Politicians are thundering, fingers are wagging, and complicated theories are being hatched to explain the shortages. Demand is up because, in the most absurdly misnamed deregulation plan ever created, California capped the consumer price of electricity, thus preventing price signals from restraining demand. And demand shot up because the California economy has expanded by 34 percent in the past 10 years. The supply side of this equation is even more obvious. Californians love the environment.
Power plants are dirty, intrusive and ugly.
The conflict between hyper-environmentalism and energy shortages applies to more than just electricity. Oil prices spiked last year. And in the past 12 months, natural gas prices have tripled. Yet for decades environmentalists have successfully restricted offshore drilling, exploration on federal lands and, of course, tapping the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for its potentially huge oil and natural gas reserves. It's a place so remote and so desolate that not one American in a million will ever see it.