Agustus,
Keep in mind that the power marketers never sleep, never relent and never want to give a sucker an even chance.
If you've followed the news, you realize that the state has suggested increasing generation in California over the past few years and has been over-ruled by FERC and the marketers who counseled a laisse faire approach. Face it, it isn't possible to game a market when there's a surplus of supply. So the marketers wisely tried to curtail supply as much as possible, at least from their small-minded greedy little man perspective. One of the most egregious examples that's recently come to light is the manipulation that El Paso Gas pulled last winter in the Mojave district, where the sold off the gas transmission rights to a trading subsidiary that strangled the market. Do some research, you'll find out that these devious bastards are proud of themselves for jacking a MCF of CH4 up to $30+ at the stateline. Instead of trying to be part of a community of man, these turkeys want to rip the face off their customers. There are plenty of other examples. If you look for them. Of course, if you are an apologist for the industry, well then, I'm wasting my breath.
Re: I guess for me the issue is this - When times are good we seem to just cruise and enjoy the inexpensive energy rather than spending money to insure that it stays low. Instead of being proactive, we opted to let the market and supply control us.
You know as well as I do that the industry paints the T.U.R.N. and other consumer advocates, as well as the public power crowd as hysterical if the consumer advocates become pro-active, either during a crisis or during normal times. The utility industry has some very sophisticated flaks working for it, spreading disinformation at all times and in a lot of venues, including this thread. You are incorrect about the desire of people to be proactive. The desire is there, but as with the midnight sessions to hatch AB 1890, the public advocates are locked out of the smoke filled rooms where the decisions got made. The only ones in the room were the lobbyists for the utes, a couple of reps of the industrial consumers of electricity and a bunch of grasping politicians willing to write laws for bribes, er, campaign contributions. The system is broken. Governance by plutocracy is evil, and the crisis in the California energy market last winter and spring is the result.
Best, Ray |
