One of the reasons that people feel screwed by the electric utility and energy utilities in general is because of the arrogant behavior of executives in the utility industry. Enron is the poster child for this behavior but much of the industry’s arrogance is perfectly legal and supported by federal and state laws.
Public Citizen, Inc, is a non-profit membership organization that lobbies for strong citizen and consumer protection laws. They say, "We fight for openness and democratic accountability in government, for the right of consumers to seek redress in the courts; for clean, safe and sustainable energy sources; for social and economic justice in trade policies; for strong health, safety and environmental protections; and for safe, effective and affordable prescription drugs and health care".(Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/index.cfm)
Their review of the Dominici -Barton Energy Policy Act of 2005 chronicles a list of tax breaks and incentives that reduce tax income and provide regulatory incentives that will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars to support healthy profit making electric generation and transmission companies along with private energy companies. This same legislation pays lip service to renewable and clean energy alternatives while decimating the Public Utility Holding Company Act. They write;"Repeal of PUHCA and Merger Reform-The 70-year-old consumer and investor protection statute would be completely abolished within six months, opening up ownership of approximately $1 trillion worth of electric generation, transmission and distribution assets and natural gas distribution assets to any kind of company, anywhere, for the first time since 1935. At that time, hundreds of Enron-type affiliate and other abuses took place between holding companies and their utility subsidiaries resulting in the collapse of the holding company empires, which wiped out tens of thousands of investor"s.
NewEnergyFuture.com is a project of state public interest groups and state-based environmental groups around the country. State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) are state-based, nonpartisan advocates for the public interest. Groups such as Environment California, Environment Colorado, Environment Maine and PennEnvironment combine research and advocacy to improve the quality of the environment in their states. Please spare me the red state blue state comments. Its all one state - the state of our world.
They had similar reaction to federal legislation proposed in 2001. Their executive summary reported, "H.R. 4, the House energy plan passed on August 2, 2001, is dirty, dangerous and does not deliver for consumers. It uses taxpayer dollars to subsidize profitable and polluting corporations, leaving consumers with little more than the side effects of a shortsighted and dirty energy policy—more drilling, more spilling, more air pollution, more global warming, and more radioactive waste. The House energy plan is unbalanced, devoting barely a quarter of the subsidies and tax breaks to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Instead, H.R. 4 includes $38 billion in subsidies and tax breaks for polluters, sacrificing meaningful investment in renewable energy and perpetuating America’s dependence on polluting fossil fuels and nuclear power, the most dangerous and expensive source of power available. The oil and gas, mining, auto and electric utility industries, having contributed $18.4 million to federal candidates in the 1999-2000 election, enjoyed a return on their investment by a factor of more than 2,000 in this bill alone. (http://newenergyfuture.com)
Now that you’re really pissed off, you owe it to yourself to learn more about how the industry works.
To make electricity you must turn a generator of some kind For example, in order to charge your car battery and keep your car’s electrical system going you have to turn your alternator’s main shaft. And, you have to turn it at the proper speeds and duration to get the proper results. You can also generate electricity without "turning things" by using certain chemical reactions, like hydrogen fuel cells and solar collector silicon wafers.
That’s pretty much it. In order to rotate a generator you need energy. Either mechanical energy like wind and hydro-power, chemical energy like solar or fuel cells, or heat energy, like coal, or gas or something else that you burn or combust to make heat like nuclear energy or garbage etc.
2005 Data from the EPA (http://beta.blogger.com/(http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html) ,shows the following energy generation sources nation wide.
2005(thousand megawatt hours)
Coal - 2013179 - 49.65%
Petroleum- 122522 - 3.02%
Natural Gas - 757974 - 18.69%
Other gas - 16317 - 0.40%
Nuclear - 781986 - 19.29%
Hydro-Electric - 269587 - 6.65%
Renewables - 94932 - 2.34%
Pump Storage - -6558 - -0.16%
Other - 4749 - 0.12%
Some areas of the country have higher coal use with about 80 to 90 % of their electricity being made from steam driven turbines that are powered from the heat of coal. This technology has been around a long time. Natural gas became a popular fuel to make electricity in the 1970 and 80's because it was considered a cleaner burning fuel than coal and less expensive than oil or gasoline. Increases in natural gas costs make this fuel less popular today and most natural gas generation facilities tend to only be used to cover peak electricity demand that can not be met by base load coal generation.
Coal generation today costs between 3 and 5 cents per kilowatt hour. This rate would be higher if the subsidies mentioned by Public Citizen are taken away. Wind Energy comes with in 2-3 cents of coals kilowatt hour rate, as long as the Production Tax Credits stay in place. This is the cost of generating electricity and transmitting it to your distribution company. You mine the coal, gas or oil and you ship the fuel to a power plant and you burn it to make electricity. Or you turn turbines with wind or water to make electricity.
Then you transmit the electricity directly to the load at just the right time to keep the lights from going dim. This takes lots of planning and coordination and lots of resources; people and machinery to mine the energy; trains, trucks and drivers to ship it and power plants, wind towers or dams, transmission lines and specially trained operators and technicians to keep the whole thing going smoothly. So, all of this is great for the economy, to a certain extent.
So what’s the problem? Even the most optimistic analysts predict that some day we will run out of fossil fuels. The pessimists believe we will destroy the earth long before we run out leaving the planet a massive re-enactment of industrial London, England with the choking soot filled skies of the 16th and 17th centuries; and a climate altered beyond its ability to feed or care for living things. More about that later.
Alternative power to the rescue right? It never runs out. Not so fast. Yes, there are cleaner alternatives to power generation. Yet the meager 2.34% of renewable power generation shown the chart above is small for several good reasons. One reason is that alternative energy costs the consumer more at the meter. Winning support and understanding for renewables is hard when there is a feeling that a change will raise your electric bill. The other reason is that these industries are still evolving and face challenges of education, distribution and education that conventional sources over came decades ago.
So many questions and so much research to do. I’ll just keep banging away here trying to explain a complicated subject in simple terms. As Carl Sagan said, "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." I love that quote. You will probably see it again.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Keep that dim bulb going
My biggest disappointments in life seem to occur when I fail to ask the right questions; questions like, " are there any other fees associated with this free offer?" Or, basic questions like, " how does this work"? Or the favorite guy question to be left unanswered, "how do you get there"?
This concept seems to be true with most customer’s relationship with their electric utility. In fact we typically don’t ask any questions at all. We just call a phone number and tell the person on the other end of the line to " sign me up". We are offended if we are asked for a deposit of any kind. "How could they question my integrity"?
Rarely does anyone ask, "so what have been the typical electric bills for this house I am moving into"? Or, "where does my electricity come from"? Or, what is the name of your company and what are its goals"?
In fact, as a nation, electricity consumers have gotten so lazy about electric service that the call center employees at your local electric company may be thrown into chaos if you start asking those questions. Mine certainly did. Can you imagine buying a car and not asking about who makes it? Would you ever consider getting a loan no matter how small with out expecting to pay some money down, a percent of the purchase price, like a deposit? Today electricity is considered by many to be an entitlement not a commodity. It’s in the Constitution; life, liberty and electricity. Not only is electricity a commodity that is bought sold and traded, it is a very expensive commodity to make and deliver.
So, lets look at the big picture first. Why should you keep reading? Because, knowledge is power when it comes to your electric bill. And, if Al Gore is correct, this knowledge may save the world. If he’s not you still get to keep the cash you save.
How do we get electricity, where does it come from and why should any of this matter to me? Well, just like there are FORD people and there are CHEVY people, the source of your power makes a difference. The lights stay on in your house, not simply because you resentfully pay your bill each month. Your toast gets toasted and your beer gets chilled by a remarkable system of interconnected companies, facilities, equipment and people that must all be working with a common vision.
Tracing the system backwards from that dim bulb in your closet takes some work and the details are....frankly... boring. Yet, when that bulb goes out you demand answers. You scream for heads to roll. Fists are raised in protest and cries echo in utility industry halls for the culprits to be thrown out in the street. If you don’t believe me do a quick review of the headlines in the northeast during rolling black outs or find some headlines from California several years ago.
Power gets to your home, apartment or condo from wires connected in your house to a breaker panel. The size of your house and the size and efficiency of the equipment in your house can require larger or smaller breaker panels but, from that breaker panel some wires connect your house to a meter. It might be the landlord’s meter in an apartment complex and it might be on a pole or on an outside wall, or on a pedestal , but somewhere there is a meter that records the amount of electricity that your house uses. These meters are generally simple mechanical devices. Many customers look at their meter with suspicion thinking that it’s the meter that makes the bill. Actually you make your bill, or at least all of the gadgets in your building make the bill. The meter is a simple mechanical or solid-state device. It does not speed up when it is failing. Just like your car does not speed up when it is having mechanical or electrical problems. Meter reading technology is evolving. The muddy notebook with the torn pages and dog tooth marks imbedded in the cover has generally been replaced by a handheld computer with dog tooth marks embedded on the casing. These high tech devices often prompt the meter reader with directions and information on the next meter to be read on the route. Some have radio transmitters that communicate with your meter, and only your meter, to get the readings from a distance. Some utilities even have the capability to communicate with your meter and get meter readings over the power lines. The device doesn’t matter, the theory is the same. The meter dial shows one number at the beginning of the month and then shows a higher number at the end of the month, unless you have net-metering, are a criminal or flipped the main breaker switch to "OFF". I’ll get to net-metering one of these days. The other two options will have to be covered by someone else.
Now, here comes the point of all of this. There is no real incentive for utility companies to make up numbers or bill you for more electricity than you have really used. There are so many checks and balances and so much regulatory oversight that any shenanigans with your meter will always come to light (pun intended) before too long. Does that mean you can relax and pay your bill? Heck no! Your electric company bills thousands, maybe billions of homes. Despite the checks and balances, mistakes; honest mistakes from failed equipment to corrupted data files do happen. If your utility fails to bill you for the juice you actually used its not free. Remember the last Blog. "Anything free, isn’t". Someone is paying for it. You used it, so it was generated and transmitted and distributed. If you don’t pay for it, everyone pays for it through higher rates.
Electricity comes to your meter from a company called a distribution company. It could be a Municipal company, an Investor owned private company, a public power district or a member owned cooperative. The business is the same. They sell you electricity and your payment to them covers their cost to buy the electricity, cover operating expenses, salaries, repairs and the loans that were needed to build the distribution system to begin with. Most distribution companies do not make their own electricity, though some do. There are even some Municipal Utilities that handle distribution and generation, but most distribution companies buy electricity from a whole sale power supplier or generator or generation company or a generation and transmission company.
Generation companies, we’ll call them G&T’s make power and sell it to distribution companies. Federal deregulation lets any one play the "generation" game by providing "open access" to transmission systems for a price. A few states are toying with the idea of "open access" or de-regulation for distribution companies, but once the stool got kicked out from under the California attempt at deregulation, proponents rhetoric definitely softened. Transmission "open access" has been viewed as a good thing by most consumer groups with few exceptions. The challenge for the G& T’s is to figure out how much electricity to make and when to make it. They use complicated formulas, past experience and a fair amount of prayer to make wholesale power. They can’t store it if they make too much and they loose friends and business if they don’t make enough. Remember those headlines.
So that is a very simple explanation of a system that I think is amazing. Next time, I’ll get into how electricity is made or generated. We’ll talk about the tried and true as well as the alternatives. Next time you’ll find out the source of the rallying cry, " Ban mining, let the bastards freeze in the dark". See you next week.
This concept seems to be true with most customer’s relationship with their electric utility. In fact we typically don’t ask any questions at all. We just call a phone number and tell the person on the other end of the line to " sign me up". We are offended if we are asked for a deposit of any kind. "How could they question my integrity"?
Rarely does anyone ask, "so what have been the typical electric bills for this house I am moving into"? Or, "where does my electricity come from"? Or, what is the name of your company and what are its goals"?
In fact, as a nation, electricity consumers have gotten so lazy about electric service that the call center employees at your local electric company may be thrown into chaos if you start asking those questions. Mine certainly did. Can you imagine buying a car and not asking about who makes it? Would you ever consider getting a loan no matter how small with out expecting to pay some money down, a percent of the purchase price, like a deposit? Today electricity is considered by many to be an entitlement not a commodity. It’s in the Constitution; life, liberty and electricity. Not only is electricity a commodity that is bought sold and traded, it is a very expensive commodity to make and deliver.
So, lets look at the big picture first. Why should you keep reading? Because, knowledge is power when it comes to your electric bill. And, if Al Gore is correct, this knowledge may save the world. If he’s not you still get to keep the cash you save.
How do we get electricity, where does it come from and why should any of this matter to me? Well, just like there are FORD people and there are CHEVY people, the source of your power makes a difference. The lights stay on in your house, not simply because you resentfully pay your bill each month. Your toast gets toasted and your beer gets chilled by a remarkable system of interconnected companies, facilities, equipment and people that must all be working with a common vision.
Tracing the system backwards from that dim bulb in your closet takes some work and the details are....frankly... boring. Yet, when that bulb goes out you demand answers. You scream for heads to roll. Fists are raised in protest and cries echo in utility industry halls for the culprits to be thrown out in the street. If you don’t believe me do a quick review of the headlines in the northeast during rolling black outs or find some headlines from California several years ago.
Power gets to your home, apartment or condo from wires connected in your house to a breaker panel. The size of your house and the size and efficiency of the equipment in your house can require larger or smaller breaker panels but, from that breaker panel some wires connect your house to a meter. It might be the landlord’s meter in an apartment complex and it might be on a pole or on an outside wall, or on a pedestal , but somewhere there is a meter that records the amount of electricity that your house uses. These meters are generally simple mechanical devices. Many customers look at their meter with suspicion thinking that it’s the meter that makes the bill. Actually you make your bill, or at least all of the gadgets in your building make the bill. The meter is a simple mechanical or solid-state device. It does not speed up when it is failing. Just like your car does not speed up when it is having mechanical or electrical problems. Meter reading technology is evolving. The muddy notebook with the torn pages and dog tooth marks imbedded in the cover has generally been replaced by a handheld computer with dog tooth marks embedded on the casing. These high tech devices often prompt the meter reader with directions and information on the next meter to be read on the route. Some have radio transmitters that communicate with your meter, and only your meter, to get the readings from a distance. Some utilities even have the capability to communicate with your meter and get meter readings over the power lines. The device doesn’t matter, the theory is the same. The meter dial shows one number at the beginning of the month and then shows a higher number at the end of the month, unless you have net-metering, are a criminal or flipped the main breaker switch to "OFF". I’ll get to net-metering one of these days. The other two options will have to be covered by someone else.
Now, here comes the point of all of this. There is no real incentive for utility companies to make up numbers or bill you for more electricity than you have really used. There are so many checks and balances and so much regulatory oversight that any shenanigans with your meter will always come to light (pun intended) before too long. Does that mean you can relax and pay your bill? Heck no! Your electric company bills thousands, maybe billions of homes. Despite the checks and balances, mistakes; honest mistakes from failed equipment to corrupted data files do happen. If your utility fails to bill you for the juice you actually used its not free. Remember the last Blog. "Anything free, isn’t". Someone is paying for it. You used it, so it was generated and transmitted and distributed. If you don’t pay for it, everyone pays for it through higher rates.
Electricity comes to your meter from a company called a distribution company. It could be a Municipal company, an Investor owned private company, a public power district or a member owned cooperative. The business is the same. They sell you electricity and your payment to them covers their cost to buy the electricity, cover operating expenses, salaries, repairs and the loans that were needed to build the distribution system to begin with. Most distribution companies do not make their own electricity, though some do. There are even some Municipal Utilities that handle distribution and generation, but most distribution companies buy electricity from a whole sale power supplier or generator or generation company or a generation and transmission company.
Generation companies, we’ll call them G&T’s make power and sell it to distribution companies. Federal deregulation lets any one play the "generation" game by providing "open access" to transmission systems for a price. A few states are toying with the idea of "open access" or de-regulation for distribution companies, but once the stool got kicked out from under the California attempt at deregulation, proponents rhetoric definitely softened. Transmission "open access" has been viewed as a good thing by most consumer groups with few exceptions. The challenge for the G& T’s is to figure out how much electricity to make and when to make it. They use complicated formulas, past experience and a fair amount of prayer to make wholesale power. They can’t store it if they make too much and they loose friends and business if they don’t make enough. Remember those headlines.
So that is a very simple explanation of a system that I think is amazing. Next time, I’ll get into how electricity is made or generated. We’ll talk about the tried and true as well as the alternatives. Next time you’ll find out the source of the rallying cry, " Ban mining, let the bastards freeze in the dark". See you next week.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Electric Utility Companies- What do they deliver?
I heard the comment again last Saturday morning. "Electric Utility Companies are screwing us." Are they really screwing us? How exactly are they screwing us? Is it because they have failed to make good on the 1950's promise of electricity "to Cheap to Meter"? Was that ever a real promise? Nothing free, is.
I want to Blog in a kind way about real issues dealing the electricity generation. I want to talk about why many citizens feel like their electric utility is "screwing them" . I want to find out why utilities are not adopting renewable energy programs and energy conservation programs more readily, especially in Indiana, my home State for the moment. This debate has become such a "them versus us" debate and yet, it is "all of us" that create the demand for electricity, not the utilities. They are just responding to demand. The major brown and black outs experienced by the northeast were not accompanied by media reports demanding clean power. Headlines simply said, "Who turned out the lights", and the blame was clearly leveled at utility operations and policies.
I do not want this Blog to be a debate. The word debate implies winners and losers. I believe if any one loses, we all lose.
The opponents are not other people or utilities or big business. The opponents are energy resource depletion, skyrocketing costs due to scarcity, and a forced, unplanned and unwelcome decline in our standard of living. Lowering the thermostat and dimming the light campaigns have not worked. People do not want to freeze in the dark just to save a little money. They do not want to sacrifice comfort today for unclear savings tomorrow.
Yet, I believe if everyone really knew what utility executives know; and if utility executives knew what so called alternative energy homeowners know; that we would all feel better about the choices being made. We would feel better because we would understand each others point of view and have each others facts and assumptions.
So, the purpose of my Blog is to 1) provide a discussion forum about electric energy generation and consumption issues. 2) Insist that the answers offered in the forum be win/win answers; answers that increase utility share holder revenues while increasing sustainable energy choices and keeping costs in line for everyone. 3) Offer incremental recipes for solving electricity generation problems in which we can all participate.
The problem being that our current energy use practices are not sustainable. We can argue that one fuel has a 50 year life and another fuel has a 250 year life, but no matter how you cut it each hydro-carbon fuel choice will run out some day. It may be amusing to quote, " the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones", and hope for that magic technological solution undreamed of today. Yet, the promise of hope is best realized in action.
Many people think we have a win/loose situation. Either the economy wins by destroying the earth, or the earth wins by destroying the economy. A planet with an environment so degraded that everyone’s health suffers irreparable damage can not be good for business. Let us see if we can find answers that everyone likes. Let us see which facts and actions we can agree upon. Lets make our own energy policy.
I want to Blog in a kind way about real issues dealing the electricity generation. I want to talk about why many citizens feel like their electric utility is "screwing them" . I want to find out why utilities are not adopting renewable energy programs and energy conservation programs more readily, especially in Indiana, my home State for the moment. This debate has become such a "them versus us" debate and yet, it is "all of us" that create the demand for electricity, not the utilities. They are just responding to demand. The major brown and black outs experienced by the northeast were not accompanied by media reports demanding clean power. Headlines simply said, "Who turned out the lights", and the blame was clearly leveled at utility operations and policies.
I do not want this Blog to be a debate. The word debate implies winners and losers. I believe if any one loses, we all lose.
The opponents are not other people or utilities or big business. The opponents are energy resource depletion, skyrocketing costs due to scarcity, and a forced, unplanned and unwelcome decline in our standard of living. Lowering the thermostat and dimming the light campaigns have not worked. People do not want to freeze in the dark just to save a little money. They do not want to sacrifice comfort today for unclear savings tomorrow.
Yet, I believe if everyone really knew what utility executives know; and if utility executives knew what so called alternative energy homeowners know; that we would all feel better about the choices being made. We would feel better because we would understand each others point of view and have each others facts and assumptions.
So, the purpose of my Blog is to 1) provide a discussion forum about electric energy generation and consumption issues. 2) Insist that the answers offered in the forum be win/win answers; answers that increase utility share holder revenues while increasing sustainable energy choices and keeping costs in line for everyone. 3) Offer incremental recipes for solving electricity generation problems in which we can all participate.
The problem being that our current energy use practices are not sustainable. We can argue that one fuel has a 50 year life and another fuel has a 250 year life, but no matter how you cut it each hydro-carbon fuel choice will run out some day. It may be amusing to quote, " the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones", and hope for that magic technological solution undreamed of today. Yet, the promise of hope is best realized in action.
Many people think we have a win/loose situation. Either the economy wins by destroying the earth, or the earth wins by destroying the economy. A planet with an environment so degraded that everyone’s health suffers irreparable damage can not be good for business. Let us see if we can find answers that everyone likes. Let us see which facts and actions we can agree upon. Lets make our own energy policy.
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