On the same day that USA Today reports that average U.S. gas prices have hit a new high, the paper has some bad news for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) fans who think they'll be able to tune in, turn on and drive off for pennies on the gallon: electricity prices are also heading skywards. "Utilities across the USA are raising power prices up to 29%, mostly to pay for soaring fuel costs, but also to build new plants and refurbish an aging power grid." New, schmew; those raw materials costs are soaring. "The price of coal, which fires half of U.S. power plants, has doubled since last year, largely because of surging energy use in countries such as China and India. Natural gas prices are up nearly 50% on high U.S. demand. In California, drought has forced Pacific Gas & Electric to replace cheap hydroelectric power with natural gas, helping to prompt it to seek 13% rate increases." And you know that "let's build nukes for our plug-ins" idea? "South Carolina Electric & Gas wants to boost rates 37% by 2019 to cover its share of two nuclear reactors costing $10 billion." And Americans who believe that global warming is a threat are going to have to put their money where their mouth is. "Expect bigger rate shocks if federal legislation, anticipated by 2010, passes and forces coal-fired generators to pay fees to emit global-warming gases. American Electric Power, the largest coal-fired generator, will have to raise rates 115% to pay higher fuel costs, build new plants and recover global-warming fees." Bottom line: ICE, PHEV, EV– there is no such thing as a free ride.
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And expect even bigger rate shocks if we get another Repugant in the WH.
Thank the greenazi nutjobs for no new nuclear power plants.
The era of cheap electricity has come to an end, America. Your gluttonous love of plasma screen high-definition televisions, endless internet service, and incandescent light bulbs is your undoing!
Repent now, and return to 13-inch black-and-white TV sets, dial-up service, and candles! Do it for the sake of the children!
Welcome (back) to the future. Everyday I read the news, I think I’m back in 1981. It seems like it was just yesterday.
The crazy thing is, I love it! Something intrinsically about me hates waste, and loves efficiency. And there has been a huge amount of waste these past few decades.
I consider myself a pretty pragmatic sort of guy, but something intuitively has always suggested a karmic reality about wasting energy. So to me, the whole CO/GW issue is a giant karmic payback! Regardless of the science and all the arguments, I really believe there’s no escaping certain unwritten laws of nature.
“Waste not, want not”
Does that still mean anything? Maybe it will come back in vogue.
I changed all of the lightbulbs in our house last week to those eco-friendly ones and cut out electricity used by lamps by about 4/5ths. I recommend everyone do the same!
100 W, 1580 lumens to 14 W/800 lumens and 23 W/1500 lumens. Home Depot has a set of 4 eco-bulbs for only 5 bucks. Ikea has sets of two for 9.99. Far more expensive.
The amount of people taking pleasure in America’s energy woes is disturbing. If you’re not going to route for the home team you need to get the hell out of the stadium. Call me naive, but I still believe in American know how and can-do attitude. Just because American society refuses to drive neutered vehicles, doesn’t make us wrong. We’ll find a way to sustain our well-deserved lifestyles. We always have.
A lot of people live in a fantasy-world, where self-imposed limited energy supplies is somehow a positive. Our future economic life is at stake, and many prefer to pontificate.
I can only figure they are still in school, and are under the wing of clueless teachers and professors.
Paul, you kind of hit the nail on the head, re: 1981. More like it’s almost like 1973-1981 again, really, isn’t it?
Stagflation, anyone? Skyrocketing energy costs? Malaise in Detroit (yet again)?
I agree with the statement that waste is bad. I’ve always hated waste, was a (reasonbly) early adopter of hybrids (2005 Prius – waited 9 1/2 months to get it, or I’d have had a 2004).
Plus my family started converting to energy saving bulbs oh, 12 years ago or more. I bought one bulb a payday (they were expensive, then).
Of course, many of you who know me can guess that I’ll mention that Christians know this concept – it is called Good Stewardship. Well, Christians used to know it.
But then my Mennonite Christian friends never forgot it, neither have their cousins, the Amish.
Do you know who are the biggest individual users of solar power in the home? The Amish.
They simply skipped the wasteful and dirty 20th century, eh?
America’s energy woes were self inflicted. Oil was cheap except for several wake up calls which were ignored. Now 70 percent of crude is imported and the foreign producers have us by the short hairs. To compound the problem, nuclear was taken off the table and efforts are continuing on shut downs. Oil for electrical generation was excluded by emission regulations which placed heavy demand on natural gas. Coal is the enemy of the Greens and therefore of Democrats. Leaves hyper expensive renewables which are about 7 percent of our energy supply. The People care little about conservation and common sense action to contain energy costs. If it’s cheap burn it, otherwise whine. Well deserved lifestyles? With all of the other entitlements, thats a new one. Makes not one difference in the world market place.
Thank the greenazi nutjobs for no new nuclear power plants.
By jove, thank you, greenazi nutjobs! My rates will stay down because my utility isn’t blowing a wad on nuclear. Whew, disaster averted. Thank you, greenazis!
Damned if this guy wasn’t correct back in the 70’s. Too bad he wasn’t better at national politics; we’d be further along the road to oil independence now.
And holy f*ck, menno’s right. Google Amish and solar power.
hwyhobo wrote:
“Thank the greenazi nutjobs for no new nuclear power plants.”
No. Thank the contractors and managers that constructed faulty nuclear concrete storage units with fissures. In fact, why don’t we ask the folks who built the bridge in Minneapolis, the levee in New Orleans, the showers in Iraq that electocute soldiers, the engineers who dismissed the loose foam on the space shuttle, the folks who put PCBs and MTBE in our drinking water, teflon in our bloodstream, female hormones in our water bottles, Love Canal and Times Beach, the friendly folks whose single-hulled tanker leaked all over Valdez Alaska, the wiseguys who have figured out how to shoot down missles (not), the experts at the FDA who know how to protect our food (tomatoes) and medicine: Why don’t we ask them to build a plant in YOUR neighborhood, Homer?
Too much pessimism and not enough creative problem-solving.
Hyperbranched aminosilica (HAS) is showing promise as a CO2 absorbant if used as smokestack lining. If early tests scale, there should be no global warming fees for any plant incorporating HAS.
Clean coal, rooftop solar, large-scale solar farming. Fast-track nuclear. How about a national water distribution and banking system that includes some hydropower in the mix. Large scale kerogen production and refining.
There’s just a pathetic lack of imagination and will in all this pessimism. We have tools for mitigating and even solving our energy problems all around us. This is America, for cryin’ out loud. We get a grip and improve the situation.
This is the problem with a $14 trillion economy: nothing seems urgent. We have the money, the intellectual capital, ample raw resources. We only need prioritization and will.
All folks replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents: you’re disposing of them at your nearest electronic waste receptor, right? Track progress in LED lighting and spring for that when possible.
Phil
$4/gal gasoline is about equivalent to $0.36/kWh electricity. Where I live, this is 4x higher than the current price of electricity.
That’ll be quite a “soar”.
But you know, even if it hits that price, if the google fleet
http://www.google.org/recharge/
is any indication, PHEV’s will clock in at about 10 miles per kWh, or about 27 miles per dollar.
That’s currently a better deal than any public transit system for the majority of users. Of course, we should expect transit will accrue similar improvements over time.
Paul,
If TTAC could work in some kind of nuclear holocaust angle to this story, it really would feel like 1981 again.
carlos.negros: (disaster, catastrophy, end of the world)
Oh, what a bunch of bull. Nuclear power plants in the US are safer than any other form of energy generation. Long term they also provide the cheapest energy.
Whining greenies love boutique forms of energy, wind, solar, etc., which clearly can in no way fulfill the needs of the country, not even with turning it into one continuous wind and solar farm. Use them to supplement local needs, but that’s as far as it will take you.
So you have a choice, build what works (nukes) or shut up about the prices of energy and global warming.
carlos.negros: Why don’t we ask them to build a plant in YOUR neighborhood, Homer?
If I crawl onto the roof of my house I can see the local nuclear plant about 3km away. The local government has announced it will be making more of them too:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080616.wontnuke0616/BNStory/National/home
2018 is still way too far away. Should we really tolerate the ineffable bureaucrats and their muddying of the waters of progress?
As I sit up there (which I enjoy doing) and think about this problem, my ears are offended by the gigawatts of power being dissipated on the nearby superhighway.
I wish electric vehicles a speedy debut.
As for the doomerism, my advice remains the same: no one is forcing you to endure the manifest benefits of a high-technology society. At least the Amish (the Amish!) are buying solar panels. What are you doing?
hwyhobo
Sir, I would attempt to trade ideas and perspectives, but honestly I think your mind is closed and made up.
Furthermore, anyone who argues their point of view with others who disagree with them by creative and derisive name calling and labeling, is intellectually challenged, is is making no real substantive rational and logical argument.
The 10,000 year waste, the expense, the weapons usable plutonium by product, and yes the potential for dramatically scaled disasters (Chernbyl, anyone?), and how to deal with the power plant sites after they have spent their usable life, all of these reasons lead me to have serious doubt about the wisdom of fission as an energy source.
ttacgreg: The 10,000 year waste,
Long lived radioactive stuff is not “waste”: it is fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
the expense,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
“In the spring of 2007 China National Nuclear Corp. selected the Westinghouse/Shaw consortium to build four nuclear reactors for an estimated US$8 billion, the largest International nuclear contract in history.”
2 billion bucks for 1 billion watts. Price out wind, solar, or similar. You don’t need to remind me that the bureaucrats in North America won’t stand for this kind of efficiency…
the weapons usable plutonium by product,
Not all fuel cycles are military fuel cycles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor
Invented in the USA. Killed in the USA. See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
But more generally, plutonium is a reactor fuel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
“In 2002, the United States Department of Energy took possession of 34 metric tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium stockpiles from the United States Department of Defense, and as of early 2003 was considering converting several nuclear power plants in the US from enriched uranium fuel to MOX fuel as a means of disposing of plutonium stocks.”
and yes the potential for dramatically scaled disasters (Chernbyl, anyone?),
We lived and learned. I will go out on a limb and suggest that no one will ever make an RBMK reactor again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK
and how to deal with the power plant sites after they have spent their usable life,
Whatever radioactive remains that need to be disposed of will burned in another nuclear reactor as fuel, and whatever can’t be burned will have a half-life of a few hundred years. Encase in cement and let sit in a desert to half-life out. Given the power densities that typify nuclear, the amount of material that falls into this category is going to be insignificantly small.
all of these reasons lead me to have serious doubt about the wisdom of fission as an energy source.
In 1942 the problem the US Government faced when developing the first nuclear weapon was which design to pursue. Gun? Implosion? Catalytic?
The answer from on-high: “Do them all.”
And so it was.
This is what it will be for future energy as well. Nuclear (fission, even fusion if we ever figure it out), wind, solar, bio-mass.
Whatever it takes. Each has a niche.
If I’m to understand the gist of the article correctly, when (and if) a reliable fully electric vehicle becomes available, it won’t matter because it will cost just as much to run it the same equivalent distance as a non-electric vehicle on a gallon of gas?
That seems rather difficult to believe.
hwyhobo :
“carlos.negros: (disaster, catastrophy, end of the world)”
Misquote me all you want. Read my postings. I predicted $5 gas months ago.
And I don’t predict the end of the world. I predict the end of Ford Excurssion, Checy Suburbans, Tahoes, Dodge SRT8s, and other various gas hogs.
I predict that Americans will start wanting public transportation. I predict that countries with public transport will have an economic advantage.
I predict Americans will buy smaller cars, and that some of them will be fun to drive. I predict Americans will learn to enjoy smaller homes and city living again.
I predict that Americans will eat less beef and more grains, beans and vegetables, and that we will have lower heart disease. Americans will become thinner and have more and better sex. Americans will learn to walk places. We will be stronger and not weaker. Big fat cars, big fat hamburgers and big fat sitting on your lazyboy butts make people into frightened whining blobs of hydrogenated pimples on the asses of the rest of the world.
Sorry Hormer, I am an optimist. What you see as doom, I see as opportunity.
ttacgreg:
Sir, I would attempt to trade ideas and perspectives, but honestly I think your mind is closed and made up….
…
(Chernbyl, anyone?)
Come on, greg. Modern western reactors and safety practices vrs the old craptastic Soviet reactors…
Keeping new nukes at bay will make greens AND coal miners very happy. We’ve burned 2% more coal every year for the last 30. And we’ll continue to do so – even if Barack, Nancy, and Harry are running Washington next year.
What a coincidence. what does supply has to do with costs of energy? Nothing! If you want to buy 3 muffins from me or 6 , how does it affect costs of ingredients if I can make only those 3 muffins? it is all about greed and milking. In my greed obsessed little republic they also raised prices for energy. But they raised prices for natural gas and electricity simultaneously for 90%. Why? Imagine if they raised prices just for natural gas. What do people do with natural gas? Right, heat their homes. So if the price of gas is doubled, people naturally would try to save by switching to electrical heating. here we go. So they immediately increase prices for electricity as well. So they can milk you both ways! Trim that little sheeple. Don`t be naive that it has to do with saving trees or building new powerhouses. US is by far the biggest manufacturer and consumer as well of electricity in the world. Unfortunately you do it because of greed and falling parity of your dollar, while the rest of the world will follow using your price increase as a reason( motivator) to increase even more “according to world energy price increase“.
Capitalism, unfortunately, brings out in people the most inhumane and ugly insticts. The greed which never stops. The money and power that fakes life itself. The luxury of synthetic values of life. I wonder, how dare you to say that God created people according to Himself. Survival is justifiable, so is weakness, fear and stupidity. So is lack of rersponsibilty, naivness or stubbornness. How do you justify greed? This huge life sucking primitive instinct of building your parasitic organism on expense of others? One lamborghini- and 10 000 people on bicycles. One 2 million dollar villa- and 2000 people barely making their monthly payments.How do you tell them `ēnough“? There is no humane answer to that….
This is still The Truth About Cars, right?
I’m not one to forego the bigger picture myself, but we do tend to stray.
The US should begin preparing for $8/gallon gas. Where I live we’re already at $10/gallon, and we’re self-sufficient with the stuff.
The US gas prices will hit $8 even if the price of crude comes down. Why? Because it has to – the US has become so dependent upon cheap gas that it has to wean itself of the juice, even if it’s going to hurt. It’s a strategic liability, and has to be ameliorated.
The politicians have been too scared to do anything about it, but now they can point to shortages and the unpleasant side-effects of this dependency/habit, and take the necessary measures. (After all, measured in real money the price of gas in the US has remained static since 1928 …)
And nothing will change profligate US ways with available energy more than jacking up the price of gas.
As we’re seeing, the price of electricity is also being jacked up, which means that this may not be the palliative we’re looking for. Demand/Supply/Price relationships still hold – and with the supply uncertainties we’re seeing, coupled with rising demand in non-gas energy, we’re going to be seeing some behavior modification.
Actually, we’re already seeing it, viz the news stories about commuter lines being cramped as new riders hop on board — and with stories of SUVs losing value with every breath you take. (Mine sure did.)
Carlos,
Many doom sayers predicted we were entering a new ice age back in the early 80’s. Oops.
Heck of a business fear is. It’s super effective, too. Both the Dems and Reps use it to get what they want (money) for those that helped them (corporations and PACS) at the expense of us (those that elected them). See any problems with this formula?
Here’s a solution – next time you’re asked to vote in an election, vote for the guy/gal who is not the incumbent. Stop mindlessly voting for the Democrat or Republican that’s running. Vote for a Libertarian. Vote for somebody other than the idiot holding the seat now. The downstream impact of this can’t be overstated.
Energy is always conserved no matter what you do. So say the laws of physics :)
The “…environmentalists killed nuclear..” canard pops up all the time. The fact is, in most countries there hasn’t been new nuclear for decades, simply because it’s not cost effective against new thermal, and in particularly the combined-cycle gas stations.
Here in the UK it’s been government policy for some time to replace and augment the existing nuclear power stations (which are all getting close to retirement). Only no one wants to get involved unless the taxpayer agrees to cover the decommissioning costs. They’re huge and unpredictable.
The UK government has a budget of £73 billion to decommission 19 nuclear sites (not all power stations). And that’s widely acknowledged to be just for starters. You can build and demolish a lot of conventional thermal power stations for £73 billion.
Nuclear was going to be “too cheap to meter”, but turned out to be too expensive to be viable.
Of course that was all before global warming. So things might change.
cheers
Malcolm
And you need a really big hole to bury the nasty bits from 19 nuclear plants — so think of the grandchildren when you call for “more nukes”.
I think we’ll be a bit slow adopting mass transit. Not that we won’t use it more, but it will be inconvenient in the suburbs, and people will use other options.
Interesting reading from everyone. Well, Jurisb, I have to say that yes, I’ll dare to quote God and say that He did make us in his image. That means to say, we have a soul and a body. There is a difference between humanity and animals. It used to be self-evident to humanity that this was the case; now it is less so. You can believe it or not, your free choice.
As for humanity treating each other less well than animals, yes that is true. But then in my religion, this is explained by the fact that God did not wish to have automaton robotic humanity love Him, but gave us free will to love and obey, or turn our collective backs on Him and hate.
Which do you suppose humanity chose, by looking around you?
So then, again, according to my faith and beliefs, God did something unimaginable to the human mind (unlike all the other, false, religions which were made up by man out of ignorance) and placed Himself into a servant form, a human body, and because of the rules He Himself set-up (and which could not be broken by Him), He allowed Himself (in the form of Jesus Christ) to die for the sins (screw-ups) of all of humanity, in the same way that the old religion (Judaism) would sacrifice an innocent lamb to atone for the sins of their people once a year. The catch is, to obtain this gift, people must actually reach out and take it (believe, then act upon their beliefs). Acting on their beliefs will self-evidently make earth a better place to be for any humans around such people. Understand?
Nobody is forced to believe any of this. But, as the world and it’s people increasingly look at these facts and turns away from God and such beliefs, guess what happens to humanity? More nastiness; more greed; more evil; more unhumanity to their fellow man; more despair as people are too ignorant of the one absolute truth in the universe and so try to fill that Christ-shaped void in their hearts, with sex, or wealth, power, or “stuff”, overconsumption of food and energy, everthing. Thinking with the “stomach” not the heart and head.
BTW the Amish do use solar and are capable of doing so despite the fact that solar power provides approximately 10% of the typical “needs” of an American family. Yet the Amish manage fine, because they understand the principles of good Christian Stewardship. “When is ENOUGH, enough?” When it does the job required. Like, for example, light the home better than kerosene lamps or gaslight.
Is solar “the answer”? Probably not, no more than electric cars are “the answer”. But it is a part of the greater puzzle.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The era of ONE major energy source (oil) pretty well being totally dominant in our world, is nearly over.
Either we adjust, or we die. It’s pretty simple. I’d prefer to adjust, and have been doing so since I was 18 (i.e. trying to be a good steward with energy even during times when gas was $1 a gallon, for example).
I did a test on a British website and discovered that not only do my family and I use about 1/2 what the average American family use in energy, we use less than the average British or European family, too.
Very well insulated house? Check. Live in the shade of mature trees to reduce heating and cooling requirements? Check. 50 MPG car for carpooling together? Check. Very little flying for vacations? Check. Low-energy lighting as much as possible? Check. Four cylinder 2nd car capable of towing the smallest possible pop-up camper? Check.
It’s all according to our choices, and using our (dare I say it?) God-given brain power when making said choices. And that goes for everything in life. Even our fun cars! For example, if I want and could afford a fun car? I’d LOVE to have a Catherham Seven (Lotus 7). Not a V12 monster car. Not sporty – just “show-offy”.
Let the socialists run the country and energy will be cheap. They proved that with the 8 dollar gas in Europe.
I just checked my electricity rates. They jumped from about 11.5 cents to 16 cents for one kWh this month.
But checking around at available rates in my area, I’m finding that there is very little difference between “pollution-free” plans (wind, solar) and conventional plans. The difference is only a few tenths of a cent, which is a small premium to pay. For my provider, the difference is only 0.2 cents.
So for now, I don’t think it’s a stretch for people to “vote with their wallets”. We all knew that at some point renewables were going to be competitive. Perhaps that time is already here? Not sure. We’ll see how long it lasts.
@ menno – I’ve always been in favor of good stewardship of the planet and treating people as I would want them to treat me, and I haven’t believed Christ was a savior since I read the bible when I was 10 years old. Why? because it’s obviously written by a lot of different people with different ideas and agendas. You don’t need religion to be moral. You know Bush considers himself a good Christian and he could care less about killing people or screwing up the environment.
I would like to see more modern nuclear plants. They are a lot different than the old, poorly built ones. As far as raising our rates, that is a problem, but what’s the alternative? We certainly cannot continue to rely on dino juice. Yes power has to come from somewhere. But it seems to me that it would be a lot better if we had control over our own power supplies and not at the mercy of OPEC. Ironically the Saudis are afraid of that happening and that alone keeps their prices at bay.
Hi dolo, you’re right, by looking around you, you can see that there are non-Christians who do good works. It’s true.
The question that they won’t have answered in this life is – are those good works getting them anywhere good “later”?
As mentioned, we’re all free to choose what we wish to believe. Well, for the present, in some countries of the world, Christians are still free to believe what we wish to believe, anyway.
No so much so in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China, New Mexico, Colorado and Canada, however. Just for a few examples.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67290
Come, now, let’s face the real facts. All of the afore mentioned problems – ALL of them relate back to one basic problem: human beings, with no suitable predator, have become too prevelent. There’s just too many.
I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.
“We’ll find a way to sustain our well-deserved lifestyles” said someone who has been asleep at the wheel for a few years or who is more likely in a permanent doze, from childhood. Don’t you just love it that we are so entitled and so smart and so innovative that the future just has to be rosy. But Gosh, no rose colored glasses for me, I need a new pair of shades since the future is so bright.
ttacgreg:Furthermore, anyone who argues their point of view with others who disagree with them by creative and derisive name calling and labeling, is intellectually challenged, is is making no real substantive rational and logical argument.
I’m assuming that this condemnation includes carlos.negros, as he wrote this for the very first post on this thread: And expect even bigger rate shocks if we get another Repugant in the WH.
That certainly sounds like name-calling to me, and I sure don’t see much in the way of substantive or logical argument in that post.
ttacgreg: …and yes the potential for dramatically scaled disasters (Chernbyl, anyone?)
Chernobyl used a different design than virtually all western reactors. What happened to Chernobyl in the old Soviet Union isn’t applicable to better-designed, safer western reactors. That’s like saying that all cars built in the early 1960s are dangerous, because of the handling problems with the old VW Beetle and first-generation Chevrolet Corvair. Never mind that other cars used completely different rear-suspension designs.
carlos.negros: I predict Americans will learn to enjoy smaller homes and city living again.
I’m trying to figure out exactly when Americans did enjoy city living…the city has never been the ideal for Americans, even before the age of mass suburbia. For that matter, the trend for urban residents – beginning with ancient Rome – has been for those with money and means to move away from the city whenever possible. That is why the goal of every successful Roman was a country villa, and why London grew rapidly throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and why wealthy Britons owned country estates.
For that matter, every New Yorker I know who enthusiastically talks up the joys of living in Manhattan also has a country house in upstate New York or rural eastern Pennsylvania. I’m sure we’d all tolerate urban living if we had a house in the country, too…
jurisb: What a coincidence. what does supply has to do with costs of energy?Nothing! If you want to buy 3 muffins from me or 6 , how does it affect costs of ingredients if I can make only those 3 muffins?
If you can only make three muffins, but there is a demand for six, you can raise the price of the three muffins. Why? Demand outstrips supply. The higher price means that YOU can afford to pay for more inputs (which would include the ingredients for the muffins, the energy necessary to bake them, and the labor you expend to make them).
If you can make three muffins, and there is only demand for one muffin, you need to discount the muffins. Because you are either just breaking even, or taking a loss, you will therefore scale back production, and use a smaller amount of ingredients, labor and energy making muffins. Because you are using fewer amounts of the ingredients, you will depress demand, which, in turn, will depress their price.
jurisb: it is all about greed and milking. In my greed obsessed little republic they also raised prices for energy. But they raised prices for natural gas and electricity simultaneously for 90%. Why? Imagine if they raised prices just for natural gas. What do people do with natural gas? Right, heat their homes. So if the price of gas is doubled, people naturally would try to save by switching to electrical heating. here we go. So they immediately increase prices for electricity as well. So they can milk you both ways! Trim that little sheeple.
Are the natural gas and electricity suppliers government-owned, or a government-sanctioned monopoly? If so, what you’ve described is hardly a failure of the marketplace, or capitalism. Your scenario involves government working to protect a source of revenue (and, in the case of a government-approved monopoly, trying to protect a cash cow that also provides jobs to residents).
jurisb: US is by far the biggest manufacturer and consumer as well of electricity in the world. Unfortunately you do it because of greed and falling parity of your dollar, while the rest of the world will follow using your price increase as a reason( motivator) to increase even more “according to world energy price increase“.
No, we consume electricity because our system can produce it relatively effectively (read – inexpensively), without too much pollution. And if you think that the electric markets in the U.S. (most of which are regulated at the STATE level, by the way) represent free-wheeling capitalism, guess again.
Even with the deregulation movement in several states, electric utilities are still heavily regulated. It is usually state governments, however, that are most involved in the area of setting rates.
jurisb: Capitalism, unfortunately, brings out in people the most inhumane and ugly insticts.
Sorry, but as I’ve explained, the electric utility industry in the United States is hardly a bastion of unfettered capitalism.
# Phil Ressler :
June 16th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Too much pessimism and not enough creative problem-solving.
Don’t forget about the status quo.
I live in a desert community in California and I’ve seen some of my friends’ electric bills hit $400-500 easily during the summer because they use the AC constantly. Solar, along with judicious use of skylights and evaporative coolers would reduce the energy demand.
nukes ftw