Power Shortage

When will the media, Gov. Gray Davis and the state Legislature wake up? The real reason we have electrical power shortages and rising costs is that we have an insufficient number of power plants. Why don't we remove the roadblocks to the construction of new power plants? If we do not take action soon, the current electrical power problems will just continue to grow. DON SWANSON Lake Forest

The prospect of power shortages in Japan this summer, of stifling city apartments and manufacturing slowdowns, has divided a country still reeling from the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl over whether to restart some of its idled reactors. The government contends that the country can't afford not to resume nuclear energy production. The last operating nuclear reactor in Japan, on the northernmost main island of Hokkaido, will be taken off line May 5 for stress tests and safety improvements.

Japanese authorities have begun imposing sporadic power cuts nationwide to make up for production losses and a nuclear power crisis brought on by last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami. The rationing in urban areas unaffected by the disasters is necessary, utility officials said, because hospitals in quake-stricken areas have been unable to operate at full capacity to treat those injured in Friday's magnitude 9.0 temblor and the tsunami that inundated the northeast after the quake.

The machine operators lean back lazily on rolls of cotton fabric, shooing flies from their sweat-soaked tunics as their boss, Abdul Latif, paces between rows of silent electric looms covered in lint. The textile plant owner knows it's just one of several rolling blackouts that will darken his plant today, as they have every day for four years. Along his street, other textile plants have either closed or begun selling their looms for scrap. Latif scrapes by, but the outages have cut his plant's output in half.

A power shortage has dimmed downtown's holiday tree. Lighting an evergreen after Thanksgiving has long been a local tradition, but during the last lighting, organizers discovered that the tree had grown too tall and bushy for the supply of lights. More are needed, but a nearby electrical outlet doesn't have enough juice, said Keith Holtaway of the Downtown Assn. The tree-lighting event has been canceled until a solution is found.

The Metropolitan Water District will shut down four additional pumps along the Colorado River this summer when requested in an effort to reduce the need for rolling blackouts, agency officials said Thursday. "We already turn off some of our Colorado River Aqueduct pumps when requested by the Southern California Edison Co., freeing up enough electricity for 100,000 Southern California homes," said the water district's general manager, Ronald R. Gastelum.

Talk of looming power shortages and brownouts around the country has many people worrying about the problems those circumstances might cause. But some financial analysts and stock-market investors are also looking into who might stand to benefit, acting on the time-honored Wall Street precept that every crisis contains an opportunity. The electric power situation hasn't yet reached crisis proportions.

Californians are struggling to understand how is it that at the beginning of the new millennium, in the age of advanced technology, we face a power--energy--crisis. In circles of conversation, the blame is being placed on those elected or appointed to be the gatekeepers. It seems to many of us that these folks have been asleep at the wheel. But there also exists today a "power" shortage of a different kind. When I was only 8 years old, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy I.

Despite disruptive blackouts and record increases in their utility bills, most Californians remain unconvinced that the state suffers from a shortage of energy, a Los Angeles Times poll has found. Instead, more than five out of six Californians believe power companies have manipulated the electricity market to boost their profits, the poll shows.

There is absolutely no reason for a power shortage in Southern California. If solar equipment was made available to businesses and homes at a decent price and encouraged, there would be a surplus to feed back into the grid. Solar has been discouraged for one reason only. The power companies want complete control of supply and price. It is outrageous that we even have a shortage. This is one area where our government should take action with tax credits and price controls. LAURA C. BAKER Hemet

Chinese electricity plants are cutting output in the face of soaring coal prices, setting up what could be the worst summer energy crunch in years and threatening to slow the nation's manufacturing sector. State Grid Corp., China's biggest power distributor, has warned that shortages this year could exceed those of 2004, when dry weather cut hydroelectric production, prompting rolling blackouts through much of the country. The current crisis is linked to coal, which fuels most of the nation's electricity plants.

Japanese authorities have begun imposing sporadic power cuts nationwide to make up for production losses and a nuclear power crisis brought on by last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami. The rationing in urban areas unaffected by the disasters is necessary, utility officials said, because hospitals in quake-stricken areas have been unable to operate at full capacity to treat those injured in Friday's magnitude 9.0 temblor and the tsunami that inundated the northeast after the quake.

The Gaza Strip's beleaguered residents face worsening power outages, even as winter temperatures drop, because of a financial dispute between the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Gaza's electricity distributor. The authority says it pays about $30 million a month to provide electricity to Gaza's 1.5 million people. But officials say the Gaza Electricity Distribution Co., which collects payments from Gaza customers, is sending back only about one-tenth of that amount from bill collections.

It was still dark outside when a man in his underwear answered the knock at the factory door, releasing a wave of heat and gritty smoke from the noisy room behind him. This, the man was told, was a power raid. The engineers storming past him were here to investigate electricity theft at this basement plastics mill. The problem is rampant in India, but especially in New Delhi, a sprawling city of slums, factories, and politicians unaccustomed to paying for power. When private companies partnered with the government in 2002 to distribute the city's energy, more than half the electricity generated was stolen.

Center fielder Torii Hunter, who leads the Angels in all three Triple Crown categories, did not play Sunday because of a nagging groin injury. Hunter suffered the injury when he ran into the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium two weeks ago. He said he has experienced soreness ever since, but the discomfort was pronounced when the Angels played on Toronto's artificial turf last week. "The turf is almost like a truth serum," Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. "It has a way of bringing out every ache and pain that you have."

It's rare to see an initiative attract the diversity of opposition that Proposition 7 has. We're accustomed to measures that are opposed by either the Democratic or Republican parties, for example, but Proposition 7 has been rejected by both.

So we have a power shortage (Aug. 2). And the rates are going up dramatically. When the utility companies were all regulated, they knew they had to sell the power for a certain amount. So they had to figure out how to make it for less than that. They had an incentive to find a way to make it cheaper. Now, under deregulation, they dumped their pesky power plants and just buy power at a phony state auction, with no incentive to lower their costs. Then they "mark it up" and send it out to us. And we have to pay; we have no alternative.

In a narrow store wedged between vendors hawking vegetables and cheap clothing, Adnan Walid lovingly shapes sheets of gold into delicate leaves and flowers to make a necklace. Walid has lost count of the number of friends who have fled the violence of recent years. His own shop was reduced to a charred shell two years ago when a car bomb exploded across the street. He keeps two pistols under his counter, just in case.

Home runs have never been a significant part of the Angels' approach, but they have been conspicuously absent for one of the longest stretches in franchise history. Thursday marked the 12th consecutive game in which the Angels did not homer, a streak second only to an 18-game drought during the 1976 season. The last Angel to homer was Mike Napoli in the eighth inning July 1 at Baltimore.