Twenty two years ago, on this day, January 17, 2001, Energy gouger “Enron” engineered some blackouts in California to… gouge. It’s what they did. It was their “corporate DNA”…
As the FERC report concluded, market manipulation was only possible as a result of the complex market design produced by the process of partial deregulation. Manipulation strategies were known to energy traders under names such as “Fat Boy”, “Death Star“, “Forney Perpetual Loop”, “Wheel Out”, “Ricochet”, “Ping Pong”, “Black Widow”, “Big Foot”, “Red Congo”, “Cong Catcher” and “Get Shorty”.[10]
In a letter sent from David Fabian to Senator Boxer in 2002, it was alleged that:
“There is a single connection between northern and southern California’s power grids. I heard that Enron traders purposely overbooked that line, then caused others to need it. Next, by California’s free-market rules, Enron was allowed to price-gouge at will.”[11]
2001 Enron energy blackouts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
But we are not supposed to remember this sort of behaviour. It doesn’t get institutionally remembered (included in textbooks, mentioned by mainstream commentators and columnists). That would be ‘impolite, or ‘political’ or even ‘unAmerican’ or ‘conspiracy theorising’.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was that the free market was providing opportunities. As per Adam Smith, author of the Wealth of Nations – ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices’.
What I think we can learn from this
That the “normal” workings of infrastructure are intensely political. They are literally games of power.
That if we don’t remember the history, it will be repeated.
What happened next
Enron went under. And the shenanigans were forgotten,or dismissed as an aberration.
The trust between consumers/citizens and providers that would be needed for some kind of ‘energy transition’? Not helped.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.