The litigation alone would burn resources for years and distract from planning for the future. Constellation and Mirant would certainly fight seizure unless they got an exorbitant price.
Anyway, Maryland's settlement with Constellation this year prohibits it from revisiting deregulation.
That's not to say there might not be chances to re-regulate plants on the cheap, with cooperation of owners.
Falling energy prices might eventually hurt their profits enough to make re-regulation (and a guaranteed rate of return) look good. Buyouts such as Warren Buffett's pending bid for Constellation give the opportunity to get concessions in exchange for regulators approving the deal.
But the main job for Maryland now is to cut electricity use.
Unfortunately, the economy is helping.
Normally, the state increases kilowatt consumption at 1.5 percent or 2 percent a year, a rate that put it in peril of temporarily running out of juice on some boiling summer day in 2011 or 2012. Next year, however, energy pros won't be surprised if use decreases for the first time in many years.
Factories are running on half-speed. Unleased offices sit vacant and dark. New-home growth has plummeted.
All this pushes back the deadline, giving regulators room to plan generation that is long-term and green instead of quick and dirty.
Faster-than-expected development of a transmission line from Pennsylvania to Northern Virginia should also reduce pressure on the grid and the need for new Maryland plants, PSC officials say.
Meanwhile, we can build on impressive conservation gains. BGE's Peak Rewards program, which pays household customers for letting the utility turn off their air conditioning for a while on really hot days, will eliminate the need to build an entire generation plant.
My family and I are participants. It was painless. We never noticed the AC going off.
Gov. Martin O'Malley's EmPower Maryland program is cutting electricity use by state agencies. The PSC has asked utilities to come up with new ways to get households to cut back.
And the huge federal stimulus promised for next year should provide rich opportunities to invest in conservation and green energy. Malcolm Woolf, director of the Maryland Energy Administration, wants the rescue to include $10 billion to help pay for insulation, tight windows, efficient appliances and so forth.
By cutting climate-changing pollution, lowering chances of brownouts and avoiding construction of expensive generators, electricity conservation can put Maryland in great shape when the economy thrives again.
As the engineers like to say, the cheapest kilowatt is the one you never have to use.
