A California tale

The adventures of Wally the Watt

By Steven T. Jones and Elizabeth McCarthy / ALTERNET.ORG

02.05.01 | Once upon a time, in the kingdom of California, there was a watt named Wally. Wally was an energetic young lad, a boy who worked hard on his family's farm. He was schooled in the traditional ways of life and learned his lessons well.

Wally's family farm grew, processed and delivered electricity -- a potent juice prized throughout the land. His was a simple life, and he would amuse himself by hopping and skipping through the fields with his many brothers and sisters, darting around like fireflies on a warm summer's eve.

But it wasn't all fun and games on the prosperous farm, for Wally and his siblings had important jobs to do. Under the guidance of their parents --Peegee and Andy -- Wally and his siblings planted the seeds of electrons, made sure they grew safe and strong, harvested the crop and processed it into electricity.

Wally's family farm holdings were called PG&E Farms, a name his parents cleverly derived from blending their two first names. They were one of the three largest electricity farming families in California, along with the Edisons of Southern California and Stan Diego's family in the far south.

All three agricultural empires were vast and powerful, but growing electricity was an expensive process, so each family's operation was also supported by thousands of investors, who bought stock in the family farm. After the crop was harvested and taken to market, the shareholders reaped a share of the profits.

Taking the crop to market was Wally's favorite part of his farm duties. He knew how much people loved and needed their high-powered juice, so each delivery filled him with pride. Electricity brought such light and warmth into people's lives that they considered it as essential as air or water.

With a bright smile on his face and a tune on his lips, Wally traveled the lines through California's verdant fields and sparkling cities, delivering his family's powerful juice to factories, schools and homes.

After many years of traveling the same lines, Wally came to know the routes well. He knew when he needed to work up a head of steam to carry a difficult section, and when he could take it easy. During the summers, Wally delivered extra juice to cool California's Central Valley, where it was hot and dry. Winters always brought extra trips to the beautiful Pacific Northwest to protect against the cold air.

Wally's work was steady and predictable: Plant the seeds, harvest the crop, process the juice and take it to market. That was the routine he knew from as far back as he could remember. Wally came to know his customers well, and they knew Wally as a reliable, hard-working young fellow.

Now, Wally's family was always well-paid for its crops ... very well paid. In fact, that's where the trouble began. The price that customers in California paid for the electricity crop was set by Lord PUC, a powerful commissioner who worked with a panel of advisers.

Wally's family was wealthy and well-established in California, so they were held in high esteem by Lord PUC, who always made sure the PG&E Farms and its investors could depend on a handsome profit.

Not all of Wally's customers were happy with the arrangement. People like Irene Industry, Bobby Small Business, Carl Corporation and even Joe Ratepayer complained that the subjects of other kingdoms paid just two pieces of gold for the same juice that cost Californians three gold pieces.

Why, it's just not fair!" rose the cry across the land. "We must do something!" Carl and Irene went so far as to threaten to grow their own electricity, and they were two of Wally's family's biggest customers. If they stopped buying Wally's juice, then the farm just wouldn't be prosperous.

Wally's family and other farmers knew they had to act and hired old members of the king's court to protect their businesses. Their savvy consultants roamed the palace hallways and met with their rulers, including Lord PUC and members of the Parliament.

The hired influence-peddlers pointed out to the rulers that electricity farming was more expensive in California because their enlightened subjects had demanded that farmers be kind to their environment and capitalize on sun, wind and water power. There was also a period when the families were encouraged to try nuclear-powered farming, which proved to be expensive. So the price of electrical juice had to go up.

But once the tide of revolt began among the rabble, it was hard to stop. Hearing the cries of the disgruntled citizens, Lord PUC even joined in the chorus, "We must appease our subjects." And the kingdom's powerful leaders took note -- and opened their pockets to campaign contributions from farmers across the country who wanted to grow electricity in California, including Irene and Carl.

After their pockets were full and the arguments were argued, California's leaders decided the best way to bring down prices was to free the electricity market from Lord PUC's control, divide up PG&E Farms among many different farmers and let them compete with each other. Their vying for market share would set the price of juice.

Peegee and Andy weren't so sure they wanted to sell their beloved farms, but Lord PUC promised they would be showered with more gold than they had ever seen, far more than their farms were worth, if they would sell most of their vast holdings. You see, Lord PUC promised to force Wally's customers to pay for all the bad investments PG&E Farms had made on their behalf over the years, such as their nuclear-powered farm in Diablo Canyon.

Eventually, Wally's parents started to like the idea of selling the farm and slowing down a little. So they sold all but a small part of their property and stashed away their newfound fortune. After that, the only job for Wally and his family was to deliver the crop to a newfangled "free" market, a crop that was now produced mostly by out-of-kingdom farmers.

And that's when Wally's life changed, and in such a way that he could never have imagined. Wally was still doing his favorite part of the job, delivering the dynamic commodity to market. But he now worked for many different farmers, none of whom he knew and who had odd family names like Duke, Reliant and Dynegy.

Wally had always known his customers, but now he was told to travel unfamiliar lines and deliver the charged juice to customers he had never met. Often, he had to travel great distances, delivering the crop to other kingdoms even as Californians went hungry.

"It's a new world, kid," Wally was told by one of his new bosses. "Yesterday may have been all about keeping the juice flowing throughout the kingdom. But tomorrow ... tomorrow is about making mounds of money. It'll be great, kid, you'll see."

Four years later ... Dec. 12, 2000 BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! In a smoke-filled barroom, Wally and his co-workers automatically check their pagers. Unlike the old days, Wally was now always on call, expected to zip out at a moment's notice when one of the farmers makes a big electricity sale.

"Damn, it's mine," says Wally. "Gotta fly, boys." Wally hit the bathroom on the way out, just to splash some water on his face and try to get his head together. He'd been hanging out here with his electron buddies for two days now, killing time, just waiting for the call that would send him flying out the door to ... where was he headed? In days of yore, he would be en route to Washington in December, but these days, he hadn't a clue as to where he'd jet off to next.

"Jesus H. Christ," Wally mumbled to himself. "Arizona-such a dull, dry place." Here he was, charged with delivering California-grown electricity to the people in other kingdoms, at a time when his people were facing rationing and paying more than ever for the stuff. Instead, he was delivering a load to customers in the kingdom of friggin' Arizona.

"Oh, well," Wally sighed, "a job's a job." He used to get more upset about the injustice of it all, and how his new job made him feel like a traitor to the suffering people of his own kingdom. But these days, there aren't a whole lot of other lines of work for a young charge with enormous energy bills of his own to pay.

Besides, Wally was in demand like never before, as a growing population in the western kingdoms competed to buy up crops from farms that hadn't acquired any new fields for more than 10 years. And in the new system, customers in Arizona had as much right to buy the precious juice as Californians, as long as they met the farmers' high price. In the old days, California customers got served first, but not any more.

Yet these days, Wally had little time to ponder such things, especially given his ever beeping beeper. So Wally hopped onto the grid, took the line down to the old farm in Morro Bay that his parents used to own, but which was now run by Duke Energy. The Dukes were located on the other side of the continent and had bought up a lot of the old electrical fields in the kingdom. Coming in over the ridge and dropping down into the gorgeous estuary of Morro Bay, Wally felt a little nostalgic.

His parents first started farming here back in the '50s, long before he was born. Wally now darted among the circuits, breathing in the clean, salty sea air and remembering more carefree days. Even the circuits on which he danced were soon to change, as Duke planned to upgrade the processing plants with efficient new ones.

Shaking off his reverie, Wally got back into work mode. He said hello to the farm foreman, picked up his load and hopped onto the Arizona-bound line. Wally was just pulling into Phoenix when ... BEEP BEEP BEEP!

"What the hell?" Wally mumbled to himself. "Why is my beeper going off now? I haven't even delivered the load yet." He couldn't believe it when he saw "California" flashing on the pager. He rubbed his eyes and looked around before reading the beeper again. Sure enough, his tired eyes did not deceive him. He figured his beeper had shorted out, as he had never been sent back and forth in one day without dropping the load.

Wally called technical support to let them know his beeper was on the fritz. The tech guy told him that there was nothing wrong with the pager and that he and his load of juice had better head back to California ASAP. Wally thought he'd better check in with the farmer back in Morro Bay.

When Mr. Duke found out Wally was still in Phoenix, he flipped. Wally was baffled and innocently asked what was up. His boss yelled, "$1,400, that is what is up," adding Wally better high-tail it back or he would never work in this business again.

Wally nearly shorted out: $1,400 per megawatt! He'd never seen a crop go for that much! Why, just last May, that same crop was selling for just $47.Unbelievable! Maybe going to Arizona with the electricity reduced the supply in California and made the market grow fonder. To Wally it seemed so pointless and wasteful.

As he reversed course and headed back to his home kingdom, Wally pondered the situation. Why would they order a crop shipment to Arizona if they didn't intend to even use it? And why would that same shipment suddenly be worth an astounding $1,400 back in California? Wally had seen a lot of strange stuff since the so-called free market was unleashed and driven by supply and demand. But this had to be the strangest. He decided to seek the counsel of his father the next time they saw each other.

Dec. 13, 2000 Wally was looking forward to working on home turf in California for a while, but as he was shaving the next morning, his cell phone rang. Wally's stomach tightened. He answered and heard it was Big Bob's voice, one of the farmers he often worked for, and he was screaming incoherently, something about "pinko bureaucrats." Wally wondered how Big Bob could complain given the price of the charged juice climbed steadily to heights never before attained. He suspected the unprecedented fluctuation of the market had pushed the man over the edge.

"Mr. Bob, sir, please slow down," Wally pleaded. "Slow down!" Bob thundered. "For Christ's sake, we are on the brink of war!" Wally held the phone out from his ear and heard him ranting and raving about those "commie feds" and other "muckity mucks," who not only temporarily slashed the price of the electrical crop down to $250 per megawatt, but would soon order all western energy farmers to sell into California.

"That piss-ant price would not even come close to covering the cost of producing the juice," he wailed. And as if that weren't bad enough, the old-time farmers like Peegee and Andy, who now bought and resold Big Bob's power-packed juice, claimed they could no longer afford to buy it.

Big Bob, cursing some more, said it wasn't his fault those "friggin' former farmers" weren't smart enough to cover their costs. Wally wasn't sure what he was talking about, but then remembered hearing one of his delivery buddies mention that the consumers' rates were frozen by Lord PUC and the other rulers, under the assumption that the retail price of the juice would fall under the new system.

And the king, known to all as The Gray One, knew that if he let the price his subjects paid for juice rise as steeply as the electricity farmers had raised their prices, then there would be an open revolt in the kingdom, and The Gray One might even be deposed as king.

Big Bob accused those "illustrious," California-born farmers of being nothing more than old dogs who couldn't learn new tricks. "They just couldn't compete so they had to plead for the King's protection," he snarled. Wally tried to object, given it was his family that Mr. Bob was now calling "old dogs," but just as he was about to confront his irate client, Bob told him to take the next few days off.

"Wow, an unscheduled break," thought Wally, who was used to having only scheduled vacations when there was a crop rotation or other maintenance times at the farms. "And I could really use some time off."

-- Swissrose (cellier@azstarnet.com), February 10, 2001