> >That's called supply & demand.
>
> Supply and demand only set the prices in a perfect competition scheme,
> which CA wasn't. CALPEX was a seller's "market". It's always
> been that way in CA; just research Hetch-Hetchy and PG&E and
> you'll find a century's worth of abuse of the consumers by the
> utilities.
California voters approved deregulation. What did they expect
would happen? There's not enough power generation in California,
so the prices go up.
> > The people in left coast refused
> >all attempts to build different types of power plants, but refused
> >to limit their growth. No surprise that they ran short on power.
> >I don't see why they expected the same power companies they had
> >been opposing all those years to give them cheap power.
>
> Those power companies had consistently shown that they invested
> their money with poor judgment and almost always resulting
> in cost overruns, greater than expected environmental damage,
> costly stranded assets... A lot of it was the companies'
> fault, not the consumers'.
Those same companies have built the same types of power plants
in other states without any problems. Most of the perceived
problems were the environmentalists blowing things out of
proportion and making things up. The citizens in California
refused to allow the power plants to be built, and (surprise!)
they have a power shortage, while the citizens in other states
let the power plants be built, and (no surprise) we have enough
power.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman_at_dittman.net
Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/
Received on Sat Jun 08 2002 - 17:59:24 BST