Over alfalfa sprouts and whole-grain bread, they kick around the big questions of the day. The question is whether enough are being built. Bushnell and his colleagues at the University of California Energy Institute started the noon-hour gabfests years ago, long before push came to blackout. But now more Californians, hit by monstrous utility bills and trying to figure out whom to blame, want to hear what the Berkeley crew and other energy specialists have to say. Politicians call, wanting advice.
Policy wonks call, seeing the experts as having no ax to grind.
Reporters call, fishing for perspective on a complex topic. It's a far cry from a couple of years ago, when institute economists and other academics across the state were trying to map out California's energy future while working in relative obscurity. Economists and others with the Berkeley institute had warned that utility bills would skyrocket if power plants remained in the hands of a small number of generators. But even they didn't expect things to go like this. The depth of the crisis caught many energy specialists by surprise.