Notes

³⁰¹ "Portland General, Enron Turn Around Opponents to Mega-Merger," Electric Power Alert, January 15, 1997, p. 18.

³⁰² John Barry, "How to Close Down the Department of Energy," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, November 9, 1995, p. 6.

³⁰³ Both the majority and minority decisions of the December 1995 reversal stated: "We are committed to establishing restructuring policies which maintain California's resource diversity for existing resources as well as encourage development of new renewable resources." OIR/OII on the Commission's Proposed Policies Governing Restructuring California's Electric Services Industry and Reforming Regulation," December 20, 1995, Majority Decision, p. 146; Minority Decision, p. 143.

³⁰⁴ "The Commission supports a policy of maintaining the current benefits from renewable resources to the state's electricity system. . . . The [California] Legislature should allow customers more options toward managing their own risk. The modifications should also expand emphasis beyond renewables alone to include other opportunity technologies . . . as well as financial instruments." CEC, 1994 Electricity Report, pp. 48; CEC, Final Adoption Order, November 1, 1995 (amending p. 119 that erroneously had "the Commission supports a policy of maintaining the current contribution of renewable resources" [emphasis added]).

³⁰⁵ The law [Section 381(h)] is curiously specific: "'Emerging renewable technology' means a new renewable technology, including, but not limited to, photovoltaic technology, that is determined . . . to be emerging from research and development and that has significant commercial potential."

³⁰⁶ For a summary of AB 1890, signed by Governor Wilson on September 23, 1996, see Aldyn Hoekstra and Gary Simon, Sweetening the Deal: The California Legislature Takes on Electric Restructuring, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, November 1996; and Dan Richard and Melissa Lavinson, "Something for Everyone: The Politics of California's New Law on Electric Restructuring," Public Utilities Fortnightly, November 15, 1996, pp. 37-41.

³⁰⁷ CEC, Policy Report on AB 1890 Renewables Funding, p. ES-4. For an allocation by year, see p. ES-5.

³⁰⁸ Ibid., p. A-2.

³⁰⁹ Ibid.

³¹⁰ Ibid., p. 36.

³¹¹ For an example of the tension between renewable and energy efficiency proponents in California, see Testimony of Geothermal Resources Association before the California Energy Commission, In the Matter of: 1992 Electricity Report (ER 92), "Demand-Side Management Uncertainty," February 3, 1992.

³¹² "Texas choice bill may not have consumers' support," Megawatt Daily, January 30, 1997, pp. 1-2.

³¹³ New England Governors' Conference, "Sustainable Electricity for New England," January 1997. The report was coauthored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources, and other New England state groups. See "New England Governors Back Renewables, Energy Efficiency," Wind Energy Weekly, February 17, 1997, p. 5.

³¹⁴ "State of Texas launches campaign promoting 'Renewable Energy in Texas,'" Business Wire, March 26, 1997.

³¹⁵ The bill is reprinted in Electric Power Alert, July 17, 1996.

³¹⁶ CEC, 1994 Electricity Report, p. 41. However, a draft CEC study supported a "nonbypassable public goods charge to fund public goods RD&D and energy efficiency activities" of 1.4 percent or 2 percent of total investor-owned utility revenue. Mike Messenger, "Alternative Funding Mechanisms for Public Policy Programs: The Non-Bypassable Public Goods Charge," RE-Draft of May 31, 1996, Executive Summary.

³¹⁷ Lew Sichelman, "Energy-Improvement Programs Losing Some of Their Steam," Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1996, p. 2.

³¹⁸ Robert L. Bradley, Jr., "California DSM: A Pyrrhic Victory for Energy Efficiency?," p. 46.

³¹⁹ Peter Miller, "Comments of the Natural Resources Defense Council for the 1994 Energy Efficiency Report and 1994 Electricity Report," Workshop on the Future of DSM, California Energy Commission, February 27, 1995, p. 2.

³²⁰ EIA, Annual Energy Outlook, 1996, p. 39.

³²¹ A hypothesis can be made that the attraction of high-cost renewables to some eco-energy planners (particularly those who are against economic growth) is due to their being very expensive. The goal for them is to bring the cost of all energy sources up to the price level of high-cost renewables, not bring renewable energy prices down to the level of fossil fuels. This mentality is reflected in a statement by Paul Ehrlich in 1991 that "giving society cheap abundant energy at this point would be equivalent to giving an idiot child a machine gun." Quoted in Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 182.

³²² See, generally, Robert L. Bradley, Jr., Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience.

³²³ Shell International, "The Evolution of the World's Energy System: 1860-2060," December 1995, p. 11. For a view that natural gas will be the "bridge" or "transition" fuel to a renewables future, see Christopher Flavin and Nicholas Lenssen, Power Surge, chapter 5.

³²⁴ Joseph Stanislaw, "Emerging Global Energy Companies: Eye on the 21st Century," Cambridge Energy Research Associates, 1995, p. 6. Stanislaw's study presents a different world view from that of the Yergin Task Force report, described above.