[balrog666]

The cause of the California energy crisis was a lack of price response on the part of the consumer combined with panic buying on the part of the DWR, all worked into a dysfunctional regulatory system that was pointed out early in the process as having problems.

An excellent summation.

[Robert357]

Thank you. There are lots and lots of third and fourth order causes of the California energy crisis and some of them are due to price gouging, but the big reasons have nothing to do with Enron, Calpine, Duke, Reliant, etc. One would have expected the price of power in California to be high based on the PNW dought and the high Canadian price of natural gas. However, the big reasons that really drove up the price of power in California are too close to home for incumbent elected officials to complain about.