Energy Crisis: Solutions and More Problems

Re: [“State Looks to Public Power as Solution to Energy Crisis,” James Flanigan, April 8], the solution lies in economics.

You have a supply problem, not enough power to go around.

That begs a number of questions.

* Where are you going to build the plants? No one in California wants a power plant in their backyard.

* Type of fuel. Everyone is considering natural gas. How are you going to get the gas? Pipeline capacity is limited and is running at 100%. Coal? Nuclear? Hydro? Wind power? Solar?

The first three are out. You do not have a coal source nearby, and if you did, the population would not let you burn it. You tried nuclear; that would be the best concentration of infrastructure and power yield. Hydro: You’re out of streams, and the Sierra Club wants to make the situation worse by removing the Glenn Canyon Dam. The last two sources are not dependable.

GORDON BADER

Paradise Valley, Ariz.

*

Gov. Gray Davis’ plan to nationalize the state’s power grid and impose a state power authority on California is something I would have expected from the leaders of East Germany or North Korea, not the governor of the seventh-largest industrial power in the world.

What happened in 1996 to the electric utility industry was not “deregulation.” A better term would be “forced restructuring.”

Given that the private utilities were forced to sell their generating capacity and buy their power in a totally artificial spot market, while the public power agencies were not forced to submit to these restrictions, it should come as no surprise that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the other public entities, which still have their generating capacity and could always sign long-term contracts, have done a better job in the short run of providing power.

What does come as a surprise to me is the argument, which you seem to accept uncritically, that because the public entities were not subjected to forced restructuring, that proves public ownership is a superior way of transmitting and distributing power.

Nationalization is a natural outgrowth of the same regulatory philosophy and hubris that lead in the first instance to forced restructuring. Like forced restructuring, nationalization will fail. It’s just unfortunate that it’s going to take 30 years and billions of dollars in unnecessarily high electricity costs for California to figure that out.

GERALD R. LAMPTON

La Crescenta