Once again, my friend and colleague Marty Rosenberg, find ourselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we have come to the same conclusion. There are massive problems to be solved in the electric industry, costing massive amounts of money, and with very little time to do it.
Interestingly, speaking in Washington yesterday, the NERC Chair and CEO said essentially the same thing: “Frankly, we are at the point where we must consider how to meet our obligations and maintain reliability without all the infrastructure we need – we simply don’t have enough time to solve many of our ‘issues,’ rather we must learn how to manage them." http://pro.energycentral.com/professional/news/power/news_article.cfm?id=9793609
Here is where Marty and I diverge. He places hope in politicians and government. I don't. They got us into this mess, I can't see them getting us out. We all had better hope NERC/FERC and government-controlled utilities are much better at managing this impending crisis than the government is at "managing" most problems. They "managed" us into this one! I can't see them "managing" us out of it. They also are going to have to manage the Global Warming alarmists and the Environazis who apparently would be just as happy to see us move back into the caves. I don't see that happening.
Marty says if people don't step up, "It may be lights out." I agree entirely. And I'm far less optimistic about government/politicians being able to "manage" us out of this one. I think it's just lights out, in about 10 years.
I understand your pessimistic tone, but I don't see any alternative call to arms. If the government and politicians can't resolve all of these issues, which seems like a tall order to me as well, what is the alternative? Is this cursing the darkness or lighting a candle? Or am I running this metaphor into the ground?
A faith-in-the-market alternative, with a complete government withdrawal from regulation and oversight, will not be successful either. While the energy industry may be able to address some of these infrastructure issues by banding together into RTOs and whatnot, letting a thousand flowers bloom seems like a slow, inefficient and ultimately political answer. "We have no answer, so please come back to us later with all of your answers and, if you are lucky, we will then choose one to put into law for the nation, or, if you are unlucky, we will then consider the issue closed." Such an experimental method would then likely lead to either significant wasteful retooling of all of the other systems or the daunting task of coordinating the systems that do bloom without a central directive of how or even to do so.
What gray path shall we tread?
Mark Kaminski
It is time to learn from the emergent future, as synchonicity is very high!
In response to your article and the comment by Mark Kaminski, please take a close look at the alternative - no goverment, nor utilities - in the EWPC article "Global Citizens' Call to Arms," at the link http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2008/2/2...