THE END of the GRID
STORY SUMMARY
(for complete story see end of this summary)
(subscriber article length: 4,550 words)
[Huck Finn's Electricity Hut is regulated by the State. So Huck can
only charge his customers a moderate fee for service. But one day,
Godzilla comes to town, already in possession of a hundred similar
operations. He offers a pile of money for Huck Finn's Electricity
Hut, and now Godzillacorp has a hundred and one subsidiaries all
over the USA. Clearly, Godzillacorp is an interstate entity, so it
is not subject to the regulations that kept Huck's prices so low in
the past. The laws that once prevented Godzilla from buying up
large numbers of small independent utilities were largely repealed
during the legislative bonanza that brought you Enron. The coup de
grace was the repeal of the Depression-era Public Utility Holding
Company Act last fall. And while the giant lizard is buying up all
the small utility companies, the natural gas needed to generate
electricity is running out. Scarcity will impose cuts in energy
use, and whoever controls the generation and delivery system will be
choosing where to cut. If the weather is harsh (perhaps because of
a radically destabilized climate), access to energy is a matter of
life and death. And if Godzilla is in charge, will Huck and his
dirt-poor client base be around much longer? Deregulation +
arbitrage = hypothermia.
And whom do we find at the heart of all this? Warren Buffett, who
coincidentally had a charity breakfast and golf tournament at Offutt
Air Force base on the morning of 9/11/01with guests including at
least one WTC CEO who was conveniently away from her desk when the
attacks began. Buffett and his invitees were conveniently at the
base when George Bush went there instead of returning to Washington
right after the attacks. We also find Mayo Shattuck, III, the same
key Wall Street player, who, in his previous incarnation, was
directly tied to a large block of United Air Lines put options,
placed right before September 11th. –JAH]
THE END of the GRID
New, Deadly Links between 9/11 and Peak Oil
Enron was Child's Play
Gobbled Utility Companies Will Spur Rapid Decline in Generation,
Transmission Capacity
by
Michael C. Ruppert
(Mayo Shattuck, III – photo Constellation Energy Group Web Site)
January 4, 2006 0800 PST (FTW) – With the eagerness and drive of a
baseball player on steroids, the largest financial powerhouses in
the nation have been gobbling up publicly owned utilities since
George W. Bush signed the new energy bill last fall. It is not just
that ownership of these life-essential services is being
concentrated in a few rich and unregulated hands — it is the
identities of the owners that should make worry about what's coming.
If the writing on this wall got any clearer, you'd need to buy a box
of popcorn and sit down for the horror show.
Best get a blanket and some long johns first.
Since the passage of America's most recent energy bill on August
8th, many public utilities have been acquired by some of the
wealthiest people on the planet. With the loss of public regulation
that came with the repeal of the Public Utility Company Holding Act
as part of that measure, these "cash cows," to which tens of
millions of people make monthly payments, are being converted into
liquid giants that can be used to acquire other utility companies,
or to trade ever-diminishing energy resources for profit. There is
no rationing by government yet, only the rationing of the "free
markets." That's only until the wheels come off and Peak Oil and Gas
trigger uprisings and "civil unrest" (I absolutely detest that term –
the word is "riot," and it is not solved by a quick second or third
mortgage). Only then will government step in, and then only to try
and prop up the façade of a sustainable paradigm of infinite growth.
Instead of maintaining the grid for as long as possible, these
amalgamating giants will now accelerate its demise. What is about to
happen is the living embodiment of a statement made by a Dutch
economist at a Paris Peak Oil conference in the spring of 2003: "It
may not be profitable to slow decline."
No more will utilities invest ratepayers' money in extra capacity
for the 20-year drought, the 50-year heat wave or the 100-year cold
snap. Instead, every ounce of extra capacity will be sold off, under-
maintained, or discontinued to maximize cash on hand for the next
buyout or LBO. Ratepayer money will be used for the benefit of
shareholders, not ratepayers. When it comes time to decide whether
to make a handsome profit or keep people warm, there won't even be a
debate. These privately owned giants will be able to arbitrage
energy to the highest bidder. They will be able to buy other,
smaller entities just as the major oil companies have been doing for
decades, adding the smaller companies' reserves and net profits onto
their price/earnings (P/E) ratios.
found at
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/010306_end_grid_summary.shtml
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