Harry Reid is determined to bring about an electricity shortage.

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  • BloodEclipse

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    Apr 3, 2008
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    In the trenches for liberty!
    Highly informed sources (don't you love that phrase) tell us that Senate majority leader Harry "Hands-Off-Yucca-Mountain" Reid will be pushing for the Senate to adopt a national renewable energy portfolio within the next two weeks.

    Full Story: The American Spectator : Paved With Renewable Mandates


    All this is likely to make electricity more expensive, which is what is holding the utilities back. Solar electricity now costs about 24 cents per kilowatt-hour and wind 14 cents, as opposed to 5 cents for coal or natural gas. Utilities will pay the bills but then will inevitably pass them along to consumers. California now pays the highest electrical rates in the country, precisely because it will not allow coal or nuclear plants but has pursued a 30-year strategy to develop renewable energy.

    Things like this make something like SB0037 even more important.
    https://www.indianagunowners.com/forums/politics_laws_and_2nd_amendment/23985-indiana_s_sovereignty.html
     

    smokingman

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    While I agree this could be a bad thing,it could also be a good thing. As far as California goes the problem there was utility deregulation in 1996. You have 3 companies that have a total monopoly on all power in the state now(Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).All three are PRIVATELY owned.Then you have the state regulate the price they can charge households per hour.In short it has turned into a pissing match.They can not charge what they want to,so they shut down plants during high use,causing rolling blackouts(yes on purpose).So they can get public support for higher prices and more dereglation.With only privately owned companies making money off of utlities,you have no competetion.None of Californias power companies are even publicly traded.So no public power company is the largest cause of high electric in California. They do have coal,nuclear,and natural gas power plants...and there energy produced from alternate has actually gone down every year since 1990.They also have not built any new plants in 10 years,however 4 are under construction(2gas,two coal)and a "wind farm" in in the permit stage(again all under the three private companies).HowStuffWorks "How California's Power Crisis Works"
     

    dross

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    Monument, CO
    While I agree this could be a bad thing,it could also be a good thing. As far as California goes the problem there was utility deregulation in 1996. You have 3 companies that have a total monopoly on all power in the state now(Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).All three are PRIVATELY owned.Then you have the state regulate the price they can charge households per hour.In short it has turned into a pissing match.They can not charge what they want to,so they shut down plants during high use,causing rolling blackouts(yes on purpose).So they can get public support for higher prices and more dereglation.With only privately owned companies making money off of utlities,you have no competetion.None of Californias power companies are even publicly traded.So no public power company is the largest cause of high electric in California. They do have coal,nuclear,and natural gas power plants...and there energy produced from alternate has actually gone down every year since 1990.They also have not built any new plants in 10 years,however 4 are under construction(2gas,two coal)and a "wind farm" in in the permit stage(again all under the three private companies).HowStuffWorks "How California's Power Crisis Works"

    I respectfully disagree with some of your analysis. Price caps are either meaningless and therefore affect nothing, or they cause shortages, period. It was the price caps that led to the main problem. I'll explain.

    Keep in mind, in the absense of collusion, prices are information - they tell you what something is worth. If there's a price cap, but the real price is lower than the cap amount, the cap will have no effect.

    If, however, the price cap is lower than the actual price, it will always create a shortage. When California capped energy prices, but California utilities couldn't produce (or in many cases, couldn't buy from other states) power for less than the price cap, they aren't going to supply power, or at least they are only going to supply the minimum they must, causing shortages.

    If it costs you a quarter to make a glass of lemonaide, and you sell it for thirty cents, you make a nickel on every glass. If the government price caps your lemonaide at twenty cents, you lose a quarter with every glass you sell. Why would you sell lemonaide? You get poorer with every glass you sell. This is the position the utility companies found themselves in.

    If the price was allowed to adjust to it's natural level, it creates an incentive to provide power, hence, no shortage, or at least there'll be a strong motivation to hurry and get more power on the market.
     
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