Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com> wrote:
The Enviro-Nazis are at it again, demonstrating why no new power plants have been built here, in the past 15 years.
Did you live in SV during the late 70s Roeland? I did and remember its pre-"Enviro-Nazi" smog all too well. Some days you couldn't even see _3_blocks_. I don't suppose the thousands of people who have avoided lung and other cancers because of clean air regulation would rather go back to the way it was to avoid any number of blackouts. Pollution trade-offs aside there's no rational way to blame clean-air regulations for California's power problem. Nor can you blame the states virtually stagnant demand. There is more than enough power and the cost to produce it hasn't changed significantly for decades. What has changed is the market. A) out of state hold-backs forcing spot-market and other prices (though not costs) up mainly thanks to B) Ronald Regan, who dismantled the forward thinking energy policies worked out by Ford and Carter after the (Arab) oil embargo.
Between the enviro-nazis and the no-nukes folks (they *are* different groups), California has been dead-locked on power plant construction for almost 20 years.
Roeland's diatribe should be the tip-off. "Just build more {power plants, freeways, nuclear, etc.}" will only get us more {acid rain sterilized lakes, urban blight, Chernobyl radiated milk, Mexico City smog, ...}.
This, in a population so brainwashed, it actually wants to pay more taxes, even when they are already taxed at the 60% level.
Brainwashed in Morgan Hill perhaps. Anyhow, I hope this manufactured "crisis" will at least get solar, wind, and co-generation back on track before further Regan/Bush anti-environment, pro-business-monopoly, short-sighted policies make life just that much worse for us and those who will be living here 50 and 100 years from now. -- Roger Marquis Roble Systems Consulting http://www.roble.com/