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Title: The Last Energy War: The Battle over Utility Deregulation by Harvey Wasserman ISBN: 1-58322-017-8 Publisher: Seven Stories Press Pub. Date: January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hits the Nail On the Head
Comment: Having been has been involved on both sides of the energy equation exploring for oil, gas and geothermal resources using seismic and magneto-telluric methods and working for the utility industry in coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants, I can say that Harvey Wasserman has written a book that details exactly how and why we're in the mess we're in.
This book is primer for anyone who wants a breif history of the utility industry. It begs the question of when the public will wake up and take back what corporations have stolen from us.
Rating: 1
Summary: Interesting but irrelevant
Comment: An interesting book. Too bad there's not much in here about utility deregulation.
The book is an angry diatribe against various causes that the author hates, including, among others, robber barons, big corporations, corrupt politicians, nuclear power, materialism, the Vietnam War, turncoat environmentalists, and the utility industry. Rather than address these topics in turn, the author attacks each of them in every chapter of the book. The use of various colorful adjectives to describe these evils does little to dull the monotony.
These points might be tolerable if the book actually lived up to its title, but utility deregulation is treated only in the last two chapters, and in a very limited fashion at that. The first of these consists of ten pages about the California deregulation debacle, which even deregulation proponents agree was a terrible mess. The second is a brave statement about how the bad guys won't win, with little explanation for why not.
The book has little in the way of data or supporting evidence for its contentions, particularly with respect to deregulation. We are told the exact number of demonstrators dragged off the site of a protest at a nuclear power plant (1,414), but we are never told the numbers which might show that deregulation will raise the cost to consumers, though we are told that detailed studies have been done demonstrating just this.
The author also does little to present an alternative plan, being far more interested in attacking his opponents. The chapter on solar and wind energy is almost an afterthought, and energy efficiency gets perhaps a paragraph. There is nothing on how a plan using alternative energy systems might be implemented. In contrast, two chapters are dedicated to attacking nuclear power.
In the end, this book is an interesting propaganda pamphlet, but will do little to inform the public about the pros and cons of utility deregulation.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good alternative view point
Comment: The author does a good job explaining how the deregulation has allowed the utilities to push the cost of their investment decisions on to their customers and taxpayers. Read it with an open mind and take it as one opinion in the deregulation debate.
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Title: Reinventing Electric Utilities: Competition, Citizen Action, and Clean Power by Ed Smeloff, Peter Asmus, Amory Lovins ISBN: 1559634553 Publisher: Island Press Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The California Electricity Crisis by James L. Sweeney ISBN: 0817929126 Publisher: Hoover Inst Pr Pub. Date: 17 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The 10 Billion Jolt California's Energy Crisis: Cowardice, Greed, Stupidity and the by James Walsh ISBN: 1563437481 Publisher: Silver Lake Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Democracy and Regulation: How the Public Can Govern Essential Services by Greg Palast, Jerrold Oppenheim, Theo Macgregor ISBN: 0745319424 Publisher: Pluto Press Pub. Date: 24 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System by Richard F. Hirsh ISBN: 0262582198 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 15 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.00 |
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