Comments on: Lights Out on Deregulation https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313 2002-2015 Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:30:35 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.2 By: Danielle https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3648 Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:30:35 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3648 Mr. Kucinich,
I have just finished watching your appearance on David Letterman and am in the process of writing a post highlighting your life and career. I am doing my part in spreading your message of peace as the only catalyst for security. I did not like the attention that was placed on your beautiful wife Elizabeth, however.
But, I must say that any country would be served completely by one who knows love, shares love, and experiences love.

You have my vote and I will do what is in my capacity to spread winds of change. I’ve heard that there is a movement in America, a movement without a leader or a focus.
I say that the movement does have a leader and his name is Dennis J. Kucinich.

Wishing health, balance and joy to you and yours.

Danielle http://www.taureandevi.blogspot.com

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By: Ontario Hydro One https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3647 Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:32:47 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3647 Ontario’s Energy Minister on May 30, 2005 said his government is persuing privatized power for the province.

You can read that from the Ontario Hydro Electricity page and there are 600 more items on the Ontario Electricity Privatization news articles page.

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By: George Mamulashvili https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3646 Tue, 11 May 2004 09:42:55 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3646 April 05,2004 — The information on construction of a huge solar tower of 1000 m in Australia under use of the project of company SBP already for a long time passes in a network, however probably concrete ways of construction is not yet planned. I want to take your attention to that fact, that creation is artificial rotating air weight in a tower will allow to reduce twice almost its height and five times diameter of a solar collector that is to finish a solar factory till the sizes accepted today in construction. My calculations which in due time 1994-1996 were submitted both in SBP, and in IMechE, BMFT and NASA, was give the physical parities determined between difference of temperatures on an input and an output of a tower and a ratio of tower’s diameter and a solar collector at which rising inside a tower on hyperbolic spiral fluids warm air weights create a steady whirlwind such as a tornado. For example it is possible with sufficient confidence to tell the following, that at difference of temperatures of 20 degrees C and a global sunlight 220 W/sqm, taking into account the relation of tower’s diameter in an average part to diameter of a collector 0,05, it is possible to receive capacity roughly in 100 MW power at height of a tower of 580 meters. Therefore for the decision of a question on construction next Solar Chimney, in my opinion, at first it is necessary to finish researches of a vortical energy source and new physical processes arising in it at scale rotation of air weights and then to start final designing and construction of one of the most powerful known sources on the ground of non-polluting energy. With pleasure I’m ready to take part in development of the international project. My site http://www.ergo.boom.ru and the address of e-mail [email protected]

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By: Anonymous https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3645 Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:40:05 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3645 That buchan guy’s a jackass.

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By: Privatization of Ontario Hydro https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3644 Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:15:47 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3644 I wouldn’t count privatization out yet.

You can’t trust McGuinty and his Liberals.

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By: Ontario Hydro https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3643 Mon, 22 Dec 2003 02:58:17 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3643 It will be interesting to see what happens with Ontario Hydro.

That link is to a page that is kept up to date on what appears to be a daily basis on energy issues on a tenant advocacy site in Ontario, Canada.

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By: Philip Sterling https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3642 Fri, 10 Oct 2003 21:44:10 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3642 Dear Professor Lessig:

I fully appreciate and concur with your article, sir.
I am an electrical engineering consultant, with many years of hands on practical experience in the mission critical power field. I have recently been developing and testing systems for residential utility independence, using dual fuel standby generators (natural gas, backed up by propane) and offline automatic transfer switchs. The controls are PC based and have capability of working in concert with solar energy systems as automatic standby and/or making a logical decision run/stop by monitoring battery status and/or utility power to provde independent self generation by natural gas. If that all fails, the system rolls over to a propane tank for emergencies.
Problems: Utility interconnection rules, Local Government Engineering codes, Fire codes, Air Polution Control Districts. They are different everywhere and all are red tape revenue generating businesses that dont have that much experience with distributed power.
In the final analysis, the Utility Companies seem to be able to raise the price of NG and or Power any time they go before the PUC.
The problem we have in this courntry is the near and sometimes criminal corporate greed. especially when their market share is threatened. Just look at the Enron scandal.

In order to push the pendulum in the other direction, people need cost effective alternatives. We are standing by and allowing developers to devour the land at such an exponential rate that the infrastructure is overloading. Too many generating stations operating in parallel. One goes down, ups the load on the rest and when conditions are right, domino effect disaster.
Interesting observation: During fuel crisis, the Iraq war, east coast power failure, the price of gasoline in California jumps 50 cents at the gaspumps. Seems if they are loosing on one coast, make it up on the other. Just a game, business as usual.
Too many eggs in one basket and how do you fix it?
The power grid can still be in master sync and phase, just split up the load and run “Isolated Redundant” Bus optimizaton and shed generators according to demand. This also saves fuel. Otherwise, the next big cascading power failure is only a matter of time.
I hope to further develop working systems to provide the private residence and small business user with all alternatives and options for power, water storage and communications independent of all utilities.
We have the technology, it just needs to be integrated in a unique way.

Phil Sterling

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By: eridani https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3641 Fri, 29 Aug 2003 06:35:15 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3641 Hey Dennis! Pay attention!

http://www.cleveland.com/election/index.ssf?/base/news/106207171078040.xml

Columbus – The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. – who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush – prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O’Dell’s company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm

When asked to comment on allegations by Bev Harris that the Diebold software may have been designed to facilitate fraud, Rubin described the claim as “ludicrous. “Rubin could dismiss the allegation of deliberately fraudulent design in Diebold software, because his team never examined the Diebold software in question. Incredibly, this software keeps not one, but two Microsoft Access data tables of voting results. It’s like a business keeping two sets of account books. The two tables are notionally identical copies of the votes collated from all polling stations. The software uses the first table for on-demand reports which might uncover alteration of the data –such as spot checks of results from individual polling stations. The second of the two tables is the one used to determine the election result. But the second table can be hacked and altered to produce fake election totals without affecting spot check reports derived from the first table.”

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By: Quantumpanda https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3640 Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:54:01 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3640 What bugs me in all this is how situations like this are used as arguments against deregulation of utilities. The problem is that in the US, there has never been a true “deregulation”–what folks like to call deregulation is actually just a different form of regulation. Properly used, the term “deregulation” should refer to the removal of regulations, not merely restructuring them. A true deregulation would result in an increasingly free market–which would provide companies more incentive to not let things like this happen. As long as they can fall back on the excuses of existing regulations to keep customers, they have no such incentives.

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By: Kris https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2313#comment-3639 Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:47:54 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2003/08/lights_out_on_deregulation.html#comment-3639 Here is an interesting article (NYT, registration required…)

It seems to corroborate the utility’s carelessness that was illustrated in the original article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/22/national/22ENER.html?hp

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