I've gone through a spasm of buying some cheap entertainment recently. According to some I should be bunkering and stockpiling seed corn and bullets but other than outrageous prices there won't be rationing or bread lines so I'll just stay at home and watch DVDs at $0.35/kWh on the TV. Yes, 35¢ per kilowatt hour. Right now SCE Southern California Edison our monopolist State sponsored provider of electrons is charging something like 14¢ base but I have seen the future and it is expensive. As previously calculated here (EN, Aug 2006) it would take 40 new nuclear plants of the Diablo Canyon class to generate the energy equivalent of the gasoline we consume in California. Electrons are about to get real popular and the price is going to triple rather than new supplies being developed. This is the nasty consequence of dysfunctional intrusive liberal socialist government. In the name of environmentalism we get crippled economies, stunted technologies, rationing and you can bet; favoritism.
Too late. The economy runs the agenda now. Nobody except the insane transportation planners in the big urban enclaves are going to be in any position to do anything resembling investment. Upside down homeholders who couldn't even save for a downpayment are not in any position to pay for rooftop solar and still afford to pay for gas. In the name of not increasing taxes you can bet tax credits are on the chopping block State and Federal as well.
Continued disinvestment is what got us here. More disinvestment won't get us out.
19 comments:
Nobody except the insane transportation planners in the big urban enclaves are going to be in any position to do anything resembling investment.
On the other hand, Paul Krugman suggests that public investment would be the most effective economic stimulus plan.
Let's see...the battery pack on the proposed Volt has 8kWh of usable energy - looks like a 2kW solar install could recharge that.
Shoot, at your prices why not install a 10kW system (if you've got the roof)
Yes, I have the roof for near 7hr 15kW exposure except in the deepest winter period of sun angle. I'd prefer not to cut one tree and trim two other unless things get desperate.
5kW is the right size for now. 3800W would probably be the the optimal grid-tie amount for my location and expected future consumption. I sized for 5kW to possibly make back a little more money before the rules change and as you note be ready for an EV. The system excepting the panels is sized for 7500w precisely because I expect to add another bank of panels for electric vehicle assist. With a little fancy switching 1 or 2 vehicles can use the 12/18v DC directly without conversion losses and when their draw cuts out switch back to grid generation. I don't have an EV yet so I'll not spend now when I suspect panel prices will come down by 50% over the next 3-5 years.
"Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes."
--Psalm 37:7
I'm trying sooo hard..
Anyway, here is my Schanenfraude (sp?) story:
In 1997, I had a car that I really liked, a 1984 Buick Lesabre. I washed that car every weekend and kept it spotless. I spent that summer in the DFW area, working my ass off, earning money to pay my way back into college, after having flunked out and dropped out 3 years earlier. I stayed with my brother and his wife to save money. I worked 7 days a week, going in to work at 7 AM every day. I couldn't even tell what day of the week it was anymore.
One day, the local 12 yr. old bully from two houses down got a bibi gun from his sometime-imprisoned dad. The next morning, the right back window on my car was shattered. The only thing holding it up was the tint.
I was furious, to say the least. However, since nobody had actually *seen* him do it, we couldn't prove anything. And, of course, the enabling parents swore it couldn't be their kid, because, of course, he was an angel. Oh, and they had asked him, and he swore he didn't do it. What more proof did I need? So the kid kept terrorizing the neighbors.
Fast forward 10 years. In the summer of 2007, my brother calls me and asks if he can borrow some money, fast. He says he has a great opportunity to buy some land cheap, but needs some cash to put down a big downpayment. Sure, I say, I'll take you the money when I see you this Sunday.
A few months later, I find out the details: turns out, that family two houses down had heloc-ed their house to the hilt, in part to buy a loaded Chevy Tahoe. I had always wondered how they'd managed to live so well when no one in that residence seemed to work very much. Now I knew.
They lost the house back to the bank. They lost the Tahoe back to the dealer. The only thing they had unencumbered was an empty lot of land next to their house. My brother could have it, they said, for $10k (appraised value for an identical lot in the same block was $25k), if he came up with the money in a week.
They took that 10k, bought a miniscule trailer for 5k and now the whole family (4 total) live in a trailer park somewhere.
No doubt you're expecting some final words of wisdom. I'm not sure I have any. An old Chinese proverb offers assurances that eventually the bodies of your enemies will float downriver past you if only you sit patiently on the shore. And as comforting as that prospect may be, you and I know that just desserts aren't reliably meted out to those who deserve them. In real life, payback can't be counted on to arrive at all—much less on schedule. So if what you need is revenge, it may require the patience of a vulture."
--PHYLLIS GAIL DoLOFF
Please, God, give me patience.
I'll be heating my house -- well, OK, my parents' house -- by throwing U.S. Dollars in the furnace. They're worthless!!
Buy gold, people. Lots and lots of gold... I predict $10,000 per milligram by the end of this year! SWEET!!!!
Ah, yes, the old bugbear of 'socialists', like, say the French, except of course that a vast amount of France's power generation comes from... wait for it... nuclear power.
The word socialist is totally meaningless in the United States because Americans have no idea, at all, what the word means. It's like 'liberal', just a string of syllables.
People will not change until the pain is so great, the change is a better deal
NO NUKES since 1978. Now several are on the board. Rather than protest, Let us standardize on 1 very safe model like the French have done (it's a GE model) and get started.
Do you need all that gas to be converted to nuke powered equivilent? Electric cars do not idle. How much fuel do you you burn up on LA highways going nowhere each day? If your effective milage goes from 10 mpg to 20, you need half as much equivilent power.
As the price of gas skyrockets, it is also hoped employers will allow people to telecommute which will also cut down fuel use since less people are on the road.
Finally, California can expect many people to leave the state as they cannot afford it anymore. So traffic jams will disappear.
Not sure what Arnold will do with his daily commute on the G4. I don't think they make an extesion cord that long.
h.
Your 35 cent figure is not as far off as you think.
The marginal price here in Oahu is right now about 26 cents. And my last actual bill, with the flat base fee and the taxes, wound up to a cost of about 29 cents per kWh.
And the neighbor islands are at least 25% higher, so I believe they are already well past the 35c/kWh threshold
The race for alt energy is huge out here, and there are obvious natural advantages with the lattitude and the trades.
Still it's not quite economic enough yet to stand on its on - yet - but here is closer than the switchover will potentially happen quicker due to the geographic advantages mentioned before, and that 85% of the electricty is from oil, as compared with about 5 to 10% of the rest of the country. So here doesn't have the coal, nat gas, or nuke 'conventional' alternative to petroleum.
NO NUKES since 1978. Now several are on the board. Rather than protest, Let us standardize on 1 very safe model like the French have done (it's a GE model) and get started.
Yes, please.
I wonder if Jackson Brown and Bonnie Raitt ever considered how much extra CO2 has been emitted over the past 30 years thanks to their stupid boneheaded fearmongering campaigns?
I want lots of standardized inexpensive nuke plants and I want the Volt. I'll never have to burn an ounce of fuel commuting to work.
I predict $10,000 per milligram by the end of this year! SWEET!!!!
Casey is gonna be worth $100K by the end of the year! SUHHHHWEEEET!!
Cali house cost more = y'alls stuff is all good.
Your electricity must be a lot better than mine too.
Your gubbermint must be a lot better than mine too.
I can see why you don't mind spending a lot more for stuff, because the quality of life is so much better. [/needling]
Good times must be coming with this latest Fed rate cut.
Robert Kiyosaki was on CNN tonight as a non-discredited talking head discussing retirement strategies.
Is this like Dr Jack Kevorian giving health tips?
Time for some massive focused ummmm, never mind. G is never coming back, so KC doesn't need to get rich or even get a new slip cover for mom's couch that is getting pretty threadbare from his day long power naps...
h.
I might as well cop up to it... I live in an area with TVA-subsidized power. $0.055-ish per KWH. My house is decently insulated and not drafty at all, but if I had "normal" electricity rates, my dead-of-winter monthly electric bill would be more than the $104 it was this past winter.
BTW, I toured the Hoover Dam over the past summer. It was amazing how the official tour glossed over all of the lives that were lost during its construction.
BTW, I toured the Hoover Dam over the past summer. It was amazing how the official tour glossed over all of the lives that were lost during its construction.
Did they ever restart the "hardhat tour"? We did that a few months before 9/11. Well worth the extra $25. Supremely cool.
When I was a kid my dad would pack tons of guns whenever we went camping - apparently that was a way of dealing with rednecks. I was puzzled and remain puzzled about the definition of the concept. At the time I assumed they weren't wearing sun-block and pissing him off, but he wasn't wearing sun-block either - and felt ok with the fact that I had my sun-block on and could shoot Rainier Ale cans.
The Hoover Dam hard hat tour is alive and well. I was invited (and passed the background check) for one just last Friday. Unfortunately I had to cancel for business reasons.
I have a very large bias on this topic. I used to work at a coal fired power plant owned primarily by California utilities. It was closed down, cold steel. I found another job in Nevada because I didn't want to live in California. I didn't even miss a day of work switching jobs and got a raise.
May you reap what you sow California.
Anti-nuke, anti-coal, anti-energy with the only new plants permitted being natural gas fired or renewables. Good luck with renewable base load power. Bad news, natural gas production has not been keeping up with demand for years. Natural gas has gone from $2/Mbtu to $6-10/MBtu in the past five years. Natural gas cannot be imported onto our continent in appreciable quantities because NIMBY's don't want LNG terminals (several have been proposed for California). Canada is using the natural gas they exported to the US to make tar sands oil. On top of that the California PUC is decidely ANTI-ENERGY.
Good luck fuckers.
The college I went to sold bumper stickers "Let the bastards freeze in the dark". Did you enjoy rolling blackouts a few years ago? The only time Californians don't bitch about the cost of electricity is when it isn't available at ANY cost.
California is the United States poster child for energy dysfunction and self destruction.
HAH A h AhHA HHA HH AhHhaHahAH AH hH AHAHAH hHAH!
> Buy gold, people. Lots and lots of gold... I predict $10,000 per milligram by the end of this year! SWEET!!!!
You bastard, now I have to sell ;)
I missed out on the hard hat tour as well as the tour of the Nevada Test Site during my spontaneous trip to Vegas. Both of them require background checks, and the Nevada Test Site tour is only given every couple of months.
Could not agree more Rob. But it really is the politicians that guide the spending. Speaking from experience.
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