I've rarely heard it better said!
k
(On topicifier: appropriate artist: Dark Energy)
-Original Message-
From: James Hurlbut [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 4:40 PM
To: 313@hyperreal.org
Subject: (313) [OT]RE: (313) Power outages
On topic track name : Energy Flash - Beltram
Really it has to do with the deregulation of the energy industry that went
on in this country around 1998. The US, with its faith in the market,
decided it would be good to treat essential human services as commodities
to be bought and sold for profit, making the electricity system as
volatile
as the stock market. In fact the energy wholesalers (people like Enron and
Global Crossing, you know those companies that stole billions from
taxpayers and employees and got a slap on the wrist?) are at an incentive
to keep the system dangerously low in reserves, because they are paid more
for providing reserve energy (that is energy below 18% of the capacity of
the system) than they are for providing energy above the 18% checkmark.
This means that after 1998 the local energy market in NY state was
providing only around 10% of the capacity of the system, the rest was
distributed from out of state investors or wholesalers, most of it from
Canada who makes a lot of income by providing power to the US.
This is what
happened here in California a year and a half ago when Enron was busy
shuttling power in and out of California getting paid for the energy each
time it entered the state and other dirty tricks. Of course the Bush
administration will use this as an excuse to build more power plants and
rush the permitting process, sidelining any weak environmental standards
and community issues still in place. Welcome to neocon xtreme capitalism,
where even terrorist threats get sold on the market!
Oops, back to techno...
_
hurlbot
www.hurlbotics.com/mp3
_
