Assemblyperson Dion Aroner speaks about the energy crisis 3/3 in Oakland

On Saturday mar 3, 2001, Oakland City Council person Jane Brunner sponsored a forum on the California "energy crisis". The panel consisted of Oakland/Berkeley/Richmond Assembly person Dion Aroner, PG&E spokes person John Nelson, Graham Brownstein from TURN, and Scott Wentsworth, city of Oakland energy conservation specialist.

All in all, this was an informative two hours. There were presentations from turn and pge that took sides. There was a presentation about energy conservation in Oakland. Dion Aroner presented from the view from inside the state legislature. There was valuable input and questions from the community. I just hope something comes out of it. Too often these meetings happen and then there is no follow through. No networking. No accountability. At minimum we must hold our elected our elected officials feet to the fire. Jane Bruuner suddenly has a $400+/month PGE bill. Dion Aroner knows that giving taxpayers money to ordinary people money to invest in conservation is more effective then giving taxpayers money to generators to build new power plants, let alone bailing out the utilities.

What also came out is that since the Department of Water Resources became the largest purchaser of electricity forCalifornia, the electric portion of your PGE bill goes right back to the State of California.

It remains unclear how much PGE the Corporation is profiting from all this. John Nelson claimed PGE is at once a victim re electricity purchases and an innocent passer along of higher gas prices, w/o profiting from the higher prices. I have lots of data and links into wholesale markets that suggest this is not true. I don't yet understand it all. Help would be appreciated.

(A note on the side: As a handyman I have a client who works for Chevron. He says they're making tons of money on natural gas, paying more for electricity, and investing who knows what in diesel powered generators to provide backup power for their new headquarters in Contra Costa County. In the event of a blackout, this power will not make individual work stations un-interuptable. Only the main frame and servers. Workers will get their power back a few seconds later. Then they will get to re-input what they just didn't save. (What if that had been creative input?))

Local Contact Info:

Jane Brunner: jbrunner [at] oaklandnet.com or 510-232-7001
Dion Aroner: Aroner [at] assembly.ca.gov or : (916) 319-2014 Fax: (916) 319-2114
Scott Wentworth (energy conservation for city of Oakland): 510-615-5421
TURN: 415-929-8876
PGE: http://www.pge.com