Document Type
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BL
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Record Number
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700576
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Doc. No
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b522765
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Main Entry
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Sweeney, James L.
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Title & Author
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The California electricity crisis /\ James L Sweeney.
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Publication Statement
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Stanford, Calif. :: Hoover Institution Press :: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research,, c2002.
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Series Statement
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Hoover Institution Press publication ;; no. 513 [i.e. 503]
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Page. NO
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xii, 291 p. :: ill. (some col.), col. maps ;; 24 cm.
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ISBN
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0817929118 (casebound : alk. paper)
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: 0817929126 (pbk : alk. paper)
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: 9780817929114 (casebound : alk. paper)
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: 9780817929121 (pbk : alk. paper)
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Bibliographies/Indexes
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Contents
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1. Introduction and overview -- 2. California's restructuring: turning opportunity into risk: -- California utilities before restructuring -- The changing federal regulatory structure -- Opening transmission networks -- Impacts on California electricity before restructuring -- Motivations for California electricity deregulation -- California public utilities commission leadership -- Wholesale markets under the restructured system -- Municipal utilities -- 3. The challenge: -- The nature of challenge -- Electricity supply and demand patterns -- Wholesale price increases -- Why did wholesale prices increase so much? -- California-controlled wholesale price controls -- The financial challenge -- State policy responses during the challenge period -- 4. Through crisis: -- The nature of crisis -- The electricity crisis -- The financial crisis -- State and federal policy responses -- California policy during the crisis: a critique -- 5. From crisis to blight: -- Long-term electricity purchase contracts -- Electricity revenue bonds -- Inclusion of the utilities' past crisis costs in future electricity rates -- Paying sunk costs through future electricity prices -- Elimination of direct access -- State power authority -- 6. Policy options: what next?: -- Improve regional integration -- Improve California electricity markets -- Improve risk management -- Manage California's financial obligations.
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Abstract
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"California began the decade of the 1990s with a vertically integrated electric power system that had been working reasonably well under regulation. Still, there were opportunities for improvement. Although some reasons offered for restructuring were unrealistic, sufficiently valid reasons existed to proceed. There was, however, risk from the very beginning that things could go wrong - and go wrong they did.".
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"The restructuring, often mischaracterized as "deregulation," put the state and the investor-owned utilities in an inappropriately risky economic position. The risks became realities as the perfect storm hit California's electric system. The western states failed to build new generation capacity to match their growth in power consumption. Problems became apparent in the new California wholesale markets. Low rainfall in the Pacific Northwest curtailed hydroelectric generation and precipitated an electricity shortage. The challenge to California was serious and difficult.
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The California Electricity Crisis details the events that ultimately led to the crisis: the policy decisions, consequences of those decisions, and alternatives that could have averted the crisis and the current blight."--BOOK JACKET.
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Subject
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Electric industries-- California.
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Subject
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Electric utilities-- Government policy-- California.
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Subject
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Energy policy-- California.
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LC Classification
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HD9685.U63C357 2002
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