Frontlines

Deck: 
Gas pipelines compete against electric transmission lines. And the pipes are winning.
Fortnightly Magazine - June 15 2001
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Frontlines

The Grid Is Dead

 

 

Gas pipelines compete against electric transmission lines. And the pipes are winning.

Last month, somebody gave me a copy of what looks likes a purloined private, inside-the-company newsletter put together by an association of power traders. Let me try to share some of it with you.

In one column, the editor reported on a speech he gave at the monthly meeting of the Women of LA, held at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel, where, as he puts it, the ladies looked like they had just stepped in for lunch after their weekly Bridge or Ma Jong game. The editor saw them as friendly and hospitable, but at the same time, "very pro-Democrat" and "very anti-us." In fact, the editor says that by the time he took the stage, he was put back on his heels, forced to defend power generators against what he described as a lynch-mob mentality.

Earlier, when TV actor Dennis Weaver (Gunsmoke) took the podium, and he urged everyone to embrace conservation and replace fossil fuels with hydrogen (e.g., fuel cells and such), the editors says the ladies just plain broke out in applause. The editor adds that their enthusiasm for Weaver even exceeded their love for consumer advocate (and former Fortnightly author) Peter Navarro, who talked about how the power generators had manipulated prices and pocketed those obscene profits.

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