street Journal: “The Hotel Oloffson, where many journalists are camped out, was charging up to $100 per night — for a mattress in the parking lot. A bottle of Gatorade at the hotel was going for seven dollars.”
• New York Times: One vendor mentions was a Manouchka Wendiwou, described as “a vendor in La Saline who raised her candle prices by 60 percent and made no apology for charging what the market would bear.”  The article also notes that matches, foodstuffs, gasoline, and ice are showing dramatically higher prices in Haiti.
• Philadelphia Inquirer: Mentions “price-gouging for gas and water” hampering relief efforts.
• Boston Globe: “Price gouging was rampant at the main bus terminal. Fortune and others said the cost of a ticket out of town more than doubled since the quake hit. But it was a price that hundreds were willing to pay after nearly a week of living on the streets….”
• Ottowa Citizen: “About 30 per cent of gas stations in Port-au-Prince have opened, and officials say there is no longer a fuel shortage. But prices have tripled from pre-earthquake levels.”

If price gouging is unethical, then we ought to condemn these reported behaviors right?

But I find it hard to condemn these actions, which generally appear to be pro-social commercial responses to abnormal social and economic conditions. Higher prices motivate more careful use of existing supplies as well as extraordinary efforts to secure additional supplies. Changing relative prices help guide the efforts of suppliers and merchants to the most vitally needed items. Both the incentive and information aspects of prices are critical to guiding decentralized responses to human needs in this rapidly changing situation.

The New York Times article observes that, “Haiti’s huge informal sector reacted faster to the quake than did established companies and banks. Outdoor markets like La Saline are already filled with goods from the countryside, including salt, cornmeal, fruits like mangoes and used clothing from the United States.”  How fast would that informal sector have reacted if the government felt an obligation to enforce some notion of anti-price gouging policy?

NOTE: Chris MacDonald discusses a bit of the ethics of price gouging in Haiti at his Business Ethics Blog.  See Business As Usual (plus Price Gouging) in Parts of Haiti.

Michael Giberson

In the wholesale power markets world, commercial energy storage concepts are commonly somewhat of an afterthought. None of the large regional wholesale power markets integrated into transmission operations put too much effort into thinking about energy storage as they developed their market rules.

A part of the problem is that the transmission system and the rules that surround it is set up to move power from generation sources to electrical loads. Grid-connected energy storage devices are something of a hybrid: sometimes act like generators – supplying power – and sometimes act like loads – consuming power. They don’t always fit neatly into traditional categories. Further mixing things up, energy storage can contribute greatly to system reliability, usually treated as a matter for transmission-system based coordination rather than market transaction.

But as commercial-scale energy storage begins to arrive on the scene it has become more important to sort through these issues.

I’m just quoting myself from a post of 14 months ago on the topic of integrating energy storage players into regional power markets.  At the time the case involved American Electric Power’s desire to add a battery storage system as part of a transmission system upgrade in Texas, and a request that the energy storage device be treated as transmission facilities (and therefore have costs recovered through regulated transmission rates) rather than as an energy market participant of some sort.  The PUC of Texas permitted AEP its battery-storage-system-as-transmission-facility.

Last week FERC took initial action on a similar request (link goes to decision; see also FERC news release).  Western Grid Development LLC has proposed installing energy storage devices on the CAISO-managed transmission system and seeks to have its system treated as transmission facilities. The comments and protests filed in response to the Western Grid raise the same concerns heard in the AEP/Texas case.  Some parties object that storage inherently involves participation in energy buying and selling and therefore the systems ought to be energy market participants; Western Grid states that any purchase or sale of energy would be incidental to operation of the system in support of the transmission grid, done only at the direction of CAISO, and net revenues – if any – would be refunded to transmission ratepayers.

In FERC’s decision, it agreed that the facilities could be treated as transmission equipment so long as they are built and operated as described by Western Grid, and so long as the CAISO approves the project as part of the ISO’s regional transmission planning process.  (CAISO, by the way, filed a strong protest in response to the Western Grid request, so I expect Western Grid will have much work to do to gets its project off the ground, even with this preliminary approval by FERC.)

FERC was clear that this decision is limited to Western Grid’s project as proposed and does not suggest any general position on the treatment of energy storage devices on the grid.  In fact no general position may be available, given, as FERC explains, “electricity storage devices …do not readily fit into only one of the traditional asset functions of generation, transmission or distribution. Under certain circumstances, storage devices can resemble any of these functions or even load. For this reason, the Commission has addressed the classification of energy storage devices on a case-by-case basis.”

By the way, a number of the key people involved in Western Grid are also working together on the Tres Amigas project though (I think) no official links exist between the two companies.

Michael Giberson

One bill, S4597, submitted to the New York State Assembly last year (but, so far as I can tell, not passed into law), proposes to grant consumers a private right of action when they become victims of price gouging in times of emergency. Currently only the state’s Attorney General has authority to bring legal action against someone accused of violating the state’s price gouging law.

The bill’s sponsor suggests that “the threat of enforcement by the Attorney General is not serving as an adequate deterrent,” and implies allowing private rights of actions would help.  To that end, “the purpose of this bill is to grant citizens who are victims of illegal price gouging in times of emergency the right to directly sue the responsible party.” The proposal would allow a victim to sue to recover up to “actual damages” or $1000, whichever is greater, and give the court discretion to award a prevailing plaintiff up to $5000 and reasonable attorneys’ fees.

The bill does not specify who is considered a “victim” under the law.  I can imagine a few problems that may result.

The existing New York law on price gouging is in Section 396-r of the New York Code.  The law provides that during “any abnormal disruption of the market for consumer goods and services vital and necessary for the health, safety and welfare of consumers, no party within the chain of distribution of such consumer goods or services or both shall sell or offer to sell any such goods or services or both for an amount which represents an unconscionably excessive price.”  The law narrows the description of “abnormal disruption” to events resulting in a state of emergency declared by the governor, and otherwise tries to specify just what the law covers, but on the question of what makes a price too high, the law simply states: “Whether a price is unconscionably excessive is a question of law for the court,” and it offers a bit of guidance.

So here is one problem: One part of that guidance suggests a price could be unconscionably excessive if “the amount charged grossly exceeded the price at which the same or similar goods or services were readily obtainable by other consumers in the trade area.”  Therefore, the definition seems to apply in cases in which the “victim” incurs the hazard, i.e. could have purchased at other prices but chose to buy from a merchant offering the good or service for a much higher price. Why would a consumer do this? Well, under this proposal the consumer could file a private action by which he might rewarded as much as $1,000 damages plus up to a $5,000 penalty and reasonable attorneys’ fees because the consumer chose to pay the higher price.

More generally, which victims would qualify to seek compensation? While the consumer charged an amount grossly exceeding some reference price is typically seen as a price gouging victim, what about consumers that would have purchased the good or service but for the unconscionably excessive price at which it is offered? Surely they, too, are victims under the logic of price gouging.  Will they also be able to seek private rights of action and obtain a reward?  If not then the law protects consumers willing and able to pay the higher price, but not consumers who find themselves priced out of the market.  If the law permits these victims-without-receipts to file private suits of action, the potential liability of a business charging higher prices after an emergency can become very large and ill-defined.

Supporters of anti-price gouging legislation may say this is all fine.  The first case suggests that consumers may intentionally seek out merchants offering too-high prices with the intent of subsequently filing a price gouging claim, but that just means that more citizens are motivated to help deter price gouging, and that’s the point, right?  The second case, with a large and ill-documented class of consumers who would-have-but-didn’t-buy at the too-high price, by dramatically increasing the potential liability, similarly serves to help deter price gouging.  Again, that’s the point and what could be wrong?

Well, nothing in New York’s anti-price gouging law requires merchants to remain open for business during market disruptions associated with declared emergencies.  And if remaining open might expose the store to large but hard-to-define liabilities, the store’s owner might reasonably just close up shop.  Consumers, then, would be made worse off by the action of this “consumer protection” policy.

Michael Giberson

Many keystrokes this week have been devoted to praising or damning the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.  I’m inclined to agree with the praisers, but others are more competent to address the legal and political issues addressed by the court.  I just want to pass along a useful bit of historical observation from Streetwise Professor:

Stevens noted that the Founders were deeply skeptical of corporations.  Indeed so. Scalia noted that there are so many corporations them today.  Also true.  The interesting question is how we got from A (Stevens) to B (Scalia).The story is told in the North, Wallis and Weingast natural state book Violence and Social Orders I’ve blogged about several times, mostly in the context of Russia.  The relevant chapter is primarily based on John Wallis’s work.  The basic story is that hostility to corporations–reflected very well in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations–was due to the fact that historically, English corporations were created by the crown, and were essentially very profitable favors provided to the politically connected.  They were, in NWW terms, part of the “closed order” of the natural state, in which access to certain contracting forms was limited to a select powerful few.  This animus towards corporations was inherited in the United States, but in the early years of the 19th century, state legislatures confronting issues associated with the financing of new infrastructure turned the corporate form into a prop of an open order system in which this contracting form was made available to all.  Rather than limit the right of incorporation to an elite, they made it available to everybody.  The system changed from one in which legislatures had to grant every incorporation, to one in which pretty much anybody could incorporate if they met a set of general, universally applicable requirements.  Hence, the proliferation of corporations.

Thus, Stevens was historically right, but his inference was wrong.  The kind of corporation that Adam Smith and the Founders detested was a quite different from the modern corporation that developed in the 19th century.  The name was the same, but the entire conceptual and legal basis for corporations old and new were completely different.  Indeed, almost inversions of one another. Indeed, the transformation of the corporation from a creation of the closed order to an essential element of the emerging open order explains the empirical phenomenon that Scalia cited.

I’ve been meaning to read the North, Wallis, and Weingast book since it was published, but haven’t yet secured a copy. Guess I ought to get to it.

Michael Giberson

A “price gouging” search brings up pre-holiday complaints about the online secondary markets for Zhu Zhu Pets (like via Amazon and eBay):

There is a move on auction sites such as Amazon and eBay calling for buyers to boycott any vendor who is price gouging the public on the much wanted Zhu Zhu Pets.These ‘retailers’ purchase entire inventories of the toys when they arrive on store shelves and move them directly to online auction sites for upwards of three to four times their retail value.

… Zhu Zhu Pets can be found on Amazon.Com, but they are usually going for outrageous prices.  There are currently dozens of auctions selling Zhu Zhu Pets for far above their retail values.   See a current listing of Amazon’s Zhu Zhu Pets In Stock.

… Patricia Oquin, from Max Meadows, Virginia writes about vendors on Amazon.com  ”Do not do business with these people that are ruining Christmas for our children. I think this outrageous price gouging should be illegal, These pets sell for $8.00 at Walmart (if you can find them). This particular “Mr. Squiggles is selling here today for $52.99! Wonder why you can’t find them at retail? Because of greedy people like this! Don’t play into these deceptive practices, you will just encourage more of this greed.”

The article suggests that resellers are “stealing the Christmas out from under children.”  My reaction was that the resellers were only redistributing the supply of the toys so that no additional children were having their Christmas “stolen.”  In fact, at the higher price fewer children likely ended up with multiple Zhu Zhu Pets, meaning it is likely that a larger number of children actually were delighted to obtain the little furry toy as a holiday gift.  Really, therefore, we could say that the too-low initial retailer prices threatened to “steal” Christmas.

But I like one of the comments posted better:

… “stealing Christmas” from our kids? If not having this toy means Christmas is ruined then you’ve already stolen the meaning of Christmas from your kids.

I’m more interested in the usage of the term “price gouging” in this kind of situation. The interesting thing about a site like eBay is that the reseller could have offered a Zhu Zhu Pet for any arbitrarily small price and then let the bidding begin, and still end up selling the devices for four or five times the original retail price.  The reseller gets accused of price gouging, but clearly the bidders are doing it to themselves.

Implicitly the parents recognize the problem – they are in competition against all other prospective buyers and it is other buyers who are driving up prices – and that is why the urge to call upon others to “boycott any vendor who is price gouging the public.”  After all, if one parent convinces enough other parents to boycott the vendors (i.e. drop out of the secondary market), then it becomes much easier for the first parent to get what he wants.

In any case, the price of Zhu Zhu Pets has fallen dramatically over the past several weeks.  While once the sought-after Mr. Squiggles could fetch over $50, he is now available via Amazon for as low as $6.60.

Michael Giberson

“It’s very hard to move mountains on energy policy, and Pickens has not yet even moved a hill,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University in Houston. “The problem that Pickens faces is that in this country if you are from the oil industry, people are naturally suspicious of what you say on energy policy.”

I don’t think this is a problem unique to the oil industry.  I think pretty much any billionaire jetsetting around and spending scads of money on a “public service” campaign would find it hard to move so much as a hill on energy policy (or health care policy or banking policy or anti-trust policy).

If George Lucas suddenly had a national energy policy that required lots of other people to spend their own money so that the world was remade in a way more to George’s liking, people would be suspicious.  Boone Pickens is not unique in this regard.

Quote from a recent Green Inc. story.

Michael Giberson

Yesterday the California Public Utilities Commission approved a program to subsidize installation of solar hot water heaters.  Green Inc. at nytimes.com provides a description of the solar hot water program.  The description emphasizes the goals of the program (reduce use of natural gas and electricity to heat water, primarily in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) and highlights the incentives offered to homeowners and owners of multifamily commercial buildings.  The description omits completely any description of who will fund the subsidy.  Fortunately, the story provided a link to the CPUC decision which provided the rest of the story.

Under the program, a Public Goods Charge will be added to the bills of natural gas consumers to collect $250 million fund for replacing gas water heaters with solar thermal water heaters.  An additional $100.8 million fund for replacing electric water heaters will come from California Solar Initiative money already being collected through a charge on electric consumers.

Analysis conducted for the CPUC determined the program was “cost effective for ratepayers and in the public interest,” as the state law requires, though that conclusion was disputed in regulatory proceeding. (Summarized here in the CPUC decision.)  In high gas cost scenarios the program was readily found cost effective, but the CPUC focused on the stable-gas-price “Business as Usual” scenario (as the worst-case or most conservative scenario from the point of view of cost-effectiveness).  Using a “society as a whole” perspective and the Business as Usual scenario, the program was determined to be cost effective if cost reductions of 16 percent relative to current costs can be achieved over the eight-year program duration.

Which kind of sounds like a conclusion that the program would not be cost effective.  However, the decision assures us, commission staff have examined the tools, materials and methods use to build and install solar hot water systems, and staff concludes “a 16% cost reduction is a reasonable expectation.”

I wonder if they considered the possibility of a low-priced natural gas scenario?

Michael Giberson

Maybe there is more to this story than “no company with the least respect for stockholders money would invest in Venezuela these days”, but that might be a sufficient explanation.  From Bloomberg:

Venezuela’s Mariscal Sucre project, which has estimated reserves of 14.7 trillion cubic feet of gas, has failed to attract private interest after the government invited firms to make offers last week.Offers were to be made on Friday until midnight.

The government this month improved the conditions it was offering companies to help develop the project, but in the end nobody came forward, private sector sources close to the process said on Monday.

(HT NewsWatch: Energy)

Michael Giberson

A Financial Times article discusses advances in the application of LED technology, both for television and other display technologies and for general lighting applications.

Pete Moran of the DCM venture capital firm says LEDs have advantages such as longer life and greater efficiency compared with both incandescents and the energy-saving compact fluorescents with which consumers are currently replacing them.

“They contain no mercury, they’re inherently dimmable, the colour is more natural and you’ll put one in your house and never need to change the bulb,” he says.

In my experience compact florescent light bulbs didn’t always live as long as advertised and other bulb characteristics were less satisfactory as well: the color was sometimes less desirable and the bulbs usually not dimmable.

Like compact florescent light bulbs, LED lights have offered consumers longer-lived bulbs with lower energy costs at the cost of higher costs up front.  However, new LED lights are so long-lived (actually, projected to be so long lived) that one may be able to build new houses with all LED lights and have them last as long as a 30-year mortgage.  The higher up front cost of the lights would be factored into the cost of the home and become part of the amount borrowed, which would ease the consumer’s management of the investment cost, and the lower energy consumption over the life of the lights would help the consumer make the slightly higher house payment.

Elsewhere: Tom Konrad at Alt Energy Stocks likes LED manufacturers’ stocks, but thinks LED maker Cree, Inc. is now overpriced.

Locally (for me, anyway): Texas Tech University Nano Tech Center researchers are doing nanoscale research on LEDs, examining the limits of current LED technology in projection systems and developing ultraviolet LEDs, among other things.