<Grangemouth strike: Anglo Disease in action? The Oil Drum DrumBeat: April 28, 2008>
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55 comments on Forties - Grangemouth: the failure of a complex tightly coupled system

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ChrisN on April 27, 2008 - 10:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Robert, I'm afraid that concentration of power into fewer hands--particularly as it concerns grid power--is exactly what we should expect in the US.

When Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, they repealed the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) of 1935, after intensive lobbying by utilities & their owners. This opened the floodgates once again to the possibility of having a small number of utility holding companies in control of vast portions of the grid. As individual utilities and providers now sell off the unwanted parts of their businesses, it will be possible for evil-minded opportunists to buy up key parts of the infrastructure and hold everyone else hostage.

There is some fascinating reading to be had on PUHCA...how it came to be and the danger of its repeal:
PUHCA for Dummies
The PUHCA Primer

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jokuhl on April 28, 2008 - 7:30am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It's 11:55pm. Do you know where your Grid is?

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Gail the Actuary on April 28, 2008 - 1:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

ChrisN--

Thanks! Very interesting.

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Euan Mearns on April 28, 2008 - 6:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Chris - I've not read your links. But I'm told by capitalist b*sta*srd that larger units are required to muster the scale of investment required in power systems.

Thoughts?

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ChrisN on April 29, 2008 - 12:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yooooon, that may be true in some cases, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that. The holding companies that PUCHA sought to limit are very large, owning many companies and facilities. That's a different sort of animal.

I don't buy that argument for another reason: I think we should be focusing on massively distributed, renewable production of grid power, not giant facilities in the hundreds of megawatts. In which case micro-financing is what we need. (Although long-distance grid building & operation would certainly require a larger company and more capital.)

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55 comments on Forties - Grangemouth: the failure of a complex tightly coupled system

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