Perspective

Saving California with Distributed Generation

A crash program to use small, standby diesel generators to keep the lights on.

Fire up all the small, diesel-powered emergency generating units already installed on site in California. It would erase the power shortage, but it won’t happen without changing the way we think about unit dispatch.

Perspective

The argument is clever but not really symmetrical.

1. the incumbent utility companies should not have been promised an opportunity to recover the costs that everybody thought would be stranded by deregulation (he obviously includes himself among the "soreheads" who opposed the idea, insisting that "these behemoths should be treated just like everyone else who made investments that didn't pan out");

Perspective

I wanted deregulation. But not if we can't do it right.


I wanted deregulation. But not if we can't do it right.

As an economist, I confess I failed to predict the disaster in California. But I wasn't the only one. Anybody who tells you differently is either lying, fooling himself, or guilty of Monday morning quarterbacking.

Perspective

Why rural electric cooperatives should test the equity markets.


Why rural electric cooperatives should test the equity markets.