Electricity

In an article about how some employers allow their employees to charge their electric cars at work, reporter Lorraine Mirabella describes the General Motors plant in White Marsh where employees can charge their cars as an employee benefit during work hours ("Plugging In On The Job", Feb. 19). The article is longer than it needs to be for what it describes and could be longer for what it didn't include. Nowhere in the article was it mentioned the average price a consumer would pay for the electric car. The article also stated that the company is part of a Department of Energy initiative to include charging stations for employees to use while at work.

Fifty-eight years after it opened in Highland, Boarman's Old-Fashioned Meat Market is still, in many respects, living up to its name. Boarman family members still mix spices for the pork sausage made in house, the staff butcher still stuffs the sausage skin, still cuts meat to order and, more recently, started smoking bacon with apple wood he gets from a neighbor. Boarman's is possibly Howard County's last all-purpose market that's not part of a chain, offering everything from household cleaners to beer and wine, canned goods, produce, house-made crab cakes and custom cuts of meat.

Employees at General Motors' plant in White Marsh have an unusual workplace benefit. Anyone who drives an electric car can plug it in to charge while they work. At the plant, which produces transmissions and electric motors, workers can park their electric vehicles — or EVs — in any of eight spaces under two solar-powered canopies in the employee lot. "You encourage the use of EVs and give employees some benefit," said William Tiger, plant manager for General Motors Baltimore Operations.

Theodore A. "Ted" Dietz, a retired shipyard electrician who earned the sobriquet of "40-Watt Dietz" from fellow volunteer crew members aboard the Liberty ship SS John W. Brown, died Feb. 3 of heart failure at his Severna Park home. He was 91. Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Dietz was a 1942 graduate of Franklin K. Lane High School. "He enlisted into the Navy before he formally graduated from high school and his mother received his diploma," said his wife of two years, the former Mary Bartlett.

Three in every 10 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers are buying their electricity through third-party suppliers, continuing a steady trend of increases in recent years, the company said Wednesday. About 30 percent of electricity customers don't purchase their energy from BGE, up from 25 percent at the end of 2011 and 18 percent at the end of 2010, the company said. BGE's natural-gas customers are less likely to switch to third-party providers, though more have done so in the last few years - 22 percent, up from 13 percent at the end of 2010.

Rail service between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., which had been suspended for about five hours because of the electrical problem on the Penn Line MARC Train 415, has been restored, said the Maryland Transit Administration. MTA released a statement around 12:30 p.m. Friday, saying that Amtrak crews repaired most of the damaged catenary lines allowing MARC to resume service. Amtrak and MARC halted service on the rail at approximately 7:30 a.m., when the Penn Line MARC Train 415 experienced a problem between BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport and Odenton.

What if you could be greener and save money at the same time? Well, you can.  By switching your home's power to “green” electricity, you can reduce your household's contribution to climate change by 24 percent while also shrinking your utility bills. So what?  Though electricity changed the world for the positive, its big downside is that most U.S. power plants are powered by coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that spews carbon dioxide (CO¿), sulfur dioxide and mercury into the air. Power plants are the #1 source of man-made CO2 emissions in the U.S., accounting for 41 percent.

Letter writer Abigail Ross Hopper talks about offering incentives to stop using gasoline ("Maryland is charged up about electric cars," Dec. 12). Maryland gives an excise tax credit to buyers of electric plug-in vehicles and gives them up to a $400 income tax credit. How then does Maryland collect transportation taxes from that car that drives on our roads? It is shooting oneself in the foot to give away taxpayers' money on the front end and not collect the transportation taxes. Richard Jendrek, Berlin Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

The author of the article, "5 reasons buyers don't charge ahead on electric vehicles," (Dec. 4) is clearly unaware of the numerous steps Maryland has taken under Gov. Martin O'Malley's leadership to create incentives and facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles in our state. In 2009, Governor O'Malley and the legislature worked together to require Maryland to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Widespread adoption of electric vehicles is one of many strategies designed to help us reach that goal.

Maryland's utility regulator Friday criticized a decision that could alter electricity bidding rules in the region, saying the change would hurt consumers. The state Public Service Commission is upset with the proposed changes that PJM Interconnection, which runs the regional electric grid, is filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission after the PJM board voted in favor of the move this week. PJM electricity auctions, held to ensure there is enough power to meet demand, set a price that feeds into consumers' electricity bills in Maryland, a dozen other states and the District of Columbia.