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Re: @ mook and Peter --- Thank you! -- and some questions -- TIA for all kind replies
Author: Edward
Date: 03-15-2015 - 14:21
Rolling blackouts have been mentioned several times. They were not caused by a real shortage of electricity, but by manipulation of the market when the California ISO was started. Here is a quote from marketwatch.com.
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LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- Two days of rolling blackouts in June 2000 that marked the beginning of California's energy crisis were directly caused by manipulative energy trading, according to a dozen former traders for Enron and its rivals.
The blackouts left more than 100,000 businesses and residential customers in the dark for parts of two days, trapped people in elevators and shut down some offices of high-tech companies such as Cisco Systems and Apple Computer, as well as chipmaking plants, costing millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The traders said that Enron's former president, Jeff Skilling, pushed them to "trade aggressively" in California and to do whatever was necessary to take advantage of the state's wholesale market to boost the price of Enron's stock ENRNQ
"Skilling would say, 'if you can't do that then you need to find a job at another company,'" said one former senior Enron trader, who requested anonymity because of concerns about potential investigations. "He said we should go trade pork bellies if we can't be aggressive."
The traders also said that Enron's retail unit, Enron Energy Services, or EES, used the fear created by the blackouts to push large California businesses into more than $1 billion in long-term energy contracts.
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LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- Two days of rolling blackouts in June 2000 that marked the beginning of California's energy crisis were directly caused by manipulative energy trading, according to a dozen former traders for Enron and its rivals.
The blackouts left more than 100,000 businesses and residential customers in the dark for parts of two days, trapped people in elevators and shut down some offices of high-tech companies such as Cisco Systems and Apple Computer, as well as chipmaking plants, costing millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The traders said that Enron's former president, Jeff Skilling, pushed them to "trade aggressively" in California and to do whatever was necessary to take advantage of the state's wholesale market to boost the price of Enron's stock ENRNQ
"Skilling would say, 'if you can't do that then you need to find a job at another company,'" said one former senior Enron trader, who requested anonymity because of concerns about potential investigations. "He said we should go trade pork bellies if we can't be aggressive."
The traders also said that Enron's retail unit, Enron Energy Services, or EES, used the fear created by the blackouts to push large California businesses into more than $1 billion in long-term energy contracts.
