Electric Rates (solar, greenhouse gases, natural, hydroelectric)

[Escort Rider]

Originally Posted by Nomander

You don't get to dictate to me. If you want to tell others how to live, move to California. I am sure there are enough people there willing to worship at the feet of your ideology.

First, I don't have an ideology, it's just common sense. (In an era of ultimate scarcity, where the easily extracted oil has already been extracted which means it is already more and more expensive to extract more, then waste doesn't make any sense.)

Second, "worship" is an emotionally loaded buzzword which has nothing to do with anything in this discussion.

Third, pointing out absurdities is not the same as "dictating" to people. I say let the rate structures determine usage. Your loaded use of language does not stand up to rational, logical scrutiny.

Fourth, I was speaking in general terms about attitudes and practices with regard to electrical usage. I do not claim to be conversant with the policies of all 50 states.

Fifth, if you paid attention to the upper right corner where our number of posts are, you could see that I already live in California, which is totally irrelvant to the discussion. I'm not sure why you bring up these extraneous matters. You are very angry about something. But what?

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by Nomander

Thankfully, I live in Texas where we don't penalize people for using energy or legislate our individual opinion and political ideologies on others.

I pay a flat locked rate up to a certain point of use, if I go over that use I get a discount at a lower rate due to using more. Its a simple pricing model that is consistent with how businesses work.

I lived in California before moving here where it was just the opposite. Prices were extremely high because government went into business with the electric companies to get kick backs. Together, they are able to fleece the population with high prices and penalties for usage. Also, recently with their smart meters they have taken up polices of dictating flow to the consumer without the consent of the consumer.

The result is a state where energy bills are often 3 times the amount they are here and draconian polices that dictate individual choice and fund government agenda through theft of the tax payer.

I doubt any will care if people die. They are currently in a movement to claim that living without air conditioning is better for you and using this flawed ideal as justification to dictate to people that they should limit or go without it.

Couple in the fact that they think the world is overpopulated and people dying of heat exposure fits right in with their agenda. I personally think that to them, people dying, would fit nicely with their political goals.

Texas is also scoped up for running everyone's A/C compressor all day, all year round. Heat waves hit grids in areas with generally milder summers a lot harder.

[MissingAll4Seasons]

I think that the overall reduction of power wasted needs to be taken with small steps that people can choose from as meets their requirements, but have the overall effect of reduced consumption. Trying to force-feed a huge change on anyone is total crap, draconian, and dictatorial.

Many state and government programs offer incentives to replace inefficient appliances and building materials wit more efficient ones. This is a step in the right direction. Many utility companies offer 0-low% loans to homeowners who need to replace inefficient appliances but can't afford to put out the cash in advance to get the tax incentives later. This is also a step in the right direction. These are solutions that allow people a choice.

Here's an example of excessive waste that could have been easily avoided. I lived in an apartment building in Columbia SC that had unzoned radiant boiler heat, whole building ventilation/circulation, and no air conditioning. All air-conditioning was individual window units, and almost everyone on the south and west facing apartments had one or more (which they paid extra in their rent to have). Now, in the winter, it did get cool enough that you would expect to be able to shut off the AC... except that the building managers turned on the radiant heat and there was NO WAY to shut it off in the individual units (down, yes; off, no). So, since we had several folks who couldn't tolerate any cold at all in the building, many of us got roasted out in the winter and were forced to turn our AC on to keep from having heat stroke. Now we were wasting fuel heating more than was required and wasting power cooling it back off again... total waste that could have been avoided with more efficient systems.

[Nomander]

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

First, I don't have an ideology, it's just common sense. (In an era of ultimate scarcity, where the easily extracted oil has already been extracted which means it is already more and more expensive to extract more, then waste doesn't make any sense.)

Common sense is an issue of two concerns. It is either sense that is common among a people or it is an a position of rational thought. If you speak of common sense that which is California, I am sorry, that is called poor thinking and emotional ideology. If you mean by common sense in rational thinking, by all means, make your case.

You haven't provided any evidence to make your claim. Our oil sources in the US alone are abundant, we do not tap it. If you mean it is expensive to pander to those who lack business sense and due to such, the price of oil is beyond expensive due to it, I may agree. Then again, this is of course to their own devise.

You must make a valid argument to support your position. Please do, I am interested to see that which you will support.

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

Second, "worship" is an emotionally loaded buzzword which has nothing to do with anything in this discussion.

Worship is a word properly fit to those who push extreme environmental causes. They use prophetic warnings without evidential fact to support such, much like a religion. They demand conformity or speak of dire consequences, much like a religion. When conformity is not obtained, they seek out to subdue and oppress to such belief and practice, much like some religions. I think it is entirely relevant. This isn't an issue of us chatting over our opinions. These very issues are being debated and instituted in legislation, to force others who do not comply to such an ideal. It is very much like "worship" for those who do not submit will surely be stricken down by the wrath of the holy overseers. Sorry, it applies.

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

Third, pointing out absurdities is not the same as "dictating" to people. I say let the rate structures determine usage. Your loaded use of language does not stand up to rational, logical scrutiny.

I didn't say such specifically, I said that it leads to such and if you wish to argue with me that it doesn't I am afraid you are wrong simply because there are numerous examples of personal opinion in our legislation to which dictates conformity. Do you deny this?

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

Fourth, I was speaking in general terms about attitudes and practices with regard to electrical usage. I do not claim to be conversant with the policies of all 50 states.

But you assume all share your ideal and I would not be far off to make such an argument. If each state were only concerned with themselves, the issue would be as you say, but we all know this is a clever misdirection. Remember in California Government Class? It leads the way, it is the shining future to all other states and they must adhere, because "California" is better. Sorry, I was educated in those institutions, you aren't fooling me.

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

Fifth, if you paid attention to the upper right corner where our number of posts are, you could see that I already live in California, which is totally irrelvant to the discussion. I'm not sure why you bring up these extraneous matters. You are very angry about something. But what?

It was a general comment and honestly I don't care where you live. My point still stands. The fact that I might tell you to go to hell and you are already there doesn't change the position of my claim. You live in California, good for you. Appeal to it and make your state the great state it claims to be, I mean... its doing so well with its arrogant policies as is? California leads the way!

Now we have come to the conclusion that you can count to five. Is there anything else relevant that you might want to add?

[GregW]

I think it is time to nationalize the entire electric power system and create a nationwide TVA to provide adequate power to the nation using distributed automatic nuclear power plants connected to a highly redundant grid. Typical consumer loads would be sold at cost and heavy industrial loads powered by a local power plant. The result would be a much more reliable electrical system that, by using properly designed power plants would effectively never run out of fuel and be capable of using or storing the energy from green sources.

This will never happen because coal and oil company propaganda has poisoned the public awareness and private monopolies will never allow their money machine to be challenged. Privately owned power companies are absurd unless you are an owner.

[marmac]

Here in rural Minnesota, our electric rates are similar to what the OP suggested.

The rates are different as your kwh goes up and price per kwh increases as you use higher amounts.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by donsabi

. I think that every electric customer should have a two meter system in their residence. One for peak and one for off peak with the off peak rate being much cheaper.

They already do this in many places where there are lower rates at night, you don.t need two meters. My Uncle for example will do things like wash clothes during time where they are using a lot of hot water, the hot water heater is on a timer and will only heat overnight. They have plenty for the dat but it's only two of them.

Secondly there should be a reward for conserving electric usage. I believe that all electric providers should divide their rates according to the customers usage with rates rising as usage increases. i.e, the lowest rate is for kwh less than 500, with the next range from 500-1000kwh, and then the highest rate for over 1000kwh.

Completely impractical, what I need for electric is completely different than what you need. I have a few extra computers in my house but they are performing tasks to make me money, they aren't just idling. So I should pay more for being productive? We just had a house fire and one thing that did survive was the tools in the woodshop, are you going to penalize my Brother's excessive electric usage because he's building his own furniture? Are you going to penalize the family with a lot of kids because of their excessive electric usage?

It is either do something to curtail the use of electrical energy now or fry the distribution system leaving all with no power. The electric companies way of reducing consumption is to increase the price for everyone. PECO in PA will increase the charge per kilowatt hour to about $.25 in December 2010 making one of the highest in the country

Do you live in PA? If you want to conserve energy and the enviroment as crazy as it sounds burn coal for your heat.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Nomander

Maybe people should have thought of that when they were protesting the development of power plants being made to meet demand and instituting government policies to restrict and put pressure on that?

Even more humorous is they are blocking cleaner and more efficient plants that would be replacing older plants. The older plants many of which are grandfathered in excluding them from newer regulations keep on chugging away. I've mentioned this before, there was a piece on 60 minutes a few years back about small co-op plant in Florida that served a rural community. The plant operators wanted to make some upgrades to improve efficiency. EPA regs dictated and all or nothing upgrade. If they upgraded A they would have to upgrade B. While A made economic and environmental improvements B only made environmental improvements. The cost for B was too much to justify it so they did nothing at all, no economic improvement and no environmental improvement.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Escort Rider

First, I don't have an ideology, it's just common sense. (In an era of ultimate scarcity, where the easily extracted oil has already been extracted which means it is already more and more expensive to extract more, then waste doesn't make any sense.)

While oil will become more expensive over the next few decades coal which is the primary source of electric is plentiful within this country. At current needs about 2 centuries worth. Note I said expensive for oil, there's plenty of oil such as the more than trillion barrels in the Green River formation. Just not much cheap oil left....

[Nomander]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Even more humorous is they are blocking cleaner and more efficient plants that would be replacing older plants. The older plants many of which are grandfathered in excluding them from newer regulations keep on chugging away. I've mentioned this before, there was a piece on 60 minutes a few years back about small co-op plant in Florida that served a rural community. The plant operators wanted to make some upgrades to improve efficiency. EPA regs dictated and all or nothing upgrade. If they upgraded A they would have to upgrade B. While A made economic and environmental improvements B only made environmental improvements. The cost for B was too much to justify it so they did nothing at all, no economic improvement and no environmental improvement.

My grandfather, a building contractor of over 50 years before he retired used to talk about such bureaucracy to which its own process hampered or denied the very intent it was designed for.

I understand the need for some oversight in some issues, but its gotten out of hand and people need to understand that a large contributor to the cost increases, lack of supply, violations, etc... are a result of the clueless bureaucracies.