To: whitepine who wrote (3650 ) 4/23/2001 12:22:56 AM From: Zeuspaul Respond to Whitepine> Perhaps you can document the actions CA tried to take to increase production during the last decade in opposition to FERC and Edison. www0.mercurycenter.com UTILITIES FOUGHT ATTEMPTS TO BOOST POWER Someone (read the state and taxpayers) would have to pay the 20% tax to ensure that each producer received their 20%. For myself, I would move to CA and buy a $3Mil yacht and establish a charter service. Sales and rentals would not matter. Even though few might charter my services, I would be guaranteed 20%. In fact, as my costs went up, so would my profit. My bags are packed… Taking your example a step further. Assume it is a hot day. I am willing to buy your water @ $2/glass. Thousands of others are also willing to buy your water. In fact, the line is so long that it stretches over the horizon. You only have 20 gallons to sell. Zeuspaul Why do I only have 20 glasses of water to sell? Whitepine> 20 gallons, 2000 gallons, no difference. The point is finite supply. Everything is scarce. Point is that if you do not use the price system, you MUST use some other criteria, and prejudice is the only alternative. Zeuspaul >You can't argue with success...LADWP has plenty of power available at reasonable cost. They do not have to ration their power. Whitepine> Observe your misunderstanding of economics. You casually use the words “plenty of power at reasonable cost” as though they have enough to supply the entire state. They do not! Their capacity is finite. So are you suggesting that any entity that promised to produce power was, or is, guaranteed 15% profit without regard to the price of production? If so, CA would have had much more investment, regardless the costs or(in)efficiencies. Profit would have been guaranteed. Such was not the case or thousands of corps would have installed billions of solar cells and tacked on 15% to their costs since profit was guaranteed by the state. Zeuspaul >If you want market based power you will have a short supply. Market based experiments have proven this to be the case. energy.ca.gov In the early 1990s before the State’s electricity generation industry was restructured, the California Energy Commission certified 11 power plants. Of these, three were never built due to market conditions. Eight plants are now generating 952 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Additionally, a project approved in 1994 has a 44 MW second phase now under construciton, which is scheduled to be on line by May 2001. No power plant applications were filed with the Energy Commission between 1994 and 1998 because there was so much uncertainty during the restructuring of the electricity industry. Zeuspaul >Some things are best left under government control. The government has a good track record building and maintaining roads.
