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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Second_Titan who wrote (3647)	4/22/2001 10:34:51 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

?Ferc order in 96 stopping regulated utilities from building. Five years is a long time thinking simple cycle gas turbines can be operational within a year given the green light. Simple cycle 150 MW gas fired units. The effect of the order was a silencing of the California Energy Commission's role in predicting energy requirements. The effect started in 1996 but has continued until today. Effectively the FERC? indicated the market would..as of 1996 be the determiner of the power requirements of California. So using the FERC logic...the reason no new plants (large plants) have been built in California is because the market did not call for them. Five years is a long time so it is reasonable to conclude that the market has failed to produce the necessary juice. Agreed there are impediments to building power plants in California..there are more hurdles. If the market can't deal with the issues then that is simply evidence that market forces don't work in California as a power planning tool. Of course CA could wait and see if these turbine speculators will get desperate and settle for low returns to build a plant in CA. But I doubt they will have a hard time as every day there is a new announcement of a new plant being built (Not in CA or NY). And that's the way the market works. The turbines will be place where it is easiest to place them....why take on unnecessary risk. However as a proponent of free market juice one would argue that California can purchase the power from the turbines wherever they are and pay the additional transmission costs if they can out bid other users. The additional transmission charges would be the price California pays for the regulatory load placed on the generators. Zeuspaul