Quote:
Originally posted by sycamore
... Seriously though, judging from my understanding of the dereg bill in California, a good intention went horribly wrong. They are now saying that NYC is headed for the same blackouts this summer.
This is a good example though of what happens when too many people live in too small a space...and the government can't keep up with the people.
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The rumored CA good intention was flawed because private industry - not government - is responsible for supplying electric. Nightline made this quite obvious in an interview of an east coast electric executive and a west coast executive. Therefore I did the list of top management that was listed here previously. That list demonstrates explicitly why CA has power problems.
Taking PG&E as example: a lawyer, mining engineer, bank executive, doctor of French language, MBA and forestry expert, hospital administrator, economist and conservationist, MBA and real estate executive, a BoD at Home Depot, a BoD of AirTouch, etc. What do any of these know about electricity? Only that they wanted deregulation and believed the business school (communism) philosophy that a good manager can manage any business.
Among stupid things the got in CA's deregulation plan was to deny utilities access to future markets. That sticks utilities to purchase only on the spot market during electric shortages - a guarantee for highest prices. Then what do those 'communist' educated managers do? Claim a shortage of electricity when the reality was they could not pay for that electricity. It was not a shortage of electriticy but an accounting problem. Of course the BoD list is people who don't come from where the work gets done. Even the current CEO was a lawyer. Therefore we have the problems always typical of such management - they would blame everyone else but themselves.
What created the latest blackouts? Utilities started playing 'cash flow' games with their accounts payable - and many independent suppliers just stopped providing electricity - as they should have. Those blackouts last week are directly traceable to MBA money games.
Again, there was no shortage of electrical generation. Again we have short term financial thinkers doing what all anti-Americans do - not understand the business they manage. Why is this not obvious?
NYC does not have generation problems nor problems created by government. It is not too many people in a confined space. It is a predictable problem created by a shortage of transmission lines and increasing inefficient use of electricity. There are plenty of lines to provide plenty of electricity - just not enough for contigencies.
Then there is the (most likely dominated by MBAs) NE Utilities who was to be purchased by Con Edision until Con Ed discovered NE management sold more electricity than they could generate. New Englandpreviously had some serious electric problems that most here never heard about because the past few summers were so cool (therefore not reported by Lisa Thomas Laurie or Jim Gardner). Among NE problems was that their incompetent management was covering up problems at all 7(?) nuclear plants until a problem in one (and the coverup) was discovered by the NRC. As a result, the rest of their plants were inspected and found defective while executives did what MBA school educated executive must do - coverup their incompetence - blame everyone else.
At last count, a few New England nuclear plant are on-line, but since we don't demand to hold top management accountable, then we have not heard any of this. New England power problems are a threat to NYC power supplies because New England will have to import electricity from Quebec, NY, and PA.