Remember Transmission? Thought Not...

"Fortress California?" With statements like that, how can you possibly eschew politics? We received an e-mail recently from an avid industry watcher complete with cartoon showing some jack-booted "electron police" at a remote desert outpost arresting Reddy Kilowatt as he rode in over a high-voltage line.

Anyway, we find it curious that in all the statements and in all the stories we've followed about the CA debacle, little lip service has been given to one of the core problems of this marketplace: transmission planning. In fact, throughout this mess, the only mention of the grid at all was a statement by the state treasurer suggesting the government should take over the transmission assets of the big ailing utilities in the state. He proposed issuing up to $10 billion in bonds toward acquiring these assets.

"I'm not sure where that particular idea is headed, but I can say I've not heard any sunset clause, no exit strategy for such a state move," says PwC's Elliot Roseman, a transmission expert in the firm's securities practice in Washington, DC. "Would such a new state entity operate in perpetuity? I don't think so."

But, for the sake of...