🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <u%db6.262063$IP1.8811307@news1.giganews.com>
Sid Cochran <squidley@ballistic.com> writes:
>Speaking of incompetence and greed, I see by some of the current articles
>in www.latimes.com that one-third of the electrical load in your State--or
>perhaps tha only applies in the PG&E territory--is supplied by 'green power'
>producers ...

Someone is confused (either you or the LA Times author, or maybe
both).  About 1/3 of the supply in the state comes from so-called
"alternative providers", but not all of them are "green".  For
instance, some of them burn wood (!).  (No doubt this is "waste"
wood, but still.)  The so-called "green" portion is more like 12%.

>Perhaps you should either allow the utilities (or PG&E) either to recoup the
>cost of 'green' power in their rates, or else permit them to reduce their
>payments to the green producers, including the payments they have
>been unable to make for November and December, to the amount they are
>allowed to charge for this same green power.

Actually, the utilities are, in a sense, lucky that they have been
tied into long-term contracts with these "alternative" providers
at rates like $160/MWh, because it is the non-utility, non-"alternative"
providers who have been charging rates like $300/MWh.  In other
words, while the alternative providers were in effect being subsidized
during the good times, now that times are bad, the alternative
providers are the ones doing the subsidizing -- they *could* get
figures like $500/MWh on the open market, but they are locked into
contracts.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc
El Cerrito, CA, USA	Domain:	torek@bsdi.com	+1 510 234 3167
http://claw.bsdi.com/torek/  (not always up)	I report spam to abuse@.