What? All of a sudden we are not producing anymore and our intake incresed 10 fold. Why can’t we harness electricity form the ocean? Or is this a greed thing?
Err…
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If you live in CA, blame deregulation
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Where are you going to get it from, electric eels?
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Hi Opal!
I live in Northern California (under the iron grip of Pacific Gas & Electric), and there is one thing that seems odd about recent gas and electric prices. Namely:[ul][li]There has been a critical electric power shortage recently, requiring rolling blackouts throughout the state.[/li][li]Natural gas prices for us consumers have gone up.[/li][li]But electricity prices have not.[/ul]To which I must ask:[/li]
Huh?!?!!
I wouldn’t claim to be able to untangle the vast web of regulation that makes up California’s ‘Deregulated’ energy.
So, don’t blame California’s problems on de-regulation. The basic problem in California is that pressure from environmental groups has made it impossible to build new power plants, over a time when California’s energy needs increased over 30%.
BTW, we don’t have an energy shortage. We never will. We will have shortages of specific forms of energy distribution (i.e. oil, gas), but we’re surrounded by energy and we know how to harness it. The only problem is cost.
So sure, we can extract energy from the ocean by tapping the temperature differential between deep ocean and surface to drive heat pumps. Or we can build collectors to harness wave energy. We can also tap geothermal energy sources, wind power, or the energy from the sun directly. We know how to do all of this.
The problem, again, is cost. Who’s going to pay 25 cents per kwh for solar power when they can buy the same energy in the form of natural gas for 1/4 that price? No one. That’s why we don’t do it.
One day, the price of our cheapest energy sources will increase to the point where these other alternatives will become attractive, and then you’ll see a mass move towards these other energy sources. And those are virtually limitless.
Well, you can blame deregulation for the prices not going up. The price caps are still keeping the price of eletricity artificially low.
Uh, Anthracite… far be it from me to argue with you on matters of energy, but how does a government price cap become the fault of DEregulation? If energy were completely de-regulated, there would be no price caps.
And BTW, the price caps should go. The price of energy to the consumer should be allowed to float with market prices. That way, it will stimulate conservation and help keep the energy companies afloat.
I find it interesting that Ralph Nader, head of the Green Party, is in favor of the price caps. Either he knows nothing about economics (possible), or he’d rather support big government and ‘consumer’s rights’ than the environment (equally possible).
You are correct, Sam. It is more correct for me to say that it is the result of the half-assed quasi-deregulation scheme in CA specifically.
Sam, I agree. There’s no market like free market like show business… oh I’m sorry
The way I understand it is that this “deregulation” is really no such thing. They deregulated the prices the power companies paid for the energy but kept a cap on the prices they could charge the consumers. You don’t have to be a genius to see that if the price you pay exceeds the price you charge, you will lose money and go under.
Couple that with the fact that California has made it very difficult to build new plants, so they bought a lot of their power from other states.
Now, when those states have surplus, they are happy to sell to California, but when there is a shortage, they would rather keep their Kw. The free market being what it is, makes the price go up, but the power companies cannot reflect that in what they charge the consumer. So for a while they are losing money… until now they run out of credit and the suppliers refuse to supply.
NOW is when averybody starts running around and wondering what happened!
The environmentalists blame the “greedy power companies and deregulation”. Gimme a break. If there had been total market freedom, this never would have happened. The price of energy would have gone up, that’s all.
Now I will yield to those who know more than I do…
Great minds think alike!
but to address the OP specifically:
>> Why can’t we harness electricity form the ocean? Or is this a greed thing?
Yes Virginia, it is a greed thing. No need to even harness the ocean as free electricity is much closer than you think. Just check out http://www.electricity4free.com/ and http://www.ucsofa.com/Free%20Electricity.htm
Here in Georgia, gas was deregulated and the prices shot well beyond the roof. The electric companies use gas as a fuel source and now they want us to foot the bill for the excessives gas prices. They wanted a 25% rate increase, but “only” got 15%. There was talk of deregulating electricity, but after seeing what’s happening in California, it would be political suicide to vote for it.
>> now they want us to foot the bill for the excessives gas prices
So, in your opinion, who do you think should foot the bill to pay for the fuel used to make the electricity you consume?
Blame the high gas prices on the insistence of piggy Americans to drive those bulking SUV’s and minivans which get 10 miles per gallon mileage. That combined with the refusal of our money-controlled legislature to stop the giant oil companies from merging and you can see why prices are rising the way they are.
Conservation is the solution?!? I always turn off lights, etc when not in use. The next thing I could possibly do is to unplug all the clocks in the house (only plugging them in when I want to know the time) and/or putting the ‘fridge on a timer of some sort. The thing that truly hacks me off is 2 months ago, during the very instant I was writing my monthly check to San Diego Gas & Electric ($178.00, as I recall), the freakin’ lights went out! Just one of our wonderful (and ironic) rolling blackouts - and that was in February! It’s gonna be an “interesting” summer! sigh
This recent Science News article on wave power will give you an idea of how things are going with it. One thing I noticed is that the DoE is spending zilch on it.
Ok, so I was being purosely innacurate about getting energy from the ocean. You can get energy from any temperature differential, or chemical/physical potential energy, or whatever. It’s just that the ocean doesn’t seem like the best candidate for that to me…
Ahh well.
(as for CA, well, that’s a long rant I don’t need to get into now…trying to program my robot)
Myrr21, The reason I said ocean is because,
Electricity is made by movement and the ocean will always have movement (waves and currents) best of all it is free. There should be a way to harness electricity from the ocean.
We already talked about the power from the ocean thingy. It’s impractical.
tracer, electricity prices in California are low because the gov is paying $44M per day for it. If you look at your statement closely youll see a huge sort of refund credit you get. Like I pay $80 but the state paid $50, so I pay $30.
natural gas on the other hand, is triple what it was before & it goes right from the source to you so you have to pay what they charge.
Whats weird is its been real hot hot hot & no power alerts.
You know, I’m all for ecology and such, but having something resembling a brain, I also know that there can be too much ecological preservation when it comes to our current world and technology.
We have a Nuclear Power Plant here that has been purring along quietly for around 20 years with no fuss and no muss and no one has yet begun to glow in the dark but we cannot build anymore because ecologists scared the crap out of everyone. Since it is built on the Atlantic ocean, it actually benefits the ecology because, during cold weather, the Manatee’s like to swim in the heat exchanger outflow.
No Manatee has yet turned radioactive.
The plant, built like a rock, has never suffered anything but cosmetic damage during hurricanes.
Still, we are not going to be able to build another one.
My town, up the road from the plant, is on a fixed yearly increase in power. That means every year, your power bill goes up a few cents and never comes down, even with our plant alternately buying and selling power from the Nuclear plant.
I know two people who spend around $98 a month or less on power. One is kind of nuts, living in a 40 year old house, using no air conditioning, using gas cooking, and low, dim lights. He likes the summer heat and humidity, so no air conditioning.
The other built his big, new home here in the South with Northern building standards, added extra insulation, thermo windows and all of that stuff. His place is twice the size of the first guys, plus he has a wife and son and lots of people over. His bill runs around $98 a month.
In the battle with Ecologists, common sense needs to be used. If the majority need more power, then find the least harmful place, ignore that darn endangered spotted mouse and build the plant. We’ve had people move down here, after buying acreage 20 years ago, ready to retire and build a home, only to find that they cannot because their lots contain Gopher Turtle nests, Blue Jay colonies, or whatever other ‘endangered’ species. They cannot even sell their land because now, the value is shot because they cannot build on it.
When I was a kid, the currently protected Jay was a pest bird, noisy, known to kill the young of other birds, known to chase other, smaller birds out of an area and to even destroy some garden crops. Now, it is protected.
People are going to have to understand a few things, like nearly fanatical ecological preservation, or live with oil lamps and candles. A compromise can be reached, but most ecologists do not want to do this.
So, everyone suffers.
My knowledge is vague and maybe Anthracite has better info but I believe Spain put itself in a similar situation as California.
The ecologists managed to halt construction of any nuclear plants and even some which were completed or near completed were scrapped. This cost the country billions plus now they had to buy energy from outside… The French were only too glad to build some nuclear plants across the border from Spain and sell the energy to Spain.
Now Spain has to pay for electricity whatever the French demand. This for the convenience of having moved the nuclear plants a few miles away into someone else’s back yard.
lol, I love it, isn’t irony just so ironic.