Energy

We're at the finale already (didn't this season seem short?). I'll say it right here at the top of the episode - unless William falls repeatedly on his keister, requiring the judges to give him 5's across the board, there's no way he's not winning this thing. That being said, I'd be OK with any of the three finalists winning, even though I'm personally Team Driver. Tonight's show will have each couple dancing two dances:  1. Judge's pick, which are new routines danced to new music, but in a style the couple has previously danced and in which the judges would like to see them improve.  2. Freestyle Tomorrow night, the couples will be doing some sort of third scored dance, details about which we'll learn later.

Jonathan Libber likes his analog utility meter just fine. And no amount of debate will convince him that new wireless, digital "smart meters" being installed by Baltimore Gas & Electric and other utilities around the country would help conserve energy, reduce his bill and make service more reliable. "They are a bad idea," said Libber, 59, president of Maryland Smart Meter Awareness, a citizens group opposed to smart meters. "There has been no demonstrated savings for the regulated ratepayer.

The last man to take a horse to Belmont with a chance to snag the elusive final gem in the Triple Crown has some advice for Doug O'Neill. Stay true to the horse. "I think trainers going around asking other people what they should do, looking for how to handle it, that's stupid," Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown in 2008, said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's got to be about your horse. Whatever anybody else did doesn't matter. You know your horse. " O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another, has already disregarded common wisdom over the past three weeks.

If it has accomplished nothing else, the tea party insurgency has made Republicans vastly more newsworthy than Democrats. While the party of the left plods along performing the boring old tasks of governing, the party of the right is engaged in high drama worthy of Shakespeare. The latest plot twist comes from Nebraska, where three conservatives have been vying to be the GOP's nominee for the U.S. Senate. The "establishment" candidate, state Attorney General Jon Bruning is, by traditional measures, a conservative.

The woman who says she represents North American Power is not telling the truth about the benefits of buying electricity from her company. "You can save up to 10, 15, 20 percent of your bill, depending on your usage," she says in a telemarketing call to my house. But the rate she eventually quotes is only about 7 percent less than the standard price offered by Baltimore Gas & Electric — something the average customer would have no way of knowing. And of course the percentage savings won't vary even if my "usage" goes up to that of a steel mill.

You might look forward to a vacation as a chance to unplug, but Consumer Reports recommends you take that advice literally. There are money-saving errands you might complete before leaving your home for a trip, such as eating up perishable groceries and putting vacation stops on your newspapers and mail. But don't neglect to unplug your idle appliances and turn down your water heater. You might remember this from previous discussions of 'vampire power', but electric-powered DVD players and battery chargers will all draw a constant amount of power even when you're not home.

Coverage of the offshore wind power legislation has missed one key point ("O'Malley wind plan meets resistance" March 24). The cost of wind power will remain constant over time. Because the wind is free, the price of electricity from wind turbines will not go up and down like a seesaw every time the market for fossil fuels has a hiccup. We have been gambling with our energy prices for too long by remaining overly dependent on fossil fuels and failing to develop alternative sources of power.

I just read Jay Hancock 's column ("Offshore wind farm is a bad idea that ought to be killed," March 27) on Maryland offshore wind farms and was extremely disappointed in its tone. I have been researching data on this topic and found some of it useful. However, in my opinion the hostile terminology ("folly") implies that those of us that disagree with him are idiots. Thus I think Mr. Hancock has joined the raucous political extremists of both sides, which is too bad because I usually like his columns.

The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's once famously said in debate, "Sir, you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. " With that in mind, we take issue with the Sun's May 9 editorial on Maryland waste-to-energy (WTE) legislation ("O'Malley should trash waste-to-energy bill") which would treat WTE like other renewables, in particular landfill gas-to-energy. The legislation has passed the Maryland legislature, but your editorial urges a veto by Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Much to my dismay and disappointment, I have been informed that Gov. Martin O'Malley is hesitant to sign legislation reclassifying waste-to-energy incinerators as a preferred form of renewable energy in Maryland. Energy Answers International, the firm that is developing such a power plant in Fairfield, has "answered the bell" for necessary permits and financing to move forward with construction. The facility will burn recycled pellets, consisting of Maryland garbage, not coal or foreign oil. It will also utilize waste water, now headed into the Chesapeake Bay, from a treatment plant nearby to cool the incinerator.

I will admit it, I came to the season premiere of "America's Got Talent" to rip Howard Stern. But I walk away after two hours with nothing but admiration for Stern and the producers of this potent franchise. And I'm not simply praising AGT as a slick or skilled production. "America's Got Talent" connects with some of the deepest currents of American life today. For all its sideshow, freakshow silliness and weirdness  at times, it also speaks to a huge slice of American life that our politicians don't seem to know or care about one little bit any more as they move from fund raiser to fund raiser and TV studio to soundstage in their cocoons of media and million-dollar isolation from the masses.

Ray Lewis is the oldest Raven - he turns 37 on Tuesday - but as one of The Baltimore Sun's top 10 all-time Maryland athletes, he's just a kid. Eight of his peers are Hall of Famers in their respective sports. Seven were stars before Lewis was born. The breadth of their accomplishments is not lost on the Ravens linebacker. "Look at the guys on that list, [Johnny] Unitas  and  Brooks [Robinson], and the impact they had. They were staples in this city, known as much for what they did off the field as on it," Lewis said.

The mild winter meant a dearth of heating degree days. Early in the cooling degree days season, the warm trend is having the opposite result. Degree days are a measure of how much energy is needed to warm homes to 65 degrees in winter. One degree day means a one-degree difference between a day's average temperature and 65.   The heating season was more than 1,100 degree days short of normal because the mild weather meant furnaces were given a break. The average temperature this winter was 5 degrees above normal, making it one of the mildest winters on record , and the 1.8 inches of snow was the least since 1972.

Harold Burns, president of the Falls Road Community Association, stepped to the microphone at the Oregon Ridge Lodge Tuesday night and threw down the gauntlet before representatives of a gas company proposing an underground pipeline through his part of Baltimore County. "This is Baltimore, Hon," said Burns. "We're from here … we are going to stay here and fight you. " Burns was one of more than 100 people who showed up at the Lodge for a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hearing on Columbia Gas Transmission LLC's plan to install a 21-mile line from Owings Mills to Fallston.

Baltimore made the newest Fortune 500 list by the skin of its teeth — with a company that was based here last year but is now part of an out-of-state concern. Constellation Energy Group, which merged with Chicago-based Exelon Corp. in March, is No. 199 on Fortune magazine's 2012 list of the country's largest companies. The list is calculated using 2011 information. Five other companies from Maryland made the list, all from Montgomery County: defense contractor Lockheed Martin (No. 58)

Two Harford County Council members are calling for a state investigator to examine circumstances surrounding the proposed transfer station in Joppa, including the county's move away from the waste to energy facility at Aberdeen Proving Ground. At Tuesday's Harford County Council meeting, Councilmen Dion Guthrie and Joe Woods defended their comments to The Aegis last week that Aberdeen Proving Ground garrison commander Col. Orlando Ortiz said it was the county that pulled out of a waste disposal agreement, not APG. Woods said he went into last week's meeting with Guthrie and Ortiz fully prepared to accuse the Army of not being a good neighbor, only to find out it was the county that was not a good neighbor.

Columnist Robert Ehrlich's commentary on energy policy suggests that more oil exploration and drilling will lead to energy independence ("Road to energy independence goes through ANWR and Keystone," March 11). This is largely a myth perpetuated by fossil fuel companies and their political allies in order to enhance their bottom lines. In today's global economy, anything and everything is subject to being sold to the highest bidder. Canadian tar-sands oil, American off-shore oil, natural gas and even coal are no exceptions.

Once again Robert Ehrlich, our twice-defeated former governor, is not leveling with the citizens ("Road to energy independence goes through ANWR and Keystone," March 11). Like his colleagues in the extreme Republican tea party, Mr. Ehrlich claims that we need to extract gas and oil from sources that pose serious environmental risk in order to attain energy independence. But that's not the real objective. Enriching the already exceptionally profitable energy companies is the objective.

The last thing you'd think Maryland's Republican party needs would be a nasty internecine fight, but that's what it got at its annual convention over the weekend. Rather than unity in the effort to overcome a massive voter registration disadvantage, chronic fundraising problems and a frequent lack of competitive candidates for state-wide offices, the party became focused on a divisive race for an obscure position: national committeewoman. In the end, Audrey Scott, a GOP stalwart who has held a variety of elected and appointed posts, including a stint as state Republican chairwoman, was defeated by a heretofore little known, 37-year-old Baltimore woman, Nicolee Ambrose.

In an effort to "shine a light on solar energy," Roland Park Country School staged a "Solarbration" on April 22 to pay tribute to Earth Day and the school's own stewardship of the environment. "We celebrated our partial conversion to solar energy and the importance of renewable energy in protecting our own health and the health of all living things," school spokeswoman Nancy Mugele said. For more than a decade, Roland Park Country School has been looking for ways to increase and improve environmental sustainability, Mugele said.