But as David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out in a new paper on labour market polarisation, fading union power has been more the effect than the cause of occupational shifts.

ECONOMIST: The middle-class task- force

Even though the power surplus is happening in the northwest, the effect on the gas market will be felt across the country as gas that would have ended up being burned in California instead gets pushed east into Texas and up into the northeast.

FORBES: Record Snowfall To Bring Lower Natural Gas Prices