Thanks to them long term contracts, California's doing fine as Ann Salisbury notes.
The real story is that Davis went to the Feds and said do something. They didn't. Then he went to the power companies and they said - we're going to keep doing this and there isn't much you can do. If you sign these obscenely priced contracts we'll stop it.
They didn't actually come right out and say that, of course, but it was understood.
The contracts were too expensive - but at that point there probably wasn't anything he could do. The only reason he wasn't instantly vindicated was the fact that the following summer was unusually cold.
