Composite Technology Corporation (fka CPTQE)

[Gunluvver2]

Imag. . . I have been a Nebraska resident for quite a few years. I have lived in areas of Nebraska served by the Nebraska Public Power District, Omaha Public Power District and currently reside in the area served by Lincoln Electric System. The electric service in the areas I have lived has been not only cheap but reliable. We have two aging Nuclear Power plants in the Eastern part of Nebraska and I am afraid we will be paying some large rate increases when they are decommissioned in a few years. But hey that may be a few years away. Because of our often times violent weather here I suppose our maintainence costs are high compared to other states but knock on wood service interuptions are usually fixed quickly. Here in Lincoln the last serious power outage was in October 1997 when we had up to 24 inches of wet and heavy snow and ice. We lost power for up to two weeks in some areas. That one was a real bitch. My electric bill during the heat wave of July was just over $100 for an older 1800 sq/foot house with three window air units and loads of computers and TV's etc. I have friends in the Oklahoma City area that have newer and smaller homes than mine that say their electric bills in the summer can be over $150. So just from my limited experience with Public Power I would say it works out pretty good.

There are a couple things I don't like about our Public system though. One example. . . in the early 1980's I had more money than sense and a couple partners that had extra cash also. We wanted to start up some catfish farms. Catfish require water temperatures of between 70 & 85 degrees for optimum growth. Some of our winters in Nebraska can be downright chilly with temperatures less than 30 below at times. We had scouted out a few locations to build that were close to unlimited water and close to power plants. Our thinking was that we could cut a deal with some of the power plants to use their heated water from cooling their plants to moderate the water temperatures in our fish farm and then we would return it to the river. We also had plans for raising tomatoes and other high value greenhouse veggies with the heat from the water. We consulted with one of our local attorneys who had served on the P.U.C for a few years and he advised us that our plan would require new laws because the Public Power entities could not sell any services or products other than what the law specifically allowed them. He advised us that it would take a major rewrite of the laws and even if the laws were changed it would take several years to do it. My partners and I thought about going for it anyway but the banker that we had shown our business plan to died and his heirs and their B.O.D weren't interested. I still think we had a damned good idea but as far as I know current laws would still prevent someone from doing what we intended. Maybe someone will do it someday. I sure do hope so because I doooooo love farm raised catfish.

Dennis