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

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]

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

[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.

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

[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.

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

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.

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.

--

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...