save electricity - pay more tax for it!

But do you want to? Neither would I. I love my air conditioner but could live without it but not as comfortable.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

I have worked a hand water pump and made a run to the outhouse in the dead of winter (no running water without an electric pump). I have froze my rear off when the coal for the furnace ran out. I have read by kerosene lamp and had to find my way around the house with lit candles. I have used a hand operated wringer washer. Um, NO! I like my electric and really don't want to try living without.

That is why I say that without govt setting caps on charges and having some control over the companies most of us would be stuck. Take away the caps and regulations and you have run-away costs and hidden fees.

Free market is great for buying a car, or a house, or a newspaper. We have choices, we have options, we can look over options and prices and decide what meets our needs and desires.

The difficult things, where free trade does not work, is stuff like telephone wire, cable, health care/ health insurance, electricity, roads, police dept, fire dept, and others.

These items either are rarely needed but have _great_ value when they are - so poeple won't volinteer to pay for them - rarely needed - but complain bitterly if they are left without when _they_ need it badly. This is a while different can of worms, and sorry I brought it up....

Anyhow;

The other stuff has very high capital costs to bring it to your doorstep - power lines, phone lines, etc. A utility can spend $5000 to put in power lines & transformer to your house, and that is if you are pretty close.

Once you are hooked up, you have no other choice - no other company can afford to string 10 miles of wire to your door and set you up. So whatever power company you get first, has the throttle hold on you. They can charge rediculous prices for their power, and you either pay it or do without.

These types of utilities do not work well in a free-trade setting. It is more of a hostage situation than a business situation. There is no free trade with electricity, cable, natural gas, etc.

I'm as much a free trade person as anyone! But these core utilities do not work well under free trade. A property only gets whatever is going past the property - there is _no_ free trade options.

Yea, we can just say no, and do without. We can put in our own powerplant, blah blah blah. But there is not a free trade option, to keep business and consuumer of a level playing field. We can do without a car, or we can buy from different manufaturers, and different dealers, and buy new or used or clunker. We have free trade there. We do _not_ have those options with utilities.

I believe regulating these core utilities, as govt has done, is a good thing. Within reason.

What bothers me about the above regulation, and the general direction we are heading, is that we are getting regulated to pay more for far less service. Many on here are deeply opposed to farm programs of the 1970's (which are no longer around!) that paid farmers to not grow crops. I see the above electrical program similar - pay the electric company more money so they deliver less electricity.

Just like those old govt farm programs, it just doesn't quite make sense. There has to be something better, that is progressive, and looks forward, instead of being so regressive.

The same will be happening with roads - we are buying few new cars, and driving less, but there is a big push to rebuild much of our highway system and upgrade it. The money will need to come from somewhere. Outlaw old cars, and put a $1000 tax on new hybreds?

We are in odd times. I get the point of it; but it seems a regressive, poor point to be making.....

--->Paul

I just read the article again. From what I understand on the business customer portion is that the utility is giving customers who cut back during peak hours a credit (money, their name in the paper, doesn't specify what kind of credit) while charging everyone more so the cut-backs can get their credit. Same way with the free thermostats, one house gets a thermostat the rest of the neighborhood pays for it. Kinda like shooting yourself in the foot. Charge customers more and then ask them to fund cost reduction programs. We do already pay for these programs, the electric comanies don't fund them out of their pockets or out of true concern for their customers. Just like we pay for new service stations and repair to equipment. It's just another line on the bill. Do I think it's wrong? Of course. But what to do? Just like the 911 and portability charges on your phone bill it's not going to go away. You'll just see what your neighbors are costing you because of their incentive programs.

They're going to charge them more to use less.

And the extra charge is to educate them to use less.

Okayyyyyy...............

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No, they're going to charge everybody for the few who use less.
"can offer credits to businesses that voluntarily shut down or scale back their electricity use during peak demand. AmerenUE will be able to recoup the cost for the program that starts Thursday by increasing the rates it charges business customers."

All this bs really makes you want the flip the switch to the whole breaker panel. But even then they charge you for not using any electricity.

Too bad they didn't provide a link to the actual legislation. It makes me think there is more to it that TPTB (the powers that be) don't want anyone knowing what is going on until it's all said and done.

How many remember "The price of electricity will skyrocket" I don't remember who said it but he may know something. It was some Politician so he would know.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

Looks to me, the Wall Street Bailout model is gaining use by industry now.

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So in the morning, please don't say ya love me.
Cause you know I'll only kick you out the door.

To paraphrase Lily Tomlin, "We’re the phone company, we can do what we want and there isn’t anything you can do about it."

I've mentioned this before but in the 1980's, the utility company in VA asked consumers to help them determine how much electricity could be saved if people conserved. After about three months (or so) the utility company got permission to increase their rates because they weren't selling enough electricity.

.

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Yeah, that's clearly what would happen, and it makes perfect sense, really.

Utilities need to maintain a huge grid at very considerable cost whetehr they are selling x units, or 1/2 of x units.

If they sell 50% less, but still have 80% of the same costs, than the price of what they do sell needs to be higher.

Just something to keep in mind when they tell you that using less will save you money.

Rambler, your thoughts on the subject mirror mine exactly.

I lived off-grid for 2 and a half years and I'll do it again if I have to but I sure love my air conditioner and running water

TurnerHill, while your logic makes sense I would say in the end it probably is a horse a piece. Cheap power would make for more wasteful habits by consumers so the most likely result would be more power plants being built and the electrical distribution system would have to be upgraded so people would wind up paying more anyway. If people use less (as long as we're not talking electricity obtained by RE) in theory the power plant would use less energy therefore saving the electric company money. They wouldn't gain any more money by using less fuel but I don't think they would be losing out either. More likely if we see increases in power rates it'll be because of new emissions standards put forth by the US government. Retrofitting emissions equipment on old plants cost big money, I know first hand since I used to be a union boilermaker and worked on and in power plants. There is no free lunch and saving the environment cost money but sometimes I think companies use that as a scapegoat to unjustly gouge the consumer.

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http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

They'll use less fuel to generate less electricity, sure.

But they need the same number of miles of wire to deliver it. Just for one example.

But then they won't need as heavy of wires or as large of substations either if the usage is less so over all the cost shouldn't vary that much. Think of a power-line like a road. You can have a cheap gravel road that goes for 300 miles. If you have more cars there will be more wear and tear on the road and it'll have to be paved. It will cost more just because of increased use even though it goes the same distance. However if the power company generates their electricity via hydro then most certainly conserving would hurt their profit margin. Obviously they aren't saving any money on fuel with less demand.

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http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever