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Well there are actually a number of gas fired plants being built around Bakersfield. California had the production capacity during our power problems, but because of deregulation our market was manipulated. Among other things, several of our plants were closed down early for scheduled overhauls,. On top of that, locally generated power was being sold out of state. Serveral cities in California had no rate hikes, because the cities actually owned the powerplants they drew power from.
Nationalized power could very easily run at a profit. The postal service is responsible for its own operating costs, and it is pretty damn effective. The first few years would probably be rough, and the federal government would have to subsidize the initial startup costs, but it would work. If this were to happen, California would most likely end up helping to pay for upgrades in other states. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, because in all likelyhood our rates would still drop.
I really want to see us get back to building nuclear powerplants. Granted we need to take care of the Diablo Canyon mess first. Fucking morons built the plant on a fault line. But that aside, we have the ability to build very safe nuclear powerplants now. But... Greenpeace would rather have us continue with coal fired plants.
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