Slashback: Solidarity, Friction, Dreams

More on power woes in California; a ray of light to all the would-be Delux DVD players in the audience; snappy comebacks from Sega; and some updates on the ever-intriguing Project Pengachu. Mmmmmm. All below, so use that mouse finger.

Good reason to stay on the 3rd coast, Bruce. Steven Johnson of Feed writes: "hey man, here's an excellent one for you: Bruce Sterling on the thirteen causes behind the California power crisis. All about how it's the result of treating energy networks like information networks. Classic Sterling. Enjoy!"

No accounting for taste, but on a length / goodness ratio basis, this is perhaps my new favorite Sterling article ever, too. Bam.

I'll believe it when that inventory is replenished. Patrick writes: "It's off the front page so no one will see an update or comment, but [this site] has the official statement from Sega. FYI"

The points made in this statement still don't say that Sega will continue to produce Dreamcast consoles past March (or any other time), but do emphasize that Sega has no intention of stopping the supply of games for their console, and are "currently in negotiations" to provide games for Game Boy Advance and PlayStation 2. Also, the affirm previous reports that Sega is promoting the Dreamcast's architecture for use in PCs and other places.

aztektum points somewhat more directly to the Sega statement (in Japanese, that is), with a link he claims was found on IGN.

The Wailing Walls have ears. Adam Alexander, webmaster of Dulux Consumer Support, writes to assure Slashdot readers that despite his site's name,"My site is not an advertisement for the company; in fact many parts of it are very critical of the company. The purpose is to help people who have already ordered the product in getting the product or getting a refund. My site discourages new orders at this time, at least until the old orders are taken care of."

As the introduction to that site puts it, the page "has been created to serve as a central location for interaction between people who placed orders for a Dulux DVD/MP3/Karaoke/Game Player and would like to share customer service or product information."

That sounds pretty smart. Any class-action lawyers around?

I would not name a daughter this. PSUdaemon writes "Back in November there was a post about Pengachu. A project to provide cheap wireless internet in a handheld. The handhelds are designed with the Linux coder in mind. With ports for an external keyboard and mouse, you can take your projects anywhere. There is a Web Page now with lots of details and pictures. Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to buy one..."

I'd like to suggest a slogan for the wildly successful spin-off this project deserves to spawn: "It's from MIT, so it's got to be good!" Certainly a good step toward ubiquity.

Comments

PDA.

[garcia]

even though there are some pictures, I don't see any concrete evidence that this will become anything more than vaporware.

I really would like to see a Linux based handheld that has built in wireless Internet but that seems like a pipedream for now.

Continued development of projects such as PocketLinux is where it's at AFAIAC but what do I know?

I think that if they ever do get this thing up to presentable status, they should hold a contest on a new name and mascot ;-)

Re:PDA.

[garcia]

PocketLinux is attempting to make a graphical based PDA running on Linux. so it would have nothing to do w/Console...

honestly, no input system is good for a PDA. I bought a KB for my PDA so that any large amounts of input would be easy.

Re:Sega made good move...

[gtx]

i don't honestly think that people will be rushing to buy up hardware that sega is discontinuing.

that said, the prices probably will only go down, as nobody will want to buy hardware that the company won't even make anymore. may i refer you to the sega saturn (got mine for $35 off the shelf) the sega genesis (last seen on store shelves for $20) and the sega master system (which hit the $50 mark and then just disappeared.) when a company stops producing hardware, people (rightly so) lose faith in the hardware.


"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears

Re:Sega never made moeny on the dreamcast unit

[Urban Existentialist]

Yes, they didn't make any money off the hardware directly. However, every game released by a games company for the Sega platform had to have liscense money payed to Sega, even if the develepors were not related to Sega at all. This made up a fairly large chunk of Sega's cashflow. In addition, they made money from their own games that they wrote for their platform. The situation is similar for Sony.

Now that Sega will be developing games for the PSX2, this is very good news for Sony, as they will make money off every Sega game released for the PSX2, and it will give their product better games (imagine what Sonic the Hedgehog on the PSX2 would do for sales). I don't know if they will release thier major games characters for other platforms, or if they will restrict themselves to consoles only, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Their brands are their strong suit..

You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-

Solidarity, Friction, Dreams...

[djocyko]

Is it me, or is Tim trying to get a subliminal message across?

Either that, or it's his subconcious...

A different view of the California power problems.

[Spamuel]

"California's utilities have lost billions and billions. They owe it to people who (a) aren't Californian and (b) aren't kidding about collecting that debt."

I happen to live in Canada, and our local utility company is owed a fair amount of money for providing power to California. Unfortunatly the Californian utility we sold power to is now declaring bankruptcy, leaving our utility company screwed out of millions of millions of dollars (guess who's going to pay for that loss). So Californians and their utility companies aren't the only ones getting screwed over...

Public Utilities owned by the people

[SubtleNuance]

hey man, here's an excellent one for you: Bruce Sterling on the thirteen causes behind the California power crisis. All about how it's the result of treating energy networks like information networks.

Correct me if I am wrong - but werent Californians enjoying fine, reliable, reasonably-priced utilities before they deregulated?

Couldnt one argue that a utility should be held in the public domain? In times like these where prices are high the Utility companies take it up the duff - when wholesale prices are low they make out like bandits... its balanced. When the public owns the utility this is acceptable, knowing that the good comes w/ the bad and 'vica-versa'. But when the companies are owned by profit-hungry MultiNational cartels, they MUST have a profit, every quarter - and each quarter must be more profitable than the last... it is a little silly to assume they will act in the best interest of Californians... so, why again did you decide to sell off your once reliable, affordable public utility?

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[nels_tomlinson]

The short answer is: "if Marxism-Leninism was a good idea, the USSR would be the richest nation on the planet, at least in the sense of the standard of living for the average guy." The long answer to "could a utility be held in the public domain?" is no. If utilities are publically owned, the decisions about how much to produce, how, and who gets it are made politically. Trust me, that's bad. (Trust me, I'm an economist...)

The problems in CA stem from political action. California chose to deregulate the wholesale market, without deregulating the retail market. Thus, consumers had no incentive to conserve when supplies got tight, while the utilities had to keep buying power to meet demand, however high the prices got. That was only the second mistake. They didn't understand the economics of these markets yet, and did some rather stupid things with zonal pricing which aggravated the problem. William Hogan has an interesting paper on his website, in particular this one.

Those links don't seem to be working in the preview, so here they are in cut-and-paste form:
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~.whogan.cbg.ksg/
and
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~.whogan.cbg.ksg/zonal_ Feb11.pdf

What was the first mistake? Their stupid, infeasible environmental laws, which are really about social and technological ignorance and NIMBY rather than any realistic concern for the human environment. It would be irresponsible to invest any money in power generation or transmission facilities in the People's Republic of California, and the fact that there hasn't been much such investment in recent decades shows that most gereration company CEO's have good sense.

You mention that it's silly to assume that the multinationals would act in the best interests of the Californians. That's sort of right, except that what they are doing is really in the long term best interests of the Californians. By driving up the prices of power, they give incentives to build more generation and transmission facilities in California. The State Government is of course trying to counteract these incentives, with talk of "nationalization" and price caps.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Bios_Hakr]

Do you think that a free-market is more viable than a controlled economy? Personally, I wouldn't want my community controlling my internet access. Especially if you lived in the "Bible Belt". I think that the answer to California's problem is to let the buisness that is in place try to make money. If they but electricity at $10/kilowatt-hour, what is wrong with them selling it to you for $12, or $15, or even $100? Let the buisness make money.

Now, I know that California has probs building a new power plant. Would you want a new coal-plant near your house, or a concrete damn on your favorite river? A truly free market will give the citizens a TRUE choice. It will let them VOTE WITH THEIR WALLETS. If you don't want a new power station, fine...that will be $100/kw-h. Oh, what's that? You don't mind nuclear power so much now do you? Or coal stacks? Or a nice new lake.

All I am trying to say is...Let the buisnessmen run the buisness and keep the power in the hands of the consumer where it belongs...and tell the politicians to get bent.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Bios_Hakr]

Don't trash the environmentalists (does that sound right? who knows). Environmentalists, feminists, NRA, PETA. All these groups are the core of our real political process. While it is true that these groups seem to dominate your government...that is how it is SUPOSED to be.

If you want something, say openDVD, you can go to your senator and ask him for it, or you and 900 friends can e-mail him (Kurt-the-Pope can then be hired to filter your DoS attack), or you can form a political action group based on open standards and get 30 seconds on CNN. Which has more power? Which has the best chance of achiveing your goals?

Remember...political action groups are there because they work. Find a group that supports YOUR goals, and join.

Just try to remember to fight the cause, not the group. It isn't the environmentalists you dislike, but the lack of new power stations...

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Arandir]

California chose to deregulate the wholesale market, without deregulating the retail market.

Close, but no cigar. The fact is that they didn't even deregulate the wholesale market. All the did was open up that segment to competition. Removing one or two regulations while keeping thirty million regulation in place is not deregulation.

It's sort of like NAFTA. By attaching the term "free trade" to a managed trade agreement, the politicians have managed to forever sully that phrase in the public's mind. Now they are doing the same thing with "deregulation". It doesn't matter that PG&E has to get government permission to change its rates, the public heard the word "deregulate" from Gray Davis' mouth, so it must be true.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[nels_tomlinson]

I hadn't noticed that part about negative spot prices... I was taking my prelims about then. But I'm not surprised, in retrospect. All it takes is a loop to make that possible. That means, of course, that folks somewhere are willing to pay to keep power off the lines, to relieve congestion. I've seen examples in the ops research literature, but haven't seen any references to that happening in reality. I don't suppose that you remember what markets?

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[nels_tomlinson]

Yes, PJM seems to be working out rather well. New Zealand is another example of a market which seems to be working well, and it is truely deregulated! No tariff filings and so on. England and Wales is a second, and Scandanavia is a third. I think that NZ's market is about 5 years old now? E&W is older than that.

As I said, they seem to have screwed up pretty much everything in CA, but the original sin was not allowing capacity to keep up to demand. The second factor was not giving demand incentives to drop down to equal supply.

If you interfere with a market, you eventually will go the way of the USSR and California. Even if you find a way to interfere without causing an immediate disaster, you cause some distortion which requires more interference, and on and on until you have rolling blackouts, a state of emergency, and the taxpayers on the hook to pay for the billions of dollars of mistakes made by their "Public Servants".

As someone pointed out in an earlier reply to my post, it wasn't really deregulation that CA tried, it was an attempt to set up a command-economy market, al la the USSR. So you're right, we certainly can't look at CA and say that deregulation doesn't work.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Danious]

The long answer to "could a utility be held in the public domain?" is no.

What a load of crap. Lets talk real world examples here. Lets talk New Zealand.

In NZ, we used to have a 100% publically owned electricity system. The generation and transmission sides were run by central government, the local retail distribution by local government. It ran on a profit-making basis with most profits being ploughed back into expanding the infrastructure in a fairly environmentally-friendly manner, the rest paid to the central/local government as a social or community dividend. Ten years ago, it came out tops in an international survey as the most efficient, cost effective system in the world, not to mention virtually the cheapest as well. It worked well, it was sustainable, we had cheap power and everyone was happy.

Well, not everyone was happy. Big business wasn't happy, as they paid a higher rate than Joe Public. The economists weren't happy, as it didn't fit their model of competative maketplaces and made them look stupid. The international conglomerates weren't happy, as they didn't own the system and weren't making any money from it. Enter a right-wing, free-market market ideology government, and they set about solving these 'problems'.

First step, break up the central generator/transmission company into three parts, a transmission company and two competing generating companies, with one being privatised immediately, the other later down the track. This was supposed to reduce prices by introducing competition, but only drove up prices as you had 3 times the administrative overheads, and each company added an increased profit margin onto the cost.

Second step, force the local councils to privatise the local retail distribution companies, and allow local competition. Again, this was supposed to drive down prices, but instead sent them up through increased profit margins.

The consequences? Power prices have sky-rocketed for Joe Public. It also killed off the social and community dividend that went into funding public goods. The only winners are big business, who can negotiate bulk purchases for cheap prices, and the big American corporates who now own most of our power infrastructure, along with the rest of the country. The other supposed pay-off of increased investment in the infrastructure isn't eventuating either, as the rate of return on the investment isn't good enough.

But this was all predictable. After all, the first law of business is to maximise your profits, and all too often these days that means in the short term. Serving the public good by providing a cheap, sustainable utility or infrastructure just doesn't figure in the equation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not agaist open markets and competition (I loath M$ as much as the next guy), just don't set up the system in such a way that it destroys the public good in the process. That applies as much to water, roads, schools, the internet, etc as it does to power. Sometimes, the perfect market is not the answer. It's a narrow-minded, one-size-fits-all ideology that's every bit as wrong as the narrow-minded, one-size-fits-all communist ideology. Choose the solution that best fits the problem.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Detritus]

Besides that, the environmental laws of CA are a red herring. The power plants that supply California don't have to be in that state (and many aren't), they just have to be on the same electrical grid.

Some would argue that this is just exporting the negative aspects of power generation, such as pollution, to neighboring states. This can become a volatile political issue when citizens of other states believe that their state is, sometimes literally, becoming a dumping ground. Similar disputes over trash disposal are common where I live. Everyone wants trash collection, but put the landfill out of sight and mind in some distant location.

An electrical grid also needs transmission facilities to transfer power between regions. The same people who killed the nuclear power industry with pseudo-scientific propaganda will do anything to keep high voltage transmission lines out of their neighborhood.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Detritus]

It sounds like residential rates were being heavily subsidized by the commercial customers. This could have been the result of rational social policy or political self-interest on the part of the government. Based on my experience with utility regulation by state governments in the USA, I would pick political self-interest. Are artificially low residential rates really in the best long term interest of the country? Why conserve if you are shielded from the true costs of producing and distributing power?

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[f5426]

> Trust me, I'm an economist...

This is fucking hilarious.

In the same vein, we can have:

"Trust me, I'm a statistician..."
"Trust me, I'm a lawyer..."
"Trust me, I'm a politician..."

...

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[Hard_Code]

It will let them VOTE WITH THEIR WALLETS.

The catch with this "voting with your wallet" business that free-market zealots are always bandying around is: sucks for you if you don't have any money in your wallet!

Basic human needs and rights should not be voted with money. Although I wouldn't consider utilites a right, they are undoubtably necessary...it is pretty impractical to "opt-out" of using electricity or hot water. When it comes to basic services and facilities all citizens should have access to, the political process *is* the process that should decide these things (however ugly and corrupt it may be -- most often corrupted by big business in the first place).

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[nels_tomlinson]

Who's talking about the environmentalists? Those laws come from the State's elected officials and beaurocrats, who found it expedient to work with the demagogs who make up the "leadership" of the environmental movement.

The ordinary folks who make up the rank and file of the environmental movements are mostly useful fools, to quote Lenin. They know a whole lot that just ain't so, and they are willing to listen to any fast-talking liar who promises utopia. These grass-roots environmentalists aren't to blame, except in the sense that they are, like all citizens, responsible for their government.

The solution to this problem of political decisionmaking isn't to "join a group" but to reduce the power of government, so that there is less scope for demagogs and useful fools to do harm in the political arena. To get some idea about why the "dive head-first into the manure pile" approach won't actually clean things up, you might want to read a little book by Frederick Bastiat, titled The Law. It's almost as short as the title, and well worth the time it takes to read it. Whatever you may believe about the state of the environment, the environment is far to important to leave to political whimsy.

Re:Public Utilities owned by the people

[JWhitlock]

Trust me, I'm an economist

...and a comedian! LOL!!!

With California's growing population, they better think long and hard about air and water quality. If it's bad having rolling blackouts, it's even worse to have the water turned off for a day, or to burden the state with health care costs for lung cancer for prisoners, which will make up half the population by 2050.

As an economist, you must be familiar with the theory that says the difference between a luxury and a necessity is just a matter of time. Indoor plumbing, electricity, high quality food, vacations and holidays, and a hundred other things were once luxuries only kings could afford, but now are part of everyday life.

I believe there is a path from luxury to neccesity:

Luxury - Only the rich and powerful can afford it. Because of it's luxury status, the few manufacturers can charge huge margins, because the rich will pay for it anyway. Because they are not made in bulk, the overcharge is necessary. ("Wired" houses, luxury import cars, etc)

Leisure item - It's nice, but not necessary, so the upper-middle class gets it. It still works as a status symbol, justifying low production and high costs. Imitators start introducing low-cost versions. (Boats, luxury cars, SUVs?, etc.)

Consumer item - Everyone wants it. Bulk manufacturing makes it cheaper, and there is true competition, so prices stay close to their ideal point. Government regulation starts. (Cars, Air Conditioning, etc.)

Neccesity - The product becomes so necessary for society that the government, for the common good, has to regulate it, so that everyone has it, and the product is of good quality. (Electricity, indoor plumbing, trash service, etc.)

I believe electricity is now a neccessary item, and it was irresponsible to de-regulate it without extreme government oversight. Of course, this really isn't deregulation, but tough shitskis. If we had true de-regulation, the poor would be suffering without electricity, while the rich would paying a premimium to keep it coming. The corporations would keep prices at just the level that the middle class could afford it, but no lower.

Sega???

[phoxix]

Hey all

Sega used to be a great company, it really was

Back in the days when Sega and Nintendo were in the biggest war ever, and it was all "do or die"

But now when i look at Sega, I wonder to myself, what went worng?

No offense to anyone, but Sega was truly too arrogant, not only did they fail to understand the industry that they were involved it, but they failed to understand the gamer

who here actually wanted to buy the Saturn for $400?? ... exactly....

Look at Nintendo, sure they came out with a cartridge based system, that cost more and blah blah blah

but they still turned out alright ...

Hopefully the future will be much brighter for Sega and related

Re:Sega???

[interiot]

but Sega was truly too arrogant, not only did they fail to understand the industry that they were involved it, but they failed to understand the gamer

Hrm, let's see...

PS2: DVD capabilities. Terrific polygon counts. Hard to program for. Few games have been able to use the PS2's full potential. Few games that are really good.

DC: No DVD capabilities. Less polygon count. Tons of games (which is what pays the bills), even if you only count their first couple months. Games look just as good as what's been released for PS2. Costs half as much.

How again did they fail to understand the gamer?

From what I can tell, the problem was more business related rather than anything to do with the quality of the product produced.
--

Cisco and the proposed Power Plant

[LameBrain]

"Cisco moved heaven and earth to make sure there was no ugly power plant near their sparkly new headquarters..."

i don't know who was behind this fiasco. i suppose it may have been Cisco, but i do know this, one of the reasons this power plant was cancelled was because the groups that opposed it claimed that there was... (get this) "no need for additional power in this area." can you believe that crap. i live near that area and received many flyers in my mailbox opposing this project. the power plant itself was a natural gas burning plant, one of the cleanest fossil fuels available.

i'm all for environmentalism but misinformed environmentalists like the ones who got this project cancelled are actually causing more harm than good. they are damaging the environment and their own cause.

Re:Cisco and the proposed Power Plant

[SEWilco]

It was quite apparent when the power went out last summer in the Bay area that there was a problem. There was a Report to Governor Davis about it. Plenty of explanation there. Of course, new plants should have been started ten years ago, not summer of 2000.

Re:Cisco and the proposed Power Plant

[Mark Gordon]

"Yeah, if they have the train go out to the suburbs, crooks are going to come from the inner city on the train to break into my house, steal my television, and take it home on the train."

What's scary is that some people actually believe that nonsense. I picked my apartment largely for proximity to a train station.

I have to say, I agree with Bruce...

[Thalia]

I think the #1 reason, and the one Mr. Sterling lists as unlucky #13 is:

13. This is unlucky 13, the grand finale. Californians feel lambasted, defrauded, and bamboozled by Old Economy "pirate generators" such as (let's name names here) Reliant Energy, El Paso Energy, Dynegy, Duke Energy, AES, Southern, Calpine, and Enron. But Enron in particular is George W. Bush's favorite company in the whole wide world. James W. Baker is Enron's lawyer. The Pirate Generators own Washington. The Information Superhighway is suddenly yesterday's news, somebody else's concept, all hype and ozone. The NASDAQ is in the tank, while the utility sector is the new darling of Wall Street. Furthermore, it very much galls the new administration that the homeland of Reagan is currently run by Democrats. An economic crunch in California is the prelude to a political assault from Washington.

The deregulation of the utilities in California is the legacy of Pete Wilson. I expect the Republicans are not too appreciative of California, even though we generate a larger percentage of the GNP than any other state... but we voted for Gore. I'm investing in a generator...

Thalia

PG&E / California is more scam than Bruce lets on.

[amphgobb]

Bruce's article is good and shows a lot of different viewpoints on the California "power crisis" ... but maybe if Bruce was more involved with everything that is going on, or if he talked to some people about it ... in a nutshell, PG&E is scamming everyone and outright threatening blackouts if they don't get their way (and they have had rolling blackouts here). San Francisco, in particular, is the only city in the entire country that is federally mandated to have cheap, public power... so PG&E has spent a lot of money to keep that law out of its way. And there's so much more. PG&E can go to hell, and there is a growing ratepayers strike happening in the SF Bay Area. For more information that is more specific than what Bruce writes, check out the SF Bay Guardian coverage or SF Independent Media Center coverage. The corporate media is just reciting press releases from PG&E and Gov. Davis.

Project Pengachu - Quantum Computer Module?

[robertchin]

Seems like a hoax to me - click on the "Pengachu Inside" link. Quantum Computer Module with Pengachu Interface? I don't think so. QC isn't even feasible for normal use right now.

Re:PG&E / California is more scam than Bruce lets

[Smitty825]

Ummm...I don't understand. Are they not allowed to make a profit? I can't understand how it is ok for them to pay $.35 for a kilowatt hour of electricty, while being able to sell it for $.07 .

PG&E is scamming everyone and outright threatening blackouts if they don't get their way (and they have had rolling blackouts here).

PG&E has very little control over the blackouts. The Cal Iso calls them up and says, "You need to free x Megawatts of power, now." PG&E has no choice, but to free that much electricty, or the whole system crashes. Look on you PG&E (or SCE or SDGE or whatever your utility is) bill and it will tell you a number. When (insert your favorite/least favorite utility here) is given the blackout notice, they just go in order, from 1 to however many blocks there are. That's required by the Public Utilities commission!

Bruce Sterling

[Ace905]

Perhaps my Canadian-ness has neglected to educate me on the wonder and awe that is 'Bruce Sterling'. Should I know who this guy is?

Anyways, after reading his article I've come to the conclusion that it is in fact possible to discuss the internet in an article related to power consumption and a bad, quickly-fluctuating economy; that is, if you don't actually make any correlation between them at all.

"Canadians really love the Internet. In almost all parts of Canada, home Internet connectivity is growing as fast as yesteryears Cable television and pre-era Radio License sales. But what may surprise some Canadian Clothing Retailers, is that while clothes may sell fast; they are not the Internet bubble of bit communications. That is, the internet is made up of a slurry of routing, and computational machinery, constantly sending and receiving tiny electrical signals; Where as clothing is made up of fabric.

Fabric in Canada has nothing to do with the internet, now I will speak about fabric.... etc."

Who is this guy?

Amusing when they live with their mistakes

[WillSeattle]

It's incredibly ironic that:

A. Californians elected GOP legislators who, fed by fat cat Texan-owned firm campaign contributions, pushed through deregulation.

B. The world's largest wind energy power facility is being built in Oregon and Washington state, while California refuses to build any power plants.

C. The first company I ever worked for (as a Power Engineer, actually), Cominco, is selling the power generation from their private dam to save California's butt, since they can make more money selling them hydro power than smelting non-ferrous minerals (yes, that includes gold and silver, but is mostly lead and other alloys).

D. Washington State dams are running flat out shipping power to California to the point that many of the lakes behind are drying out - this during our worst snowfall year in a decade when we have cold temperatures that force us to use energy.

and, last, but not least

E. The feds still try to get you to believe that the answer is to build coal plants, when anyone worth their salt could show you 4.5 cents per KW hour costs to build wind energy plants that have close to zero apian kill ratios and allow the land to be used for farming and other purposes. And even at current pricing, natural gas is still cheaper to use, if you would just build it, than coal. Especially sulfur coal - and I've seen what happens if you're crazy enough to use that -the Trilateral Commission forced Cominco to install scrubbers on all its stacks due to sulfur and lead outputs.

Re:Amusing when they live with their mistakes

[elefantstn]

A couple comments on this: first, blaming the Republicans (or any one politician or political group) for this is senseless. The deregulation passed the state legislature unanimously, not by a narrow majority, and not by some sneaky back-room political deal to get a couple opposition legislators to trade their votes to pass it. The fact that it was unanimous is significant: this was a completely bipartisan effort, not led by Naderesque "Republican plutocrat carpetbaggers from Texas oil wells."

I agree with you about energy sources, though. The answer isn't coal, the answer is more power plants, period. California is basically what happens when you play SimCity and you don't build any power plants because you want high-class people to move into your city. Works great for a while, but then the brownouts and blackouts start. Uh oh! The neighboring states and federal government are perfectly right in being less than sympathetic to California's plight. How sympathetic would you be if New York whined about piled-up trash but refused to build any landfills? Not very. The fact that the yuppies prefer non-power-plant-obstructed skies doesn't mean the rest of us should put generators in our backyards to keep their computers running.

Re:Amusing when they live with their mistakes

[Arandir]

A. Californians elected GOP legislators who, fed by fat cat Texan-owned firm campaign contributions, pushed through deregulation.

There was no deregulation. The proof is simple. All PG&E has to do is raise their rates and their problems are over. But they can't do that. All they can do is beg, threaten and whine to the regulators for permission to charge a little bit more.

What happened instead was that certain sectors of the energy market were opened up to competition, which is not deregulation. It's the tons of regulations still in place that's causing this problem to spiral out of control. PG&E and SCE have government granted monopolies. I have absolutely ZERO choice about whom I buy my electricity from. And I would gladly pay a market price for my electricity in order to forestall blackouts, but again, the government won't let me excercise that choice.

Re:Amusing when they live with their mistakes

[Black Parrot]

> There was no deregulation. The proof is simple. All PG&E has to do is raise their rates and their problems are over. But they can't do that. All they can do is beg, threaten and whine to the regulators for permission to charge a little bit more.

Yeah, that almost leaves a guy wondering why they pushed so hard for the legislation, and then drummed up $30,000,000 to beat Proposition 9 (which would have effectively vetoed part of that legislation).

> What happened instead was that certain sectors of the energy market were opened up to competition, which is not deregulation. It's the tons of regulations still in place that's causing this problem to spiral out of control. PG&E and SCE have government granted monopolies. I have absolutely ZERO choice about whom I buy my electricity from. And I would gladly pay a market price for my electricity in order to forestall blackouts, but again, the government won't let me excercise that choice.

Actually, it's not the Big Evile Gummit that's preventing it. The legislation was supposed to open things up, but the utilities didn't want to cater to low-profit residential neighborhoods.

See my earlier post, which cites a survey of what the utilities were ready to offer the lucky citizens of CA just before the law went into effect (2 years after being passed). The survey showed that consumers were not going to get a damn thing in return for their $28,500,000,000 bailout of the utilities.

People need to get over the notion that "regulation is inherently evile", because it tends to blind them to what is actually going on in CA.

--

Re:Amusing when they live with their mistakes

[nels_tomlinson]

I'm glad to hear that your windmills have low kill rates for bees; I'm a beekeeper, and would hate to see my apairy devastated. How are they on birds (that is, what's the avian kill rate)?

More seriously, I've lived near old, dirty coal plants, and near wind generators, and I'll take the coal anyday. It makes a better neighbor. Wind plants are loud and unsightly, while coal plants are quiet and the new ones are surprisingly clean.

You say 4.5cents /kWh to build? What's the capital cost per kWh? What's the lifespan that you amortize that over? What's it going to cost to produce power on the days that the wind doesn't blow? I hadn't heard that wind power was competitive with a modern coal plant set up close to a mine. The cost of the wind generators per nameplate MW may be low, but the cost per reliable MW has to include the wind generators and either very expensive storage, or fossil generators which can take over on a calm day. I'm not saying there is no place for wind, but it can't replace fossil/nuclear, it isn't suitable. Windpower next to a hydro site might make sense; it could run all night to pump water uphill over the dam, and provide some lowcost peaking power during the day, weather permitting. But for general use, as a primary source of juice? probably not.

One thing Sterling misses is utility ownership.

[isaac]

What I fail to understand about the role of journalists in this so-called "power crisis" is why everyone's ignoring the obvious question: Who owns California's so-called "investor owned" utilities? Take a look at San Diego Gas and Electric - one of California's "financially shaken" utilities - it's owned by wildly profitable Sempra Energy. Similarly, you'd think that PG&E was simply the primary utility company in Northern California - wrong! It's a holding company that owns both out-of-state generating plants (in one arm) and the near-bankrupt utility (in the other) and a VC firm on the side (because they're from California, I guess). They reported positive earnings of 42 cents a share in December.

Sterling does mention that CA's energy usage is well below peak summer usage, but it bears repeating. The "shortage" is totally artificial, with generating companies shutting down generating capacity for "maintainance" at an unprecedented rate. Ever seen "Chinatown"? Remember the "water shortage" caused by deliberate dumping of reserviors into the ocean? Same deal here.

What we have here is a choice example of what happens when regulated industries get to write their own regulations by proxy.

-Isaac

Cato institute predicted power Cal crisis in 1996

[TheNarrator]

Cato Institute, a libertarian think take said that California's deregulation was screwed up and would be a fiasco in 1996 when it was proposed. So much for this being a failure of free markets, more like braindead bureaucrats.

Story Is Here

Maybe it's a marketing thing

[jfunk]

Maybe it's just a name they put on it in an attempt to marketeer.

Maybe it's like "blast processing."

Open Games platform

[oisteink]

The Dreamcast is going to beat Indrema in becoming the first open-source (I know, but I want your attention) gameplatform. OpenBSD is, as far as I can tell from the mailing list, near to support the ethernet adapter. NetBSD might be a strange platform for SEGA to have running on it's hardware, since NetBSD's license states that you can redistribute binary only. But once the driver is done, it will also (my guess) be awailable for you Linux guys ;) Somebody write an X server for it, and I'm in. (It will even be supported by kylix)

What Sayeth The Onion?!

[Cheshire Cat]

The Onion has a cute piece on the California power outtages.

Re:PG&E / California is more scam than Bruce lets

[K-Man]

There are two political issues colliding here, which cause some confusion. First is the recent power crisis, which is the result of flawed deregulation, which is (seen as) the result of PG&E lobbying. Second is the longstanding problem in accounting for the output of the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir. It seems that San Francisco acquired the rights to the output of this reservoir 80-90 years ago, but, for some reason, city residents have always had to pay PG&E for their power, while, somehow, PG&E has been reselling the output from the dam to other customers.

Given the fact that PG&E has its headquarters in SF, and the general sorry state of the city's politics, it's easy to conclude that something shady went on here.

For San Francisco, it seems the easiest way out of the power crisis is to reassert ownership of the Hetch Hetchy output and get PG&E out of it. The dam was built to supply power to the city at a fixed cost indefinitely, and being forced to pay spot rates for the same juice is ridiculous.

Re:I know the cause of the Californian Blackouts

[K-Man]

One of the biggest power drains, in the Bay Area at least, is the wind tunnels at NASA Ames in Mountain View. These have their own substation, and run at night to avoid the peak. Imagine an 80x120 foot fan, blowing at 200 mph, or pumping a big tunnel up to several atmospheres - that's a lot of energy (particularly if it explodes, which is why the high-pressure tunnel was shut down).

Maybe now that power is going up to 30 cents per kwh they can test the planes with their engines on, and use the fans as generators. I doubt if they'll do much aeronautical research.

Re:San Francisco is not California

[K-Man]

Good, then maybe you can supply the power to pump our water down there :-)

Good article about the CA electricity cartel

[isdnip]

Public Utilities Fortnightly, which is perhaps a bit less well-read than Sports Illustrated, had a good article in its January 1 issue. Basically, it noted that last summer's electricity crunch (which was not quite as acute as this winter's) was apparently caused by the Independent System Operator (ISO), the organization that intermediates between generators and distributors (PG&E, etc.).

Last summer ISO set very high margins for spare capacity before declaring a shortage. WHenever they declared a shortage, spot market prices skyrocketed. Even if the supply wasn't any tighter than what used to be considered normal. Shortages are in the generators' interests.

It could be massive incompetence, but it's potentially much worse, a cartel among producers. ISO allows the generators to have the kind of cartel that OPEC couldn't create. OPEC countries frequently cheat on their quotas. ISO monitors production and reports what each generator puts out. So if a generating company (Enron, Duke, whatever) happens to be holding back in order to raise the price, and another one boosts production to make some quick bucks, the holding-back generators know it. That prevents cheating, and keeps the supply down and the price high.

The article at pur.com is not available online to nonsubscribers, alas.

Call it mis-regulation, not de-regulation.

[Russ Nelson]

Call we please call it it mis-regulation, not de-regulation? When the utilities have to ask for price increases, they're not deregulated.
-russ

Re:A different view of the California power proble

[Your Login Here]

The economist has a much better article here
You can't blame your power company for selling outside the state. They are being forced to sell power at a fraction of the cost, so naturally they want to minimize losses and sell as little as possible in CA. Don't forget that their stock holders could sue them for doing anything else.

Trust an economist....

[Russ Nelson]

Trust an economist to get economical issues correct. I mean, who else could even come close?
-russ

Re:Sega made good move...

[gtx]

i haven't seen many of those. they're pretty rarified due to their horrible construction.
don't get me wrong -- the display is really good for a video game system, but a huge, unwieldly beast. it gets even bigger if you use batteries, because you have to attach an awkward, ill-fitting battery pack on the back if you want to use batteries of any variety. also, the cartridge port on the top is poorly designed to the point where the cartridges will wiggle around easily, resetting the system frequently with some games.


"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears

Wind Power requires... wind!

[El]

See, the problem with wind power is -- it only works when the wind is blowing!!! They're putting the windmills in the Columbia Gorge (between Oregon and Washington) because it's one of the windiest places in the United State (the same reason it's THE best place in the US for windsurfing). They're not building more wind farms in California presumably because, other than Altamount pass, they can't find any sites where a strong wind blows almost all the time.

A simular argument can be made for solar -- it's most efficient where there's a high amount of solar radiation (i.e. no cloud cover). That's why they're not building solar power plants in Oregon and Washington! Wouldn't work very well in SanFrancisco either, but seems like it would be a natural for the Mojave...

II doubt they lost any money trying to gouge

[A nonymous Coward]

Let's see.... wholesale electrical prices have gone up by a factor of 15 (FIFTEEN!) times. I can't think of too many causes of that outside of pure supply and demand GREED. Let's see. Suppose your utility jumped on the greed bandwagon and sold X units at only 10 times normal. I would hazard a mathematical guess that if you got paid for only 1/10 of that amount, you would break even. And I betcha did get paid for more than 1/10. In other words, you made out like the bandits you are.

I have no problems with capitalism, supply and demand, the marketplace, etc. But when pure greed gets rewarded by said marketplace driving a utility into bankruptcy...sounds like justice!

Gosh my heart bleeds for you scumbags.

--

Solar Two

[Anonymous Coward]

Last August Popular Science magazine reported that a 100 square miles of solar panels would provide for all the electricity needs in the US.
The article (sorry, can't find it online) suggested filling a small piece of Nellis AFB with panels spaced for easy servicing and so they don't interfere with each other. Or replacing existing power plants with panels as they come offline. Of course this would probably only be feasible in the southwest.

As I understand solar technology, the current 'state of the art' is solar thermal - a bunch of panels all reflecting to a central "tank" filled with a salt/magnesium liquid compound that heats up and is used to generate steam, which in turn generates electricity.

Picture here:
http://www.nrel.gov/data/pix/Jpegs/00036.jpg

For lots of pics go here:
http://www.nrel.gov/data/pix/searchpix.cgi?query =S OLAR+-+THERMAL+and+Solar+Two&display_type=tiled&ma x_display=20&search_home=searchpix_visual.html

Sun->heat->steam->electricity.

PopSci has a tendency to stretch their stories for the dramatic, but if this is even remotely true we need to implement this technology asap.

Re:A different view of the California power proble

[Black Parrot]

> You can't blame your power company for selling outside the state. They are being forced to sell power at a fraction of the cost, so naturally they want to minimize losses and sell as little as possible in CA. Don't forget that their stock holders could sue them for doing anything else.

Just a reminder that the CA legislation that set this situation up was pushed by the utilites, not evile government bureaucrats, and it was rammed through the legislature almost without the public knowing what was going on. The day after the vote all the CA newspapers said was that residential consumers were going to get a 10% rate cut out of the deal... They forgot to mention that the utilities got a $28.5 billion bailout as part of the deal.

I don't know whether the utilities deliberately set up a scam, as geekoid suggests, or whether they merely miscalculated the probable outcome of the screwing they gave the citizens of CA; either way, I'm having a bit of difficulty working up any sympathy for them.

And what solution do the utilities want now? Another bailout, of course. Even people who think regulation is evile should realize that deregulation designed by the utilities is never going to yeild a satisfactory solution.

--

Fuck you again, California

[tbo]

[rant]As a BC resident, I say again, Fuck you, California. First, you drive our natural gas prices through the roof, causing our poor old ladies who can no longer afford their heating bills to freeze their little fannies off in our Canadian winter. Now, you buy tons of our power, and stiff us for it, all the while begging us not to stop giving more to you. Goddamn surfer-boy Golden State assholes.[/rant]

I've got news for you: our power comes from hydro dams, and it's been a dry year. Every megawatt-hour we sell you is one less we'll have in the summer. Not only have we been stiffed for over $200 million, but we may have to buy power or be facing brownouts this summer because we depleted our hydro reserves to save your asses. BC Hydro is a government-owned corporation, so that $200 million comes straight out of our pockets. You people are thieves on a state-wide scale.

Don't give me any bullshit about the money being owed to us by private companies instead of the entire state. You've made it effectively impossible to build power plants in your state (especially nuclear plants). Your half-assed deregulation forced those companies out of business, so the blame lies with the voters. How the hell did you think it would work to deregulate the wholesale supply of power, but not the sale of power to consumers? Has anyone there heard of economics?

Moderators: Yes, this is inflammatory, but it happens to be how I feel. It's also true, to the best of my knowledge. If you happen to be from California, I'd much rather hear your side of the story than just see a "-1: Inflammatory" or something.

One more message to everyone in California, especially L.A. Go out and rent "Trigger Effect" (assuming you still have power for your VCR). You'll understand when you watch it...

Marxism has never been tried.

[DunbarTheInept]

What you described was socialism. No countries have ever really tried a Marxist government yet. The USSR was not communist, despite the lip service to the contrary - it was 100% socialist. The "workers" did not control the factories - the government did. BIG difference. The first myth of Marxism is that it's possible.