I didn’t post this is GQ, cos I want to ask several questions about the same issue - feel free to move it mods, if another forum is more appropriate.
Reading another board yesterday, I noticed a lot of posters complaining about huge jumps in their utility costs over the last couple of months. In some cases people’s electricity bills had jumped by over 100% from one month to the next.
I realise it’s winter there at the moment, but given that our average winter electricity bill is around AUD 200 for a two month period (just over $US 100), I was pretty shocked by the numbers being bandied about.
So I was wondering whether it’s something to do with the way Americans heat and cool their homes (central heating is almost unknown in Australia, and although reverse cycle airconditioning is becoming more common, few people use it year round or use it to heat/cool a whole house), the result of an overdependence on oil to produce energy, both, or neither (one poster was in Kansas and using electricity from a nuclear power plant and his bill was still increased dramatically).
For comparison purposes. It’s summer here now. My last electricity bill was AUD 58 for two months, my last gas bill (hot water and cooking) was AUD 93 for 3 months, and petrol is about to rise to about AUD 1 per litre again. I seriously wonder how people can even afford to pay their utility bills in the US if the numbers I’ve read are accurate and the increases can be so dramatic from one bill to the next.
You may have been reading tales of woe from Californa where utility deregulation has had disasterous effects. Utilities have apparently been able to raise rates to whatever the captive market will bear.
The strange thing is that only a few weeks ago I read a (not very good) Arthur Hailey book called “Overload” centred around a looming energy crisis in California…
Doesn’t California have a fairly temperate climate? And if so, wouldn’t it be one of the states in which people are less reliant on artificially cooling or heating their homes?
I find this very scary, as there is considerable discussion about privatising our electicity industry here (we’re already paying considereably higher charges than we need to be because we contracted to sell another state power at a certain cost and have lost $700 million on the deal). At the moment, although the management of our electricity and water supply is contracted out to private enterprise, the government still retains ownership of the infrastructure.
It’s bad enough dealing with the hybrid systems we already have where the government funds the infrastructure but private enterprise manages it and pockets the profits (such as our roads and some of our rail links), but the prospect of this practise being extended to encompass essential services is frightening.
reprise California is a big state. LA (the basin) has an extremely temperate climate. Most of the southern CA doesn’t really get cold, but parts do. Northen CA is practically a different state, so I’ll leave that to NorCal posters.
It has been getting down to about 50 at night here, and has been about 70 during the day. Inland, and low lands it gets to right around freezing. Riverside gets frosts.
Cooling is a different issue all together. During the summer, the valley (just north of LA) gets to the low 100s. My parents in riverside get to push 110 during the worst of the summer.
Deregulation is a pretty complicated topic. There is another thread on it in which Anthracite(sp?) states unequivacally that the result is a straightforward shortage of generators, and, frankly, she is not with out here points. There is at least a small problem with the way deregulation was handled, and there may be some gouging going on, too.
To answer the OP: well, I live in California, on the temperate coast. CA has the lowest BTU usage in the US, both because of the temperate nature, and because we are strange. Assuming a straight 2 AUD to USD, then I pay less than you do. My winter electric is about $60, but this is sort of hard to calculate; there are lots of strange fees on my bill that you may or may not include; things like life line payments to reduce the electricty bill of low income households. But call it $60 for electricity itself.
My gas bill sounds higher. During the summer, its about 10-15/month, and 40-50/month during the winter. N.B., I have an old house, and have yet to upgrade the insulation and weather stripping around the windows.
Gas is currently 1.55 gallon here. You can do the conversations.
It’s interesting to hear from people who are living with the effects on deregulation. One of the proposals being put to the residents of my state at the moment is the selling off of our electricity supply. This would result in a cash payment of around $AUD1000-2000 for each resident of NSW, making the proposition very attractive to many people on low incomes (myself included).
It seems, that there is a very real risk of energy costs spiralling out of control if the industry is fully privatised.
In the part of Australia where I live, our winter temperatures are rarely below about 5ºC (41ºF) and our summer temperatures rarely top 40ºC (104ºF). From memory, we get about 15 days per year when the temperature exceeds 37ºC (98.6ºF), so for most of the year the temperatures are bearable without having to resort to airconditioning or central heating.
I just couldn’t conceive of a way to cope with my energy bills if they doubled from one billing cycle to the next, let alone if they jumped by 500% (as one poster on the other board said happened to them a couple of years ago).
It just surprised me that when I think of US prices overall, I get the impression that they are comparatively lower than ours (taking into account the exchange rate); it really didn’t occur to me that while “luxury” items may in fact be cheaper in many cases, basic living costs may in fact be considerably higher.
I didn’t intend it as a criticism, I was just curious as to how it came about without the voting public being totally outraged.