According to a recent NPR/PRI report, the following western states are building power plants: AZ (17), WA (10), NV (8) and OR (5). That's a total of 40 power plants -- all of them fired by natural gas -- and this does not include California, which has at least 9 new gas-fired plants under construction.

Approximately 50% of electric power is lost in the grid ... which means 2KW must be produced by the power plant to deliver 1KW to your home. That's why electricity is the least efficient form of power. (That's also why the "clean" electric cars that are recharged by plugging them into the power grid are neither efficient nor "non-polluting").

But I guess by now we're used to Californians not being able to think or do math.

Problem is, we need natural gas for heat. While it is possible to construct coal-fired power plants that use pelletized fuel, afterburners & scrubbers to be relatively non-polluting, these plants are more expensive to build, though cheaper to operate. We cannot burn coal cleanly to heat our homes. Did anyone think of that?

So, with 50 new gas-fired power plants coming online over the next 3 years, can anyone guess what's going to happen to natural gas prices? Apparently, the planners in CA, AZ, NV, OR and WA haven't figured this out.

Of course, American corporate decision-making is geared to quarterly reports, and they just can't think farther than 90 days. Where did they learn that? So be prepared for natural gas shortages, together with a 200% increase in prices.

Much of this is due to the Kyoto Agreements -- where the U.S. is bound to reduce its "pollution" to 1990 levels, but the third-world can pollute all they want!

Guess what they're building in Mexico?

Coal-fired power plants. Yep. The U.S. will produce low-cost coal fuel and ship it to Mexico, where they will use this to generate relatively cheap electric power.

Now, guess how industry is going to react. You got it! They're going to build new factories in Mexico, where power (and labor) are relatively cheap. And what happens to the pollution generated by these mexican power plants (which do not need the afterburners and scrubbers, since they can pollute all they want)?

The pollution is going to come back here, because the U.S. is "downwind" from Mexico.

In all fairness, we cant blame this on George Bush. This is the result of the Clintonista energy non-policy. But, will "Dubya" be able to deal with it? Probably not because, as the TIME writer who reported on the california situation stated, "There were too many things that you couldn't talk about." So the energy crisis is a political-correctness crisis, too.

My prediction is that we are watching something like the sinking of the Titanic. Because the ship was still afloat 30 minutes after hitting the iceburg, nobody thought it would sink.

Somewhere below on this BB, I reported that the U.S.A. is D.O.A. upon entering the 21st century. I ain't just whistling 'Dixie'. The U.S. is going down, just like the Titanic.

Grugyn Silverbristle