Newspaper logo  
 
 
   Electricity Deregulation: Two Years to A Possible Economic Train Wreck for Marylanders

COMMENTARY:

Electricity Deregulation: Two Years to A Possible Economic Train Wreck for Marylanders

by J. Russell Tyldesley

What will happen to the individual homeowner by 2006, when the caps come off and the Public Utility Commission fades into obscurity?
Why does the deregulation of electricity feel like an impending train wreck? Does anyone remember how we got talked into this? Were we given a choice? I vaguely remember our legislators approving this scheme several years ago, but I was busy with other things ( like a rigged election ) and wasn't paying enough attention. And besides, it wouldn't hit us until 2006, and that seemed so far in the future. This was, of course, way before Enron. The meaning of Enron still remains not fully explicated, and with Arnold now running things in California, we may never have our day in court. Is anyone checking with our closest allies in Great Britain on why they reversed their deregulation? Is it too late to learn from experience?

All these suppressed uneasy feelings rushed back to the surface when I read in the Baltimore Sun (4/2) that the State of Maryland had reverse-auctioned its electricity requirements and claims to have "trimmed its electric bill by more than an estimated $3 million over the next two years."

I'm not sure what "more than an estimated" means, but reading a little further, it turns out that $3 million is the estimated reduction of the increase the Maryland will pay. Other large electricity users are also taking bids and locking in rates for the future, even though these rates are more than they are paying now. So, if--with immense bargaining leverage--even the big users are facing rate increases, what will happen to the individual homeowner by 2006, when the caps come off and the Public Utility Commission fades into obscurity?

We can fight big energy only by becoming small energy producers ourselves. Then we won't even care what went on behind those closed door meetings with Dick Cheney.

Will homes be lost to utility liens? There will be little comfort in knowing your house is heated by oil or natural gas. I can probably live in the dark (some would say I already do), but I'm not going without heat or air conditioning. (Hey, look what happened in France last year during their heat wave.)

My prediction is that there will be increased migration to the more temperate zones where heating and air conditioning demand will be less. This will be exacerbated by the baby boomers seeking retirement meccas. This is already evident on the Eastern Shore near the beaches, where a population boom is starting. I'd invest in golf company stocks if I was back to trusting the market. (I'm waiting until they nail Enron, World Com and Tyco executives, among others. I may have a long wait ). But most of the migration to escape utility costs may go further south, so, like alien species, we may have to learn how to adapt to southern hospitality.

Not only will the State of Maryland pay higher rates under the new two-year contract, but most of the money will be going out of the state to Con Edison Solutions in New York and Reliant Solutions of Houston. Did we lose the energy wars? I know the Middle East sucks a lot of our hard-earned surplus wheat by way of the oil cartel, but how much of our treasure do we intend to send to domestic foreign powers?

Well, maybe the people will be able to find an alternative to connecting to the grid by 2006. I do know that if you can produce your own power, the grid must buy it from you--the meters do run both ways. I'll bet they never thought we could get them to run in reverse--that has to be why they let that regulation get through. I'm thinking about hooking up my treadmill to a generator set. I'll report back if it works. The challenge may be to get my cat to work it all night--she is a night person.

There are other possibilities, too. Windmills can be fitted to individual houses if zoning and homeowner association rules permit them, and fuel cell cars may be able to generate and store their own electricity, which could be plugged into the house at night for reverse flow. And, if you want to be really wild, have your own solar array that produces hydrogen fuel.

We'd better get thinking (an advantage we claim over the rest of the world) because, if you haven't noticed yet, all our public assets are being privatized. Nothing is sacred anymore--even our wars are in the hands of profit-making enterprises. We can fight big energy only by becoming small energy producers ourselves. Then we won't even care what went on behind those closed door meetings with Dick Cheney.


J. Russell Tyldesley, an insurance executive, resides in Catonsville, Md.


Copyright © 2004 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved.

Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.

This story was published on April 3, 2004.
  
Bookmark and Share
Local News & Opinion

Ref.: Civic Events

Ref.: Arts & Education Events

Ref.: Public Service Notices

Travel
Books, Films, Arts & Education

05.19 How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and What That Means For Our Kids' Future

05.19 As Schools Crumble: Quiet Call for Revolution in Philly

Letters

Ref. : Letters to the editor

Health Care & Environment

05.21 Rapid Climate Changes Turn North Woods into Moose Graveyard

05.20 Collateral Damage in the Marcellus Shale

05.18 Apple to Use Only Green Power for Main Data Center

05.18 New law makes Vermont the first state to ban fracking

05.18 Department of Energy Pretends that Low Levels of Radiation Are Safe

05.17 Only biofuels will cut plane emissions

05.17 Australasia has hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists find

05.15 Horrific Injuries Linked to BP Dispersant Corexit

05.15 'Last Call at the Oasis': Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water

05.14 German Government to Oppose Fracking

05.11 Petition calls on Brazilian president to veto 'catastrophic' forest code

05.11 Bans on School Junk Food Pay Off in California

05.11 When half a million Americans died and nobody noticed

05.10 Game Over for the Climate

05.10 Pollution: the great leveller

05.10 New study: Amish prove raw milk promotes health in children

05.10 Big Agriculture's Big Secrets: 9 Things You Need to Know About the Food You Eat

Ref. High health-care costs: It’s all in the pricing - graphic

Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians

Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics

Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators

Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)

Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries

“News” Media

05.20 Corporate Media: Dan Rather on Real Time with Bill Maher [video]

Daily The Daily Howler

Justice Matters

05.20 "The Whole System Relies on These Arrests": The NYPD's Racist Marijuana Arrest Crusade And Its National Implications

05.17 Federal court enjoins NDAA

05.16 Is the filibuster unconstitutional?

05.15 MONEY UNLIMITED

05.11 How the Corporate Right Hijacked America's Courts to Enrich the Top 1 Percent

US Politics, Policy & Culture

05.21 The Rise of the New Economy Movement

05.21 Psychiatrist who championed 'gay cure' admits he was wrong

05.16 5 Ways Conservatives are Destroying the Institution of Marriage

05.16 Congress: The TSA Is Wasting Hundreds Of Millions In Taxpayer Dollars

05.16 The Economic Case for Same-Sex Marriage

05.16 If Information Is Power, What Is Lack Of Information? [video]

05.15 IMAGE: It doesn't have to be true, just credible...

05.15 WEDDING BELLS

05.15 Memo to Mitt: Time to Fess Up on Bullying

05.14 “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”

05.14 Hedges: How Our Demented Capitalist System Made America Insane

05.11 Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side

05.11 Fixable Error, New Insight, and Social Security

05.10 Ballot Access

05.10 Christian Conservatives vs. Sex: The Long War Over Reproductive Freedom

05.10 Patriotism! Super Rich Renounce US Citizenship to Make Tax Evasion Easier (And Other Ways the Wealthy Cut Ties to Country)

High Crimes?
Economics, Crony Capitalism

05.21 Heist of the century: Wall Street's role in the financial crisis

05.21 MANIPULATIONS: FACEBOOK is a fiat stock, its valuation is no different than fiat money...

05.21 Obama pledges tough enforcement of Wall Street reforms

05.18 Barack Obama tells EU: boost growth now or face a global crisis

05.18 Bank runs intensifying in the Euro zone

05.18 The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Obama on JPMorgan

05.17 Inside Job, Narrated by Matt Damon (Full Length HD Documentary)

05.17 Nurses vs. High-Speed Traders

05.17 Paul Krugman’s Economic Blinders

05.16 “What Scares Me Isn’t $2 Billion Loss JP Morgan Made, What Scares Me is the Record $19 Billion in Profits” [video]

05.16 Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in 'Naked Short Selling'

05.16 Republican Party suckles at the breast of Big Business

05.16 Weisbrot and Krugman are Wrong: Greece cannot pull off an Argentina

05.15 Greek deadlock heightens fears of full European economic crisis

05.14 Why We Regulate

05.11 Indentured Servitude for Seniors: Social Security Garnished for Student Debts

05.11 Breaking Up Four Big Banks

05.11 Wall Street’s immunity

05.11 How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform

05.11 Michael Hudson: From the Democratic Party to European "Socialists", they manage crisis in the interests of finance [video]

05.10 Real Estate 4 Ransom -- locking up the Great American Dream

05.10 Quelle Surprise! Fed Defends Incompetent Bank Management Against Investors

05.10 Europe’s Problems Multiply

05.10 Michael Hastings & Glenn Greenwald on how media hype about ‘melodramatic’ terrorist plots helps sustain the [profitable] U.S. ‘War on Terror’ [video]

Ref. Nurses vs. High-Speed Traders

Ref. Inside Job, Narrated by Matt Damon (Full Length HD Documentary)

Ref. We’re More Unequal Than You ThinkGraphic: Unequal rise in income

International

05.21 US war veterans tossing medals back at Nato was a heroic act

05.21 Israeli settlers filmed firing guns at [unarmed] Palestinians

05.17 South Sudan slides towards destitution amid border conflict with Sudan

05.15 IDF closes Palestinian school to make way for West Bank training zone

05.14 Noam Chomsky on:
WikiLeaks, Obama’s Targeted Assassinations and Latin America’s Break From the U.S. [video]
Occupy Wall Street "Has Created Something That Didn’t Really Exist" in U.S. — Solidarity [video]
Palestinian Hunger Strike a Protest Against "Violations of Elementary Human Rights" [video]

05.14 INFOGRAPHIC: Gas Spending Around The World

05.14 Graphic: Products of Slavery

05.14 Israel warned of volatile situation as Palestinian hunger strikers near death

05.14 How Right-Wing Extremists and Islamists Are the Same

05.14 Guatemala's land grab and massacre

05.11 U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam

05.11 Thousands of British police join anti-austerity protest

05.10 China Investment Corp. Stops Buying Europe Government Debt on Crisis Concern

We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.

You can also mail a check to:
Baltimore News Network, Inc.
P.O. Box 42581
Baltimore, MD 21284-2581
Google
This site Web


Public Service Ads:
Verifiable Voting in Maryland