Electricity Deregulation

Re “Electricity Buyer, Beware,” editorial, March 2: Billions of dollars of assets in existing power plants in California, including our nuclear power plants, are in danger of being lost if deregulation is poorly implemented. These plants were built under a system of regulated monopolies, and their investments were agreed upon by both regulators and utilities. Although the production of nuclear electricity is competitive with almost every other source of power, many plants are burdened with repaying high construction costs. Without allowing the owners of the plants to continue to recover that investment, they will be forced to shut the plants and the state will lose large-scale, stable, non-CO2-emitting sources of power.

Not only would the loss of these plants cause substantial economic dislocations, it would also hurt our efforts to curb global warming gases. Replacing the power from our nuclear plants with electricity from Enron’s coal-burning plants is certainly not a solution to the climate change problem.

EDWARD L. QUINN

Dana Point

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Your editorial mentioned the 10% cut on electric bills but didn’t mention the fact that in the detail portion of your bill is an item listed as a Trust Transfer amount (2).

The footnote for (2) says this charge recovers the financing cost associated with the required 10% rate reduction. I received a 10% reduction of $2.58--big deal! I was charged $3.57 for item (2).

My electric bill is going up--not down--because of the Legislature “looking out for the little guy.”

GERTRUDE HOPE

Covina