auto58194@hushmail.com wrote
Sorry, such is the nature of free (and shared) markets. If anything you should thank California; if they had been building more power plants, they'd be buying more natural gas and driving up your prices even more.
Actually if California had been building power plants in recent years we would not have this short term price issue. If they had built a power plant they would have committed to a supplier of natural gas who would have arranged a supply (drill wells) and arranged delivery (build pipeline capacity). The problem now is no one in California made commitments so the market did not build supply and delivery capacity. California consumers are now forced to purchase their requirements in a commodity market causing the current distortions.
Besides, have your prices gone up beyond your acceptable level because of California, because of cold weather, because your neighbour replaced his oil burner with a gas furnace, or because Williams Company has been spending its money laying fiber optics instead of more gas pipelines?
The consumer price for natural gas here is based on the delivery price at Sumas Washington which is a pipeline crossing into the USA and a major supply point to California. The cost to heat my home will have more than doubled by January 1st. The price I must pay is heavily influenced by demand in California. It is always cold here and the furnace is even used in the summer. There are more people in California than in all of Canada and most Canadians live on the other side of the continent. This market is much too small to influence the price of natural gas. In the past natural gas prices were determined by the price of oil. When oil prices were low exploration companies had less capital available for exploration. In general exploration companies only search for natural gas when they have delivery contracts. Collection systems, pipelines, are only built when there is a market for the natural gas. If natural gas power plants were built in California the gas would be available. If oil prices had been higher in recent years exploration companies would have probably have attempted to build reserves of natural gas but chances are the delivery system would not be in place so there would still be a shortage.
Natural gas is a great fuel source. You, lots of Californians, and I made a good choice in deciding to use it. Perhaps we need to reevaluate our decisions given the current situation, but blaming others for making the same decision we did doesn't make much sense.
Natural gas is a good choice but maybe not the best. While natural gas is considered clean burning the emissions for even a smaller plant is measured in the thousands of tonnes per year. There is some risk involved with pipelines, if they break there is always a fire if not an explosion. There will now be significant political pressure to bring Alaskan natural gas to the California market, lots of issues here to keep the liberal tree huggers busy for years. There are only two ways to get it to the market, pipeline or liquidify it and use a tanker. I believe I would rather have nuclear power plant in my neighbourhood than a liquidified natural gas facility.
Sure it can, you can just take yourself out of California's market. Buy yourself a wood stove and petition your government to build/encourage more nuclear power plants. (Hey, the bottom's fallen out of the nuclear fuel rod market and I doubt California's going to be responsible for price increases in that market any time soon.)
It would be nice if you could wave a magic wand and separate markets, but that cure would be probably worse than the disease. The current pricing issue is a short term one. A few years of higher prices and the market will response with more supply and delivery capacity. I have done the wood stove thing and it is a bunch of work plus it is very hard on air quality. Coal fired furnaces are less work but very hard on air quality. It would be nice if Californians took responsibility for their lifestyle, built the power plants in California and dealt with environmental issues themselves. You have a choice, if you don't want power plants, don't use power. Virtually Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbn.bc.ca "Need Someone To Tell You What To Do?" FBN - The Consultants http://www.fbn.bc.ca/consultg.html