Sucking Up Mexico's Power - - - "Not an hour after....."

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/ross08302003.html

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George W. Bush first proposed the creation of a "North American Energy Market" during his 2000 presidential campaign and quickly obtained endorsement from Mexican president-elect Vicente Fox. Integral to the deal was the privatization of Mexico's state-run electricity generating and petroleum sectors and both initiatives came to form the building blocks of Fox's energy program which, as later revealed by the national daily La Jornada, was partially designed by the late Enron Corporation whose former CEO, Kenneth Lay, was a long-time Bush crony.

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Flanked by cabinet ministers, business bigwigs, and officials of the government's Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) this past August 14th, Vicente Fox utilized a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a Tamaulipas state electricity generation plant constructed by private enterprise, as a springboard to launch his annual pitch for the privatization and deregulation of Mexico's electricity industry. The new facility, which will add 10,000 kilowatts to the nation's generating capacity, is one of 17 being built by private sector consortiums that include such transnationals as Mitsubishi, Westinghouse, and Siemens.

-snip-

Not an hour after the Mexican president wrapped up his pep talk on the wonders of privatization, the privatized and deregulated U.S. electricity infrastructure collapsed into unprecedented blackout, a $6 billion a day catastrophe that spread chaos and panic throughout North America without Al Qaeda even having to lift a finger. "Allah has sent a thunderbolt" one Baghdad resident told the New York Times - that city has, of course, been on permanent blackout since the U.S. invaded.

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Although Fox heeded Bush's injunction to up export production quotas to fuel the U.S. war machine and keep gas prices within reason at the pump up north, Washington yearns for more direct control over Mexico's oil industry in order to "insure (the) U.S. energy security" which is at the core of the Cheney-Bush North American Energy Alliance. But such control may be short-term. According to recent PEMEX studies, Mexico's proven reserves are expected to give out in the next 11 to 13 years at the current rate of extraction.
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[el_gato]

1. This line is key:

"Mexico's proven reserves are expected to give out in the next 11 to 13 years at the current rate of extraction."


We are headed for a global energy catastrophe. Our current form
of civilization, if you can call it that, exists due to the availability
of cheap energy.