Of Hearts, Minds and Megawatts
For energy executives and public policy makers alike, fear has become the weapon of choice in the California energy fiasco. Christmas lights, the Internet, utility bankruptcy, hot tubs, electric cars, the winter past and the summer to come--Californians have been made to fear all these and more. It’s psychological warfare, and the varying motives are not difficult to decipher.
A California afraid of plunging into darkness is a California that might look the other way when environmentally dubious power plants are proposed. It is a California more likely to grant the big utilities their multibillion-dollar bailout. It is also, yes, a California that will become more serious about conserving electricity come next summer. That the goals in some cases are laudable does not make the tactic any less offensive to those on the receiving end.
Rolling blackouts--and Tuesday the state was enduring its second consecutive day of them--can be seen as the atomic bomb in the arsenal of the energy fear merchants. Rolling blackouts, threatened or real, bring to the scene an element of chaos. The very phrase seems ominous, stirring images of something terrible, loose and on the run.
Fortunately, there is a way out, a move that in a single stroke could strip away uncertainty, put California back in control of its roiling energy situation and maybe even take some cash out of the wallets of electricity gougers to boot. Next slide, please.
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The idea is this: Install a system of mandatory, well-managed shutdowns, rotated up and down the state in a pre-scheduled pattern. Any Californian now vulnerable to rolling blackouts would participate, going dark for a few hours a week--same day, same time. How long these shutdowns would last, and how many days a week each electricity user might be tapped, would be calculated according to how much California demand must be reduced this summer in order to stay comfortably below the supply curve.
I’ll leave the accounting to the accountants, but if all involved went dark for a few peak hours a day, say, twice a week, it would go a long way toward meeting the governor’s call for a 20% reduction. We’d be starting where Davis wants to end--rebates galore! Yes, there would be inconvenience, but there would not be uncertainty. The fear merchants would be disarmed.
For a precedent look to the 1970s oil crisis. Faced with ghastly lines at gas stations, Californians turned to a system based on the last digit of license plates. Those with plates ending in an odd number gassed up one day. Those with even-numbered plates did so the next. I can’t remember if I was an odd or an even, but what I do recall is that in no time the system seemed almost routine.
The same could happen with mandatory blackouts or “electricity reduction days,” as they might be called. This system would offer some obvious advantages. Manufacturers, shops and restaurants could plan ahead. They could send workers home early, adjust production schedules, bring in backup generators, secure the merchandise, put the meat back in the freezer and so forth. Residents, too, could prepare. Lay in ice. Take medical precautions where needed. Make alternative plans for a few electricity-free hours, a couple of days a week.
It’s not as if they were being asked to storm Omaha Beach.
They could deal with it.
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Why has this route not been taken? Maybe the policymakers believe it’s better to squeak by day-to-day than bite the bullet and proactively reduce electricity demand. To sell such a plan, Gray Davis first would need to convince Californians that, after a summer of sacrifice, they would emerge triumphant, that the energy breakdown would be fixed in a large and lasting way. It’s not clear at this point he has that big idea yet, that winning vision.
For their part, the utility people say they are afraid pre-planned blackouts would encourage criminal behavior. They imagine looters and burglars prowling darkened streets. I don’t buy it. For starters, the summertime peak times tend to fall during the extended daylight hours. Moreover, police officers informed in advance of power outages certainly would be better prepared to deal with potential mischief than those who this week learned about the rolling blackouts on the fly. If need be, the National Guard could be leaned on.
Better still, residents could organize by blocks and appoint wardens to keep watch during the appointed hours--just like the World War II blackout drills. It might even turn out to be fun. And, yes, it might also turn out to be overkill. If so, if it turns out the threats of a summer of blackouts were overblown and California reduced electricity demand far more than was needed, who would be hurt? Only energy profiteers and gougers. What a pity.
