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Pastimes : The California Energy Crisis - Information & Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (822)	8/8/2001 1:09:27 PM
From: Daniel G. DeBusschere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1715

Raymond- I asked the question whether or not regional grids would increase supply and therefore reduce prices for consumers. Your response seems to be that a "stanglehold of market power of a cabal of gluttonous traders" as you put it would require you to reject regional grids in order to limit access to the market by these undescribable bad dudes. This is not a reasoned response but more like some sort of class warfare response. Why do you have to respond to a question by telling me that I must hate some class or group or person? What is your ultimate answer? Some sort of armed rebellion?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (822)	8/9/2001 11:01:33 AM
From: portage	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1715

Ray, I quite agree with you. It has nothing to do with that old red herring "class warfare", but is about good old fashioned market power that can be exercised, as we have well seen, in such a stacked situation. How can we stop this, other than relying on Davis to get in the ring for us ? I'm writing a few letters soon - unfortunately I don't have a $150,000 contribution to go along with it to get their attention. Here's another way of gaming that they may have come up with -- investigation into the causes is just beginning - www0.mercurycenter.com The intricately balanced system came so close to failure last Thursday that an unexpected outage at just one generator anywhere in the region could have triggered blackouts, Detmers said. Air-traffic analogy Detmers likened the problem to airliners ignoring orders from the air-traffic control tower. The ISO controls the California grid, scheduling delivery of electricity much as control towers schedule airplanes for landings. ``It's really no different than if a plane comes into San Francisco International Airport and doesn't follow the rules of the air traffic controller,'' Detmers said. ``We had a near miss on our system. You had two planes getting very close.'' Although the ISO has seen similar problems as far back as December, last week's event prompted grid managers to fire a stern warning late Wednesday to California's power generators and to call for federal regulators to investigate. The warning cited ``a growing pattern among market participants'' of ``untenable acts'' that include ``failure to comply with dispatch instructions.'' ``Such system performance threatens the reliability of the Western Interconnection and cannot be tolerated,'' the ISO report said. Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis, said he hadn't been notified of the grid manager's concerns, but after being read language in the report, said it was ``pretty strong stuff coming from the ISO.'' Jan Smutny-Jones, a former ISO official who heads the Independent Energy Producers Association, which represents generators, said he was unaware of the reported problems but agreed the matter is a serious one. ``The issue that the ISO is identifying here, I can't recall ever seeing that before,'' Smutny-Jones said, adding that it is crucial to ``get to the bottom of what the problem is and fix it quick.'' ``System reliability is important to everybody,'' he said. Also, I presume you saw the following article on the GM fuel cell generators plan : www0.mercurycenter.com GM introduces fuel-cell generator Stationary power unit under development could be used in homes and businesses BY ED GARSTEN Associated Press TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- General Motors on Tuesday unveiled a stationary power generator that could be used to provide energy for homes and businesses. The generator would use the same fuel cell technology automakers are developing in hopes of producing pollution-free vehicles. ``It would help the situation in California. It could be used to power the White House,'' Larry Burns, GM vice president of research and development and planning, said Tuesday. I also saw a clip on TV about a healthy increases in solar panels being installed in California, including Clint Eastwood at his Monterey golf spread (needs to juice up those carts in addition to running the complex). Ideas and real alternatives are ramping up, though not all so immediately.