California ends blackouts as Canadian company steps in

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California ends blackouts as Canadian company steps in

WebPosted Wed Jan 17 22:45:05 2001 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - A Canadian power producer came to the rescue of California Wednesday, enabling the state to cancel power outages, at least for now.

"We suspended the blackouts, but we may re-order them later this afternoon," Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for the state agency overseeing supply, told Reuters. Officials declined to name the Canadian company.

Earlier in the day hundreds of thousands of people in California had been left in the dark for 60-90 minutes at a time as the state imposed rolling electricity blackouts in an effort to cope with the shortage of power.

In communities across northern and central California traffic lights went out, automatic teller machines shut down and elevators stopped working. Affected areas include San Francisco, Sacramento, Modesto and Turlock.

Utilities were trying to keep essential services such as hospitals up and running.

Deregulation by the state has resulted in the state's two largest utilities teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. While wholesale prices for energy have risen, a rate freeze has prevented the companies from passing the increase on to consumers.

The uncertainty has prompted suppliers to stop trading with the state, in spite of a federal law requiring them to do so. Compounding the problem is a state and national energy shortage.

The state legislature is planning to buy power itself and sell it at a reduced cost to the utilities. The plan has passed the house and needs the approval of the Senate before it goes ahead.

http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/01/17/california_010117

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 17, 2001

Answers

B.C. could lose big in California power crunch WebPosted Wed Jan 17 22:46:59 2001

VANCOUVER - The energy crisis in California could hit the B.C. government, which sells millions of dollars of power to a utility company there on the brink of bankruptcy.

California deregulated its power industry in 1996, allowing companies to sell power on the open market. Some of them initially made profits, but now several are almost broke.

B.C. Hydro enters the crisis because it sells power to Southern California Edison, a utility company that has announced it can't pay $596 million US to various creditors.

It's unclear how much the California company owes B.C. Hydro.

B.C. Premier Ujjah Dosanjh says a planned rebate to make up for high natural gas prices can't happen until he knows how the California crisis affects B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro has boasted of huge profits from selling electricity through its subsidiary, PowerEx.

The company's Web site says export sales came in at more than $1.1 billion in 2000, up from $740 million the year before.

Much of its profit comes from California, where dry weather has reduced the capacity to generate hydro-electric power and a rising economy has created high demand.

http://cbc.ca/cgi- bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/01/17/bc_power010117#links

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 17, 2001.


Our 6 p.m. MST tv news said the California company owed BC Hydro over $200 million Cdn and that BC Hydro had quietly "pulled the switch" and was no longer selling to it. It also mentioned the decision to stop the planned rebate to B.C. power consumers.

The unidentified Canadian company in the first article is probably TransAlta--bad news for Albertans. Power prices to consumers here have already more than doubled in the past few months, and the sale of electricity to California will cause our rates to rise even more. We are losing many small businesses because of it.

Our red-nosed premier is famous for saying long ago, "Let the eastern b******* freeze in the dark." It won't be long before he'll be able to say that about us.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), January 18, 2001.


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