Posted on 03/13/2002 9:08:39 AM PST by xsysmgr
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:38:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
While Enron is dead, the grip of its cold, dead hand on the nation's economy is not. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is busily implementing a new scheme of increased regulatory intervention that was long sought by the now defunct company because it would benefit the company's business operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Enron_List:
| To find all articles tagged or indexed using Enron_List, click below: | ||||
| click here >>> | Enron_List | <<< click here | ||
| (To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
The RTO's were conceived as way of streamlining power deliveries from one market to another across state lines seamlessly, instead of the uncoordinated way it is down now. Whether that will have the unintended consequences that are predicted here, I'm not sure.
This deserves closer inspection.
This article was really poorly done. IMO, not up to the WT's usual standards.
No, more like a bunch of half truths. I have mixed feelings about the 4 RTO idea. FERC has been pushing for a market based and deregulated transmission system for over a decade. Some of the stuff in the RTO instructions is just things that were debated long ago in NOPR 888, 888A and 889.
Cost benefit studies have shown that "economic dispatch" of larger power pools will create more power and lower costs to the nation. The author's statement about RTO's not having capital or financial incentives to build more stuff, clearly shows he has never contemplated an FTO (Financial Transmission Obligations), where parties agree to pay transmission constraint prices based on enery zonal price differences. But hey only a real power geek would read that stuff or how ancillary transmission services are to be priced.
The half the power is interstate is just a mis statemetn. Half may be being sold in the wholesale markets, but almost all of all power is regulated by FERC as part of its duty to regulate transmission that is used for interstate commerce.
What kept jumping out at me was how off one wall and then the other wall many of the comments were. Like hey let's not deregulate because it was bad and enron proves it. Then on the otherhand let's not go with a centrally planned transmission system, because that is bad. We can't trust non profits to do things right because they are not motivated by profit. But wait didn't this start and end with profit hungry Enron wanted this so it must be bad?
I think that this is another example of someone writing about something they don't know enough about and just being silly in the process.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.