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Abuses Of Power

Read more articles on The Thoughts Of A Writer In New York City.

July 27, 2006

About This Editor: I am a writer. Have been writing for other sites, but expect to do most of my future work HERE! My expertise extends from the esoteric such as burning hydrogen to the unpredictability of the stock market and my writing makes me a jack of all trades and exasperated master of none. I have had some influence over national wildfire and water policy and there are hints of a change in energy policy, BUT as Samuel Goldwyn once said, "A verbal promise is not worth the paper it is written on."

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By population, New York City is the biggest urban concentration of people in these United States and is served by a big utility that uses the name Con Ed. I live in a co-op that, before it was built, decided it could save money by running its own power station.

Over the past so many years, there have been a few city wide blackouts, during which the co-op electric plant has kept the five local buildings lit and the elevators running while the surrounding neighborhood went dark. Conversely, the co-op power plant has gone down a few times itself and Con Ed supplied electricity during the brief emergencies.

Several years ago, with energy prices looking like they would remain high, co-op management was advised to hire an outside firm to run the power plant under financial terms that resulted in the outside contractor declaring bankruptcy and the co-op re-taking responsibility for the bills incurred for the generation of power.

As a result of the rise in the price of a barrel of crude oil and most other fuels that play follow the cost leader, the cost of generating power independently has also risen and the co-op has increased the monthly charge for living here significantly.

I mention this because there is a power failure in other parts of the City and local politicians are looking to make patronage hay, promising investigations and possible criminal penalties, although right now the problem appears to be unpredictable equipment failures rather than any sort of deliberate negligence.

As I hope you are aware, I have a big interest in creating new energy supplies and also have acquired some expertise. Despite the double talk coming from high places, not only is there power to be produced by flood control but there is even more to be found in producing and employing modernized versions of old fashioned water wheels (think in terms of your old grist mill), which are several times better than hot air mills favored by patronage intent officials,

The real problem is the ability of Members of Congress and other elected office holders to play pretend games with serious real world problems because they come up short when it comes to solutions. This can be summarized by describing the current philosophical approach as free taxes, free benefits and FREE WILLIE!

neil