----Original Message Follows----
On Fri, Feb 15, 2002 at 01:26:06AM +0000, Steven Johnson wrote:
>>
>>Just a follow up note to bring everybody up to date. Since last summer,
>>afew material facts presented themselves:
>>
>>1. California had plenty of capacity.
>Untrue.
>Rough calculations made over figures from California Energy Commission
>show that California's actual generated power versus demand was between
>7% and 8% over for the period 1990 to 2000.
I really only need to address this one point, since the rest of your points
fall apart rather neatly after this. It appears as if you derived your
numbers from an electric commodities interest group, and we all know how
reliable companies like Enron are (read: and, I quote "What a lot of
drivel!") or you are using last years numbers based on flawed data.
"The Summer Adequacy Report" (After-the-fact report) showed a margin above
15 percent of loads over resources.
Emergencies were declared by Independent System Operators (ISO) when the
offers of capacity (read: electric commodities brokers such as Enron) were
insufficient to meet its reliability criteria. Next day real-time sellers
were there to avert these emergencies, but at exorbitant market-clearing
prices. (read: chicken and egg)
There was a 10% reserve margin across all hours during which emergencies
were declared by the ISO. The actual reserve margin averaged over 20
percent.
> 2. The capacity planning turned out to be an allocation problem.
>>See above and CEC's figures.
See above, and *current* CEC figures. Also see Robert McCullough's
statistical analysis, titled "Price Spike Tsunami: How Market Power Soaked
California." which can be found in the Jan. 1, 2001, issue of
_Public_Utilities_Fortnightly_,
>>3. These allocation problems came about largely due to energy resellers
>>like Enron manipulating the distribution of energy.
>As above.
As above.
>Can't speak to this. However, by 1999, a dozen or so more power plants
>were under construction in California, which would likely be online by
>now.
OK, then we can attack your earlier myth that environmentalist impeded the
production of plants. The California Public Utilties Commission could not
"find any significant environmental constraints" in issuing permits for new
power plants. According to the California Energy Commission, no electric
power plant in California has been rejected over air pollution issues.
In fact, it was regulatory uncertainty and economic decisions by utilities
and private generating companies that halted the construction of new plants.
Even the energy companies themselves concede this point. Houston-based
Reliant Energy, which operates four Southern California plants, told The Los
Angeles Times that assertions that environmental regulations were holding
back power production were "absolutely false."
>Part of your contention appears to be that Enron and others like them
>caused all this shortage business. Investigations were called for in
>California at the time, and to my knowledge, none turned up any
>misconduct on the part of power generators and wholesalers.
Ahem, actually quite a few are in the works or have already been published.
By the CEC, the CPUC, and others.
>I think the figures alone speak to the fact that the
>energy crisis was predictable, regardless of anything Enron and others
>did.
The *latest* figures speak to the opposite fact. And, with the collapse of
Enron as more information becomes available, even more figures heretofor
unknown will bolster my argument.
A great source of information in general can be found at
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/
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