🚀 go-pugleaf

Jim Davidson wrote:
> 
> jaeger@pluto.njcc.com (Jaeger T. Cat) writes:
> 
> > Would this be the industry collusion that
> >   (a) froze end user prices
> >       (nope, that was the stupid legislature)
> >   (b) didn't allow industry to hedge using long term futures contracts
> >       (nope, that was the stupid legislature)
> >
> > or
> >   (c) the lack of quick approval for new power plants
> >       (nope, that was the eco-terrorists)
> >   (d) the lack of conservation
> >       (nope, that's the idiot "someone will bail me out" end users)
> 
> Umm..  You're wildly off-base on the last one.
> 
> California has one of the lowest levels of energy usage among all the states.
> Last I checked, they ranked about 47th out of 50.

California is actually consumes power further up the list when it comes
to total energy consumption.  The numbers you have are "per capita".  We
rank 47th when it comes to the amount of energy used per person.  But we
are also the most populated state in the nation now, so the total amount
of power used is pretty high.

> States that *don't* understand conservation include places like, well, Texas.

Texas uses less total electricity than California, but their per capita
numbers are quite high.  They are energy hogs, but they built generating
capacity that makes their deregulation work.  Like in deregulated
Pennsylvania, power in Texas is getting cheaper.

TO ALL OF YOU ACROSS THE COUNTRY THAT BLAME THE PROBLEM ON CALIFORNIA
DEREGULATION ---  HEAR THIS!

CALIFORNIA DID NOT DEREGULATE IT'S ELECTRIC MARKET.  In a typical case
of California consumers, politicians, utilities, and everyone else
thinking they could have their cake and eat it too, they simply screwed
up the electric market.  The deregulated wholesale rates without the
generation capacity in place to keep thing competitive, then capped
retail rates.  You can fix retail prices when you have no control over
wholesale prices.

This was not "republican" scam to help big utility businesses.  The
original deregulation plan was really deregulation.  The botched plan
tat we enacted was negotiated with utilities and CONSUMER GROUPS by
democrat legislator, Steve Peace.  It was approved unanimously by both
houses in the state legislature.  That's right, UNANIMOUSLY.

The people of the state are to blame for this.  The only way this
so-called deregulation was able to become law was by a vote of the
people's elected representatives.  We, the people of the state, had the
final say, and we said yes!

Now we are stuck with the mess we made.

> 
> California tends to lead for the obvious reasons:
> 
>     * moderate climate
>         -- many places don't need air conditioning, which is one of the biggest
>            users of electricity; heating costs are also low
> 
>     * low transportation costs
>         -- despite fairly long commutes, the high population density means that
>            people don't have to go a long way for most things.