His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 c. 3 was the Act of the British Parliament that allowed King Edward VIII to abdicate the throne, and passed succession to Prince Albert, Duke of York…

The Act was passed through the Houses of Parliament in one day, with no amendments. As the Statute of Westminster 1931 stipulated that the line of succession must remain the same throughout the Crown’s realms, the governments of some of the British dominions (Canada, Australia, the Union of South Africa, and New Zealand) gave their permission for the Act to apply in their respective realms. Canada also passed the Succession to the Throne Act (1 Geo. VI, c.16) to effect changes to the rules of succession in Canada to assure consistency with the changes in the rules then in place in the United Kingdom. The Irish Free State passed the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936, recognising the Duke of York as King.

His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

So there is a precedent where the Commonwealth realms collectively agreed to effect a change in the line of succession to the divisible Crown, in accord with requirements stipulated in the Statute of Westminster 1931.

Another thing to note is that the rules for succession to the Crown were set – and have been changed at times – through Acts of Parliament. The currently applicable legislation that defines the line of succession is the Act of Settlement 1701. The monarchy is not immutable.

The ideas about the Crown in the comments for the previous post The Crown and The States deserve a unique post.

The idea that we can modify the Crown (in right of the Commonwealth and the Australian states) to make it democratic and egalitarian is a key concept for the change to a republic. We are already in a sense a “Crowned Republic” with the British monarch as our head of state. If this approach is taken, we will remain a “Crowned Republic” and the change will be to institute a democratic way to regularly fill the position of Australia’s head of state and placing the details in the Constitution after a successful referendum.

The idea is actually not that radical, although it has not been done before. The Statute of Westminster 1931 introduced a fundamental change to the nature of the Crown. The Crown became divisible so that the former Dominions could become progressively independent of Great Britain. Australians at the time were not keen on the change in status and the Statute of Westminster was only ratified in 1942 and to take effect from the day when Australia entered WWII.

While the Crown is divisible, up until the present time all of the Commonwealth realms have the same individual person as their head of state, Queen Elizabeth II. In each of the Commonwealth realms, such as Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, the Queen has a unique title. The head of state for Australia is called, courtesy of the Royal Style and Titles Act 1973,

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.

The change is subtle but it does open the possibility that the national heads of state for the Commonwealth realms might in time be different people.

The Crown in the Commonwealth realms

The evolution of the Commonwealth realms has led to the scenario wherein the Crown has both a separate and a shared character; it is a singular institution with one sovereign, but also simultaneously operates separately within the jurisdiction of each country, with the Queen in right of a particular realm being a distinct legal person who acts only on the advice of the Cabinet of that state. This means that in different contexts the term Crown may refer to the extra-national institution shared amongst all 16 countries, or to the Crown in each realm considered separately.

Wikipedia – Commonwealth realm

We naturally associate the Crown with the monarchy. There is the possibility of defining the Crown in right for the Commonwealth and Australian states so that we can regularly elect an Australian to play the role of our head of state. The process for election would best be placed in the Constitution as a new section after a successful referendum.

The Statute of Westminster 1931 also includes in the preamble a statement that all the Commonwealth realms should agree to any changes in the rules for succession to the Crown (or Throne):

And whereas it is meet and proper to set out by way of preamble to this Act that, inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

There are at present 16 nations with Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state, the Commonwealth realms.

Changing the Crown in right of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Australian states and territories so that we can regularly elect an Australian to be our head of state could be argued to be a change to the rules of succession for the Crown in right of Australia. It accords with the notion of a divisible Crown. It may be possible to ask the Commonwealth realms to formally recognise such a democratic change to the Crown in right of Australia after a successful referendum to institute a democratically elected Australian as our head of state. Some nations such as Canada may refuse to condone such a change. In that case there might be other ways to formally cut our ties with the monarchy.

The point of this post is that the Crown and the monarchy are not welded together. It may be possible to separate the Crown from the monarchy and define a democratic Crown for Australia. This is NOT about trying to set up a bunyip aristocracy. It is about setting up a PROCESS for the regular direct election of an Australian head of state and fitting that to our Constitutional arrangements and history. The rules for a direct election of our head of state could be added to the Constitution as a new section. I know that any Jungian word association test for the word “Crown” would automatically result with words like “Queen”, “monarchy” or “royal”. But we can still find a meaningful way to define a democratic Crown for Australia.

Why bother? Because the Crown is a unifying symbol and concept for our federation and it actually underpins many of our democratic institutions and traditions. It could be dangerous to just jettison it as if it were old baggage. It also makes the change to a republic that much more easier. It also has value in that the head of state would be expected to continue with the conventions of the monarchy so that that they act only on advice of the cabinet and Prime Minister.

Another thing may be the wish to emulate the republic of the United States and their Declaration of Independence. Dear old Maj is simply not going to inspire that kind of fervent republicanism, I am sad to admit. We have to find our own way to independence and its better off that we head off with the blessings of the monarch rather than running away like a spoilt, petulant teenager.

NEWS LIMITED'S chief executive, John Hartigan, has launched a broadside on bloggers and other online amateurs, arguing they are no substitute for professional journalists…

His most scathing attack was reserved for bloggers, who, he said, lacked resources and access to key decision-makers.

“In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for – something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance,” he said.

He said blogs often gave a platform for “radical sweeping statements unsubstantiated with evidence”.

via Blogs won’t beat us: News chief.

A spray from the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited. The News Ltd newspapers’ archives from the noughties will make an interesting read in a few decades – once sustainable renewable energy systems are in place, once we have become a republic and once we have a decent appreciation for liberal democracy and how it works.

No, blogs won’t beat you fellas – they’re not supposed to and we are not even trying to “beat” mainstream news. We need professional reporters and journalists and commercial entities that can sustain a culture of independent journalism. And there is such a thing as a sense of truth as long as we communicate through language and symbols, even if we can’t agree on what it actually is.

There is a contradiction in spin. On the one hand someone who goes about on a campaign of spin – such as WMDs in Iraq, the promotion of nuclear power, global warming denial, intelligent design, etc – knows they are playing with words deceitfully, and yet, they then expect their words to carry weight as if the spin were a singular truth. Perhaps it goes beyond the words and false claims to the culture driving the spin – the ends justify the means if only the spin turns the opinion polls this way or that. So that the hollow men can act. But that’s so boring and predictable – maybe that has more to do with the recent decline of papers.

YouTube – Queen’s Birthday should be abolished.

One of the issues for an Australian republic is what the title for our head of state will be. There is quite a lot of angst about the topic. Not everyone likes the use of the title “President”.

One option that would solve many of the problems of the issue of the title for the head of state for an Australian republic is to define the title in an Act of Parliament. The Australian title for the Queen was first defined by the Royal Title and Styles Act 1953 (Cth).

In a republic we could have a similar Royal Title and Styles Act to define the title for our head of state. The text for the Constitution could continue to use the word ‘Queen’ as a reference to our head of state.

With an Act of Parliament we could define a number of titles for our head of state and bypass debating the pros and cons of assigning only one title to the office. For the international stage it may be appropriate to call our head of state a ‘President’ or ‘Honorary President’. Domestically we might feel more comfortable with a title such as ‘Australian of the Year’. The title does make a difference in how approachable the office seems.

Seven Golden Stars

Nuclear power plants may not emit greenhouse gases, but they sure could suck in the tax dollars.

An analysis by economist Mark Cooper at the Vermont Law School claims that adding 100 new reactors to the U.S. power grid would cost taxpayers and customers between $1.9 and $4.1 trillion over the reactors’ lifetimes compared with renewable power sources and conservation measures.

The analysis factors in studies from Wall Street and independent energy analysts estimating the efficiency of renewable energy at 6 cents per kilowatt hour versus 12 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour for nuclear. Cooper says those costs will fall on either ratepayers through higher electric bills or on taxpayers through large subsidies.

“It is telling that in the few short years since the so-called ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ began there has been a four-fold increase in projected costs,” Cooper said in a statement. “The original low-ball estimates were promotional, not practical; they were based on hope and hype intended to promote the industry…”

via Nuclear power could cost trillions over renewables: Scientific American Blog.

There’s a bit more to the article and you can add a comment there as well. You’re also welcome to add a comment here if you like…

…First, to create a Republic of Australia the Constitution must be amended.

Section 128 of the Federal Constitution is a section which allows for such amendments. It requires the Commonwealth Parliament to pass an amending bill setting out the changes proposed, and then requires a majority of Australians and a majority of the States to agree.

Not for one minute do I believe the founding fathers of the Constitution contemplated this section would be a vehicle for removing the Monarchy…

The problem arises because “The Constitution” is not an Act but is contained within an Act. To be precise, “The Constitution” is in clause 9 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900.

An examination of its development shows that this was deliberate. The problem is that without some imaginative interpretation section 128 may amend “the Constitution”, but not the covering clauses of the Act clauses 1 to 8.

These other clauses clearly envisage the continuation of the Crown. Whatever arguments are made about their continued relevance, clause 2 both provides for the continuation of the Monarchy and prevents indigenous monarchies being instituted…

Even those who support the republican case agree that despite the confusing wording of section 15(3) of the Australia Acts it would not be possible to remove recognition of State monarchies under that Act without the agreement of State governments.

States have their own constitutional restrictions on removing the Monarchy. Victoria requires an absolute majority in both Houses. Queensland requires a referendum. Western Australia has both such limitations.

These are the major legal difficulties facing those who are currently arguing that Australia should become a republic.

There are also other difficulties such as the possibility of express limitations on section 128 and whether this section can be used to amend itself.

Before leaving the legal difficulties facing the republicans I note that sub section 51 (xxxviii) may cater for radical change to the Constitution and covering clauses. It allows an amendment to any power under the Constitution that could only, at the time of the establishment of the Constitution, be exercised by the United Kingdom.

However the founding fathers restricted the use of this section to circumstances where all the States agreed.

A debate that pretends these problems do not exist is not an honest debate…

via The Samuel Griffith Society: Volume 2: Dinner Address by Jeff Kennett.
Second Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society
The Windsor Hotel, Melbourne; 30 July–1 August 1993

The second Covering Clause would be more difficult to modify than any of the previous changes to the Constitution because you would need a majority in every state to support the change in a referendum. In Australia voting is compulsory so the vote in any referendum would reflect the general mood of the whole population towards the proposed changes. A successful fear campaign would sink it. A major party not supporting the changes would prevent the proposal even going to a vote. If in any one state the referendum vote is defeated that would sink the whole project. How would you tally the territory votes? The larger territories could be treated like states, but what of the smaller ones like Norfolk Island, Christmas Island or the Australian Antarctic Territory? Could they individually sink a republic referendum?

Given all this it would probably be best to prepare suitable models and do the work to think it all through and wait for the time to be right. It is something you can not rush or push through, but there will probably be windows of opportunity that open up in time. A series of plebiscites could be used to test a number of aspects of models, but the sequence of events leading up to a referendum may not be so straightforward as some people propose.

It’s interesting to note that since the Statute of Westminster the Crown is understood to be divisible and that there is in theory a different crown for each of the states and for the Commonwealth. You could look at the seven-pointed Commonwealth Star as also being a symbol for an Australian Crown. Traditionally the seven-points of the Commonwealth Star represent the six states and the territories. As mentioned before, we could define a democratic and republican process with regular direct elections (whether with a state-based round-robin process or nationally) that would give us an Australian head of state who would have only symbolic power and who could yet temporarily play the role that the Queen does now. It’s a “Crowned Republic” that would work and that is democratic and that respects our history and traditions (even if republicans think the workings under the bonnet look somewhat unlikely).

So many of the Republican stars are in alignment right now. Kevin Rudd is a Republican, so too is Malcolm Turnbull, the former leader of the Republican movement and now the leader of the opposition.

All of Mr Turnbull's main rivals, including former treasurer Peter Costello, support an Australian head of state – though not all of his party, which for him is a major stumbling block.

There was almost universal support for a Republic at last year's 2020 Summit – a gathering in Parliament House of business and community leaders, celebrities, academics, etc, admittedly hand-picked by the government.

But many of those participants have felt aggrieved that in its formal response to the 2020 summit's ideas and proposals, a Republic has not been put on the government's “to do list”.

via BBC – Nick Bryant’s Australia: Australian Republic back on radar.

2009 is a milestone as it will be 10 years on 6 November 2009 since the republican referendum was lost. To commemorate this event and to remind Australians what they still don’t have the Australian Republican Movement is running the First National Republican Short Story Competition.

Short stories will be required to portray an Australian republican future in a positive light and demonstrate the absurdity of a hereditary monarch as the Australian Head of State in twenty-first century Australian society.

via Stories of the Australian Republic.

Here’s is a new blog on the Australian republic. They are running a short story competition for the 10th anniversary of the 1999 referendum. It looks interesting…

Atop an Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida sits the first step in what will surely be a long and arduous task for NASA—returning humans to the moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, set to lift off this week, will orbit the moon in search of potential landing sites and useful resources, such as water ice, that would facilitate a long-term human presence…

Among the orbiter’s seven scientific instruments is one with a distinctly human-focused assignment: The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER). It will seek to characterize and assess the physiological effects of high-energy cosmic rays. Earth’s inhabitants are largely protected from cosmic radiation by the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field, but long-term residents of the moon would be exposed to potential cellular and genetic damage without proper shielding.

via NASA Return to Lunar Orbit Will Scout for Future Human Exploration: Scientific American.

One possibility is that the next stage in the republic debate will be triggered by attempts to change the rules of succession to the British throne, and thus to the position of King or Queen of Australia.

Succession is governed by the Act of Settlement of 1701. It favours men over women and states that a person who “shall hold communion with the see or Church of Rome, or should profess the popish religion, or marry a papist” is “for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown”.

Earlier this year the British Parliament rejected a private member's bill to amend the Act of Settlement to give female members of the royal family equal rights of succession, and to remove the ban on heirs marrying Catholics. It did so after the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced that he would pursue a similar proposal, which he intended to raise with other Commonwealth countries.

Britain can no longer pass laws for Australia. This means the rules of succession can only be altered if constitutional monarchies such as Australia mirror the changes in their own law. If we failed to do so, different rules of succession would apply in different nations, along with the possibility of different monarchs for Britain and Australia.

via It’s our republic, not a dance with her maj’s heirs | smh.com.au.

Imagine that: Britain changes the laws of succession to the British Crown but we don’t, so we might end up with a British monarch as our head of state who is different from the King or Queen of England and who has as his unique title the ‘King of Australia’ (or given our federation, he might be King of this or that state). He might even think it all a bit of a laugh and set up shop for a while down under. Let’s hope that he tones down the fancy dress themes on his outings through the colony.

Here’s a link to today’s cartoon by Leunig in The Age.

AUSTRALIA has very few anarcho-capitalist bloggers like Paul Staines of Guido Falkes fame, reformed raver libertarians with an eye for scandal (and another on the latest market moves).

And we have no political bloggers who break stories. What we have on our political blogs is analysis. And talk. Endless talk…

Our blogs too analytical, intolerant | The Australian.

Oh, dear… The toys in his sandbox are all there is to the world for the young lad Christian.

Breaking stories? I don’t care about breaking stories. I care about looking at new options and fresh perspectives instead of taking the tired old ways of seeing the world as if that were all there was. I’m interested in new ways of understanding the energy crisis so that we can find effective solutions to the problems of global warming. I think I have had a good go at that, but that is not about ‘breaking stories’ for the amusement of the media. I’m interested in devising a safe model for an Australian republic and new ways of understanding how democracy works – because it isn’t working very well at the moment. I’m interested in breaking the story of fundamentalism – be that in religion or the anti-religion of someone like Dawkins, and so on.

Talk about ‘breaking stories’ with some kind of scandalous scoop is plain boring, tedious and only feeds the chronic cynicism of our society during these times. There is so much more to the world.

“Tourism has been doing the heavy lifting in terms of selling Australia to the world. There needs to be a co-ordinated, integrated approach which will see the marketing efforts of all Australian businesses, artists, musicians, actors, sportspeople, designers and more, leverage off each other, under a unified Australian brand.”

Mr Brown said the forum had been working on the proposal for an Australian brand for a couple of years: “We have spoken to the Prime Minister informally, and we intend to go back within a short while with the proposal.”

Mission to put the grand into the brand – smh.com.au.

Let me make a suggestion. How about Australia with an Australian as our head of state, instead of Queen Elizabeth II, and how about a flag that is a little more distinctive than a British Flag in the blue twilight sky with a few bright stars next to it, “Britain by night”. It’s meant to be grand, not bland.

When the emphasis moves from the provision of real time power to the storage of energy, the grid will be used to shuffle quanta of energy around and between energy storage systems. A device that used energy to do something would be like a sink in the system: it would have some storage to hold energy that would be used over time by the appliance. You might even have some form of storage for lighting so that a light could burn or glow for a substantial time without being constantly connected to the grid. An energy system with storage would decouple the supply of energy from the time over which that the energy is used. In a power system the energy is used straight away in real time, hence the emphasis on power.

If the energy storage is chemically in batteries of various types, the charging and discharging of batteries would put a real physical limit on the quantity and speed that energy can be moved from place to place. I have mentioned this before on my blogs, but an important component of a renewable energy system with storage is the ability to quickly move energy between capacitor banks and then use the capacitor banks to charge batteries. Capacitor banks could be considered analogous to memory in a computer and chemical storage in batteries could be seen to be analogous to storing information on a hard disk in a computer. Eventually capacitor banks will have a long term storage capacity as well, so there might be some convergence between the two, as there has been with flash memory for computers.

Anyway, a system for the transmission of energy that shuttled energy between capacitor banks and that used the grid as part of the lowest physical layer – all coordinated by a smart grid – could be likened to a kind of broadband for energy. The coordination of transfers of energy between capacitor banks is critically important, and there might need to be a balancing of energy transactions overall and in real time. The smart grid is going to be very complex so it had best be well planned to deal with energy storage and the possibilities this would create. The smart grid is likely to be defined in a way analogous to the transmission of information and communications with international standards.

Introducing a local balancing of energy transfers between energy stores through the grid may create emergent properties of the grid that might introduce a symmetry that you might be able to exploit as if you were dealing with a quantum field. You might be able to transfer much more energy over the grid if you pair off equal transfers of energy at the same time than if you had two disconnected random transfers of energy over the grid. A smart grid that managed the symmetry of balanced energy transfers might be able to move a lot more energy around with barely a ripple over the grid, but if you did this there will probably be times when huge random spikes of energy will cascade through the grid system. Most things connected to the grid will then need to have switched interfaces with the grid that only connect to the grid as a transfer of energy takes place. The grid itself will need some subsystems to pacify wild fluctuations and faulty out-of-sync transfers. If symmetric transfers are feasible and do use the grid more like a field, then in time there will be a huge amount of seething activity taking place through a grid while that grid appears more or less placid and steady with only a few ripples to show for all the activity. But this is science fiction.

With the smart grid as it develops, there would be top level optimisation of energy transfers in much the same way that personal finance is now mediated through information systems. Cash can now be easily transferred through eftpos facilities and ATMs dispense physical cash. Money doesn’t flow through the wires to an ATM machine, currency is transferred symbolically and having an ATM dispense cash is only one of many options. That top level optimisation is not what I was referring to with the previous paragraphs. The smart grid would need to be handle everything from the physical level to the top symbolic level transfers of energy between energy stores, sources and sinks.

***
18 Jun 09

Another question is whether you can stamp an energy packet that would be sent through the grid to a particular location with a unique wavelet signature stamp so that only that one particular destination on the grid with a corresponding wavelet pattern could catch the energy packet. If the transfer were out-of-sync the energy from the packet would be dispersed through the grid – it would be torn to pieces by any connections to the grid that were hungry for energy and dispersed to those hungry connections that could scavenge as much of the energy in a wayward energy packet as they could.

[The gravity field as result of out-of-sync energy transfers throughout the universe? The speed of light is the limit for the transfer of energy over time and space. Could anticipated energy transfers leave a mark in the space ahead of its arrival due to the limit of c, and what happens if that energy never arrives (or is absorbed or deflected along the way)? Would it look like energy that wasn't really energy just a shadow [dark] of energy/matter in all its potential? I’m just a mug with little more than second year physics so I don’t know!]

Large scale renewable energy installations that are integrated with large scale energy storage through a smart grid are the alternative to power systems based on coal-fired power stations. That alternative can be built NOW with components that are currently being produced and installed commercially. The technology already exists, but the components have not yet been integrated into a coherent renewable energy system, as far as I am aware. The existing manufacturing base for these renewable energy system is not at the scale required to replace our existing energy systems. The massive commercial and financial rewards for building these new renewable energy systems will drive the building of new manufacturing plants for the components of renewable energy systems. If we don’t build them here we will have to buy these renewable energy system components from overseas at a premium rate, it is as simple as that.

For renewable energy sources there are wind turbines that can be installed in wind farms and there are thermal solar power stations that can be built to deliver energy at competitive prices. For large scale energy storage systems sodium-sulfur batteries can be built and installed in energy warehouses. The Smart Grid is a system that can coordinate electricity usage over the grid.

Carbon trading schemes will push the cost of coal-fired power stations above the costs in the renewable energy system. There may be other international trade sanctions and tariffs applied to economies that are not reducing their use of greenhouse gas emitting power stations.

With regard to nuclear power, the United States will almost certainly build fourth generation nuclear power stations some time in the future. The main reason for that will be to have new facilities for the ongoing development and maintenance of its nuclear arsenal. They may wish to extend the use of nuclear power for domestic power supply for profit and they may wish to involve countries like Australia so that they can push the issue of a wider dump for their nuclear waste in Australia, but linking nuclear power with the global warming issue is dishonest and a furphy. It is a little like proposing a new type of 70s era cassette tape player to take on the ipod.

In Australia the public is being softened up by the media to expect huge price hikes and possible electricity supply problems with the introduction of a carbon trading scheme. Again I think this is dishonest given the opportunities with renewable energy systems and I suspect that there may be something like Enronesque market manipulation in the wind. Australia looks like it is close to following the worse possible route to changing over to renewable energy systems. We might stay with coal, we might even start building some AP6 white elephants, generation capacity may actually fall below demand because of uncertainty for investing in infrastructure, international carbon trading schemes would then punish Australia for both its domestic power generation with coal-fired power stations and with reduced exports of coal, and then we would need to import renewable energy system components and play catch up. We could have also been a world leader in renewable energy systems…

Oh, and I forgot to mention an emissions trading scheme that actually gives huge handouts to the biggest polluters and has a reduction target of – wait for it – 5%. Not bad, eh?

Duke Energy Corp. today tapped Cisco Systems Inc. to test “smart grid” software and hardware that the utility hopes will enable its customers to track and reduce their electricity consumption more efficiently.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based utility (NYSE: DUK) will deploy communications architecture based on Internet protocol-based open standards — an approach Cisco says will permit easier accommodation of new technologies into the grid. The companies plan to start by installing nearly 2 million residential “smart meters,” as well as routers, switches and other “distributed automation” infrastructure, throughout Duke’s service territory in Indiana and Ohio during the next five years…

“This is developing a new, sustainable business model — that’s key,” said Chris Smith, an EDF spokeswoman. Utilities “need a new financial structure as people begin to sell power back to the grid.”

Cisco, which is also involved with the Austin and Miami projects, estimates that the global market for smart-grid communications will be worth $20 billion annually within five years.

via Smart-Grid Technology Spreading Widely: Scientific American

The California electricity crisis (also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis) of 2000 and 2001 was a situation where California had a shortage of electricity…

One of the energy wholesalers that became notorious for “gaming the market” and reaping huge speculative profits was Enron Corporation. Enron CEO Ken Lay mocked the efforts by the California State government to thwart the practices of the energy wholesalers, saying, “In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what you crazy people in California do, because I got smart guys who can always figure out how to make money.” The original statement was made in a phone conversation between David Freeman (Chairman of the California Power Authority) and Kenneth Lay (CEO of Enron) in 2000, according to the statements made by Freeman to the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism in April^[17] and May 2002^[18].

S. David Freeman, who was appointed Chair of the California Power Authority in the midst of the crisis, made the following statements about Enron’s involvement in testimony^[18] submitted before the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on May 15, 2002:

“There is one fundamental lesson we must learn from this experience: electricity is really different from everything else. It cannot be stored, it cannot be seen, and we cannot do without it, which makes opportunities to take advantage of a deregulated market endless. It is a public good that must be protected from private abuse. If Murphy’s Law were written for a market approach to electricity, then the law would state ‘any system that can be gamed, will be gamed, and at the worst possible time.’ And a market approach for electricity is inherently gameable. Never again can we allow private interests to create artificial or even real shortages and to be in control.”

“Enron stood for secrecy and a lack of responsibility. In electric power, we must have openness and companies that are responsible for keeping the lights on. We need to go back to companies that own power plants with clear responsibilities for selling real power under long-term contracts. There is no place for companies like Enron that own the equivalent of an electronic telephone book and game the system to extract an unnecessary middleman’s profits. Companies with power plants can compete for contracts to provide the bulk of our power at reasonable prices that reflect costs. People say that Governor Davis has been vindicated by the Enron confession.”

California electricity crisis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

If renewable energy is going to be a bigger player and have a significant impact in cutting the greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that are driving climate change, it’s going to have to grow quickly. According to Princeton University scientists Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow’s “wedge” strategy of climate change mitigation—which quantifies as a wedge on a time series graph various sets of efforts to maintain flat global carbon emissions between now and 2055—at least two million megawatts of new renewable energy will have to be built in the next 40 years, effectively replacing completely all existing coal-fired power plants as well as accounting for increases in energy use between now and mid-century.

Slide Show: The World’s 10 Largest Renewable Energy Projects: Scientific American.