Earlier this year the time came for Lloyd M. Yates, CEO of Progress Energy , to decide how the big Raleigh (N.C.) utility would meet the state's stringent smokestack laws. First he considered the easy solution: installing pollution scrubbers on the utility's old coal-fired plant in Sutton, N.C., at a cost of $330 million. Then his attention turned to natural gas, the price of which had plunged by two-thirds in the previous year. Sure, the recession accounted for some of the slide. But reports were also circulating of massive discoveries of natural gas in the U.S. ... Full Story »