Enron Corporation may have declared bankruptcy in 2001, but the company’s effect on America’s electric grid can still be seen today in states like California and Texas, where power prices are soaring and reliability is declining. The push to treat electricity as a commodity instead of a service is particularly punishing in California, where electricity prices are increasing three times faster than in the rest of the U.S.
And , the EU farmers are also in the game ….
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/02/01/eu-farmers-escalate-protests-france-concedes-to-demands/
if the Cali folks could do likewise …
“Free market, my @ss!”. Demanding “green” sources, and paying no attention to dispatchability of sources led to the usual socialist distortions.
G W Bush was (a) not very bright, and (b) sympathetic with the greens.
And the current administration is working hard to make the Carter Administration look like Rock Stars, and they are succeeding mightily.
He walked the walk while Gore profited from creating the walk.
Yes, but strike “was” insert “is”
Check out the episode. Perhaps you will add (c) “not all alone”, and (d) “lining his pockets.”
If you have not met him, be careful about calling him “ not very bright“. The caricature does not match many of the life details.
The less generous proposition is that he is a crook, deliberately manipulating position in government to benefit himself and his cronies.
The charitable interpretation is that he has been duped into doing pretty much the same thing.
It’s very hard to see anyone who hasn’t already made up their mind getting anything out of the first half of this video. It jumps around and does not factually substantiate a lot of assertion. Maybe they should have started with “deregulation was re-regulation which was misrepresented and undetected by those whose responsibility it was to know better” and worked from there.
I also wonder if they will get around to how much Enron found global warming a profit opportunity.
‘…should have started with “deregulation was re-regulation which was misrepresented…’
IMO the initial ‘deregulation’ of generation, i.e., the mandated sale of these assets by utilities is / was a good thing, since it removed these assets from the rate base of regulated monopolies.
Unfortunately, this was followed by a torrent of really bad ‘reregulation’, including rules against utilities purchasing energy forward, which is how ENRON gamed the CA market, and, of course, the whole gamut of current ‘renewable energy’ mandates and subsidies.
“ push to treat electricity as a commodity instead of a service “
Exactly right! Electric service is much more than random, sporadic, wildly fluctuating or totally absent energy inputs .
So start with what electric service is:
A utility must provide electricity to any customer that shows up, with a few cost and special characteristics of customer loads.
The utility must provide for 24/7/365 continuous 60 Hz frequency, specific customer voltage, current demands and power factor requirements (varies with customer choices in approved residential, commercial, municipality or industrial options).
Electric service is defined, costs allocated, and prices set by regulators–with typically many social/political constructs involved.
As one commenter said…many important service requirements are hidden by regulators, at state and national levels.
One unmentioned, but critically important high cost to customers (and taxpayers) are the grid costs of equipment, maintenance and fuel to of provide “make up” energy and capacity for the radically different “green” sporadic, unpredictable, undispatchable, closer to worthless “green” sources.
Carbon offset credits/costs (depending on selling or buying) are purely adminstratively created and deployed…a massive cost to the productive economy with no connection to electric service.
I’m sure there are many more hidden costs along with the hidden performance of “green” on a minute to minute, hour to hour basis.
Great documentary. And a curse on those who want to build a system that only works for elites while destroying the lives of the poor, in the name of saving the planet from an imaginary threat. There will be a reckoning, I am sure.
Enron Corporation may have declared bankruptcy in 2001, but the company’s effect on America’s electric grid can still be seen today in states like California and Texas, where power prices are soaring and reliability is declining.
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An very enlightening video if all the info in it is accurate.
Govt bureaucrats in states like California are so intoxicated on what they perceive as their self-righteousness and virtuosity they cannot and refuse to see the problems they are creating for its grid — and for the low income families who have trouble affording their electric bill. When we add in the climate alarmist narrative, it becomes doubly hard to convince those bureaucrats of the mess they are creating.
Any change in direction in California would have to come from Washington (and probably Trump) if the state is to avoid continuing down this road to Hell. I don’t even know when the state opened its last fossil-fueled base load power plant. Unless it goes back to building them, the blackouts/brownouts and eye-opening power bills are likely to continue.
As I’ve said in the past, will the last person out of California please remember to turn off the lights? Or perhaps I should make that candles and lanterns.
The lights will go out automatically — probably before the last person leaves.
Quiet Friday a the office so I Googled a link to here. First result:
“Watts Up With That? is a blog promoting climate change denial that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006. The blog predominantly discusses climate issues with a focus on anthropogenic climate change, generally accommodating beliefs that are in opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change. Wikipedia”
“promoting climate change denial”
“in opposition to the scientific consensus”
Sigh.
And the founder of Wiki’ has the temerity to claim it is unbiased when I told him I would not contribute to his solicitation for money because it was biased with regard to political topics.
Which ones?
You just read an example.
In other news….scientists warn that climate change may be bad for bats….and it’s not just from windmills. Scientists know little about bats but apparently enough to declare a negative outcome…always declare a negative outcome for….climate change, see? Oh, the little bats!
As usual, “climate change” will do nothing to bats. On the other hand, “climate change POLICIES” will cause mass carnage to bats (among other things).
The only problem I have with this is that they blame energy disruption in the past on deregulation and energy disruption now on regulation.
Enron justly gets blame for its market manipulation, but from my observation it was not exactly alone in pushing for deregulation and re-regulation, with banks very much at the heart of the action. Probably one of the biggest enablers was the Commodities Exchange Modernisation Act, 2000, which exempted swaps and futures and other financially traded derivatives from significant oversight. The difference between financially based derivatives and forward trading is that there is no exposure to actually making or taking real delivery – only to the price at which the derivative is settled.
If you have to make or take delivery then you must have a real supply or a real outlet. If you are not a real supplier or user, then you must square your position in a real market. Of course, real markets can still be manipulated by very wealthy hoarders and governments, but the real money is in being able to gear positions financially.
If your position is purely financial, so long as you have access to collateral to back it, you can use shere weight of money to push markets in illogical directions, probably sucking in more punters who can’t believe that the real market conditions they see won’t get reflected in prices. You don’t have to square your position, because that happens automatically when the derivative expires. Banks are where the money is. They are also where many former Enron traders (at least those who weren’t indicted) continued their careers.