Canada makes another mistake

Re: Canada makes another mistake

OK... The Mayan Calendar thingy:

NOTE: The astronomer Philip Plait has stated very clearly that the Mayan calendar does not end in 2012 at all, that it is like the odometer on your car, as each section of the odometer reaches 9 and then clicks over to 0, the next number to it starts a new cycle, so that when all the numbers again reach 0 all the way across the odometer - the last number will change from 1 to 2 and the new cycle starts all over again.

Now--if a politician could have figured out how to raise taxes based on the Mayan Calendar 2012 "event" -- they would have :grr. (Perhaps Federal, California, and New York government/financial meltdowns this year will be the result of the Mayan calendar problem :roll: ).

In the US--I think that Halogen type lamps are not banned--so we are seeing more of the regular shaped bulbs with halogen (and/or Xenon?) high pressure lamp inside. So--we will still have a good filament type bulb still available (I wonder if they have UV filters--straight Halogen lamps with quartz glass have significant UV output (fading of fabrics, damage to eyes).

High temperature filaments emit some energy in the UV region. Small amounts of other elements can be mixed into the quartz, so that the doped quartz (or selective optical coating) blocks harmful UV radiation. Hard glass blocks UV and has been used extensively for the bulbs of car headlights.[11] Alternatively, the halogen lamp can be mounted inside an outer bulb, similar to an ordinary incandescent lamp, which also reduces the risks from the high bulb temperature. Undoped quartz halogen lamps are used in some scientific, medical and dental instruments as a UV-B source.

Oh well--what government mandate has not had 50x the downside (the positive for the government is always increased tax revenues).

-Bill

Re: Canada makes another mistake

We never had "deregulation" in California -- What we had was actually a forced devistiture (Utilities had to sell off their generating assets--although, I think they kept the Hydro). And the state PUC forbid long term power contracts between utilities and generators by law... The longest allowed was 24 hours. Basically, a highly regulated consumer pricing + less regulated spot market setup.

And when there was lots of excess power available--the system worked fine.

But, no investors would build a new power plant with 20+ year life with 1 day contracted power pricing (so we had zero power plants built for years). And, in a free market, you don't have to run your power plants if they don't make money.

Well, you can guess what would happen. Spot market pricing went through the roof, and the regulated consumer pricing did not change hardly at all. The major utilities had to buy power at spot pricing and sell power at regulated pricing--which drove them to the edge of bankruptcy--as the State PUC did not allow them to raise the rates charged to their customers to reflect the higher cost of power. And the state government just argued about the problems.

Texas did go to a deregulated market--and they did not have near the issues (that I have read about) that California did (cheaper rates, lots of power, etc.)... We had rolling blackouts, bankrupt utility companies and the "fix" was to take a summer's worth of power and have the state issue $20,000,000,000.00 of 40 year bonds to dig out the utility companies.

Yes, Enron was in this mess--but it turns out that the "Public" irrigation districts and City of Los Angeles Power and Light made huge profits too (they had long term power contracts and lots of cheap publicly financed hydro too so they could buy cheap and sell dear). In our case, the publicly owned utilities where not our friends either.

And as Marc thanks us--we are forced to purchase out-of-country hydro for ridiculous amounts of money vs "cheap coal power" from Utah and Wyoming (and Indian reservations).

And, we got in the 2000's:

The California electricity crisis (also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis) of 2000 and 2001 was a situation where California had a shortage of electricity.

By keeping the consumer price of electricity artificially low, the California government discouraged citizens from practicing conservation.I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/URL][/I In February 2001, California governor Gray Davis stated, "Believe me, if I wanted to raise rates I could have solved this problem in 20 minutes."I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/URL][/I Blame has also been placed on the gaming of a partially deregulated California energy system by energy companies such as Enron and Reliant Energy.
...
New regulations

In the mid-90's, under Republican Governor Pete Wilson, California began changing the electricity industry. Democratic State Senator Steve Peace, the chair of the energy committee and the author of the bill that put these changes into effect, is often credited as "the father of deregulation".I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words"]who?[/URL][/I Wilson admitted publicly that defects in the deregulation system would need fixing by "the next governor".

The new rules called for the Investor Owned Utilities, or IOUs, (primarily Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric) to sell off a significant part of their electricity generation to wholly private, unregulated companies such as AES, Reliant, and Enron. The buyers of those power plants then became the wholesalers from which the IOUs needed to buy the electricity that they used to own themselves.
While the selling of power plants to private companies was labeled "deregulation", in fact Steve Peace and the California legislature expected that there would be regulation by the FERC which would prevent manipulation. The FERC's job, in theory, is to regulate and enforce Federal law, preventing market manipulation and price manipulation of energy markets. When called upon to regulate the out-of-state privateers which were clearly manipulating the California energy market, the FERC hardly reacted at all and did not take serious action against Enron, Reliant, or any other privateers. FERC's resources are in fact quite sparse in comparison to their entrusted task of policing the energy market. Lobbying by private companies may also have slowed down regulation and enforcement.[6]
...
Chronology[1][2][3]

• 1996 California begins to loosen controls on its energy market and takes measures to increase competition.
• April 1998 Spot market for energy begins operation.
• May 2000 Significant energy price rises.
• June 14, 2000 Blackouts affect 97,000 customers in San Francisco Bay area during a heat wave.
• August 2000 San Diego Gas & Electric Company files a complaint alleging manipulation of the markets.
• January 17-18, 2001 Blackouts affect several hundred thousand customers.
• January 17, 2001 Governor Davis declares a state of emergency.
• March 19-20, 2001 Blackouts affect 1.5 million customers.
• April 2001 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. files for bankruptcy.
• May 7-8, 2001 Blackouts affect upwards of 167,000 customers.
• September 2001 Energy prices normalize.
• December 2001 Following the bankruptcy of Enron, it is alleged that energy prices were manipulated by Enron.
• February 2002 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission begins investigation of Enron's involvement.
• Winter 2002 The Enron Tapes scandal begins to surface.
• November 13, 2003 Governor Davis ends the state of emergency.

-Bill