-Caveat Lector- > I normally don't post articles to the list but I just finished > reading this one and for once, a writer has used something > that I think has been missing from a lot of discussions about > the energy problem here in California. The missing element > I am refering to is "common sense". The article is by > Charles Krauthammer. > > Ted > > =================================== > > http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20010218.shtml > > February 18, 2001 > > Supply and demand realities > > WASHINGTON--In spring of 1996, gasoline prices shot up, topping $2 per > gallon in California. It being an election year, President Clinton boldly > stepped in and ordered an investigation by the Energy and Justice > Departments. They found nothing. They found what any child could have told > them before they wasted their millions. Supply was down (a particularly > long winter delaying gasoline refining, a refinery explosion cutting > capacity in California) and demand was up (people driving more and faster > in ridiculously outfitted, combat-ready, all-but-armored SUVs). Surprise. > Prices went up. > > Well, the silly season has returned. California is now experiencing a > general power crisis, and almost 60 percent of Californians think that the > rolling blackouts are a conspiracy by the power companies to raise rates. > Politicians are thundering, fingers are wagging, and complicated theories > are being hatched to explain the shortages. > > Here's my guess: Demand is up and supply is down. Demand is up because in > the most absurdly misnamed deregulation plan ever created, California > capped the consumer price of electricity, thus preventing price signals > from restraining demand. And demand shot up because the California economy > has expanded by 34 percent in the last 10 years. > > The supply side of this equation is even more obvious. Californians love > the environment. Power plants are dirty, intrusive and ugly. So California > hasn't built one in 10 years--even as its demand for electricity has grown > by almost 25 percent in just the last five. To put California's obdurate > ecosensitivity in perspective, in the last five years Texas has built 22 > new power plants; within a year that number will rise to 37. > > Californians refuse to acknowledge that in the real world their desire for > one good (an unsullied environment) might actually conflict with another > (their desire for hot water in their Jacuzzis). > > The conflict between hyper-environmentalism and energy shortages applies to > more than just electricity. Oil prices spiked last year. And in the last 12 > months, natural gas prices have tripled. Yet for decades environmentalists > have successfully restricted offshore drilling, exploration on federal > lands, and, of course, tapping the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for its > potentially huge oil and natural gas reserves. > > ANWR is the poster child of cake-and-eat-it-too eco-petulance. It's a place > so remote and so desolate that not one American in a million will ever see > it. Exploration would affect no more than 8 percent of the refuge. Rather > than disturb the mating grounds of caribou, however, our exquisite > environmentalists have prevented exploration of what could be our next > Prudhoe Bay. > > And for reasons of nothing less than hysteria, they have also blocked the > one supply side solution to the environment vs. energy conundrum: nuclear > power. Nuclear is the one mode of electricity generation that avoids nearly > all traditional environmental damage--the noxious gases, the particulates, > and best of all, carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Nuclear waste > is not a trivial problem, but it has the distinct advantage of being > concentrated and not dispersed in the atmosphere. Yet the allergy to > nuclear is so extreme and irrational that even in the midst of this crisis, > no one dares mention it as a long-term alternative. > > After decades of such willful energy abnegation, blackouts begin and > Californians can't figure out why. The only comparable example of mass > myopia is airline congestion. It is blamed on the FAA, on the airlines, on > air traffic control, on little green men. > > The answer is simpler: Two decades of deregulation have democratized air > travel by making it so much cheaper. Yet while air traffic has soared--by > almost 50 percent in the last nine years--no one wants to build new places > for the planes to land. Since 1974, only one major new airport has been > built (Denver International). Even the conversion of obsolete Cold War > military airports to civilian use, such as El Toro in Southern California, > has been held up for years by red tape. Since 1991, a total of just five > new (BEG ITAL)runways have been built in the country's 29 largest airports. > Environmental regulation and community protests make the process so > difficult that building a new runway takes 10 years. > > Yes, fancy air traffic control--running planes closer together both in time > and space without crashing--can make up for some of the overload. But it > can hardly make up for the hard fact that when millions more people are > flying to an almost fixed number of runways and airports, they get backed > up. > > You can't blame people for not wanting an airport or a power plant in their > backyard. But you can wonder at their perplexity when the lights go out and > the planes don't fly on time. > > > *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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