They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

[Mega]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...gy-plans-doubt
Mike

[Starving Steve]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

Here from Nevada Power Company in Las Vegas where there is plenty of sunshine and sometimes even some wind for your windmills:

Peak-hour electric rates to residential customers: as high as $0.57 per kwh = 36 pence per peak kwh at peak-hour.

And let's get real in Las Vegas: mostly it is the Hoover Dam that is keeping the lights on there. Subtract out the hydro-electricity from the Hoover Dam, and peak-hour electric rates in Las Vegas would well be closer to ONE POUND PER KWH, maybe more.

The solar power capital of America, and there is no electricity with their gigantic solar-power electric system.

Kids in the UK and worldwide: WALK-OUT OF YOUR ECOLOGY CLASSES, AND WALK-OUT OF YOUR ENGINEERING CLASSES. Go tell your teachers to go pay the one English pound per kwh during peak-hour in Las Vegas that solar-electric now requires to provide power.

Pin this blog onto the door of your classrooms so that your classmates might read it. Atomic power, natural-gas power, hydro-electric and coal power are your future. Otherwise, you all will freeze in the dark. This battle has to be fought-out right now if any of us anywhere outside of the Middle-East is going to have a future.

[goodrich4bk]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

Steve:

At $.57 a watt, solar in Nevada should pay for itself in less than seven years. I'm in Northern California and my panels are going to be fully paid (they are three years old) a little ahead of time --- ten years total. We pay $.33 peak but in the summertime I'm selling, not buying, so that means nothing to me.

I understand that solar is not the answer for everybody and that it will never be more than a part of the entire solution. But you ought to look at the cost calculations today in good solar areas -- it's now very competitive and, most important, it fixes your electricity costs for life.

[lektrode]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

Here from Nevada Power Company in Las Vegas where there is plenty of sunshine and sometimes even some wind for your windmills:

Peak-hour electric rates to residential customers: as high as $0.57 per kwh = 90 pence per peak kwh at peak-hour..

wow... ya mean somebody has higher rates than we do out here?

and would that mean that los wages also has OFFpeak rates?

if so, then if one also has some PVsolar, batteries and an inverter, one could actually beat em, using a swampcooler for a/c - most/some of the time, anyway - the idea being that if yer usage is such that yer 'base load' could be covered by PV and/or the batts, one could exploit the offpeak rates and actually save money - and.... remember what ole uncle ben (the other one, with his face on the c-note) said (paraphrasing) a dollar saved is a dollar in yield, risk-free (here in ZIRPland, not to mention tax-free)

[lektrode]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

Steve:

At $.57 a watt, solar in Nevada should pay for itself in less than seven years. I'm in Northern California and my panels are going to be fully paid (they are three years old) a little ahead of time --- ten years total. We pay $.33 peak but in the summertime I'm selling, not buying, so that means nothing to me.

I understand that solar is not the answer for everybody and that it will never be more than a part of the entire solution. But you ought to look at the cost calculations today in good solar areas -- it's now very competitive and, most important, it fixes your electricity costs for life.

+1
for at least the life of the components, anyway - but yeah - this is a FACT
if one has cash laying around earning (losing) <1%/year its getting harder to ignore PV

that said - just as the numbers start to get juicy/tempting for those thinking about it - look what happens:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8GHC4120120517

good ole crony capitalists wanting their cake (and frosting) and expect to eat it too....

[lektrode]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...gy-plans-doubt

eye feel yer pain mike:

...In a move that could have far-reaching implications for the government's energy policy, the Office for Nuclear Regulation has told the Guardian it is working with the country's dominant nuclear operator, the French-owned company EDF

but at some point, REALITY suggests that 'dirty old coal' is toast and that the only way 'forward' is

"Another advantage would be we'd have more clarity on how successful we were being with renewables," said Gross.The Department of Energy and Climate Change said on Monday: "Extending the lifetime of old nuclear plants will only give us a few more years of power. We will be shifting a problem to another day. New nuclear is where the future lies for long-term energy security. This is why it is so important we begin the transition on market reform today."

the most interesting thing here (for some of us yanks) is the fact that one of The Most Anti-Everything-progress of countries (france) has made nuke energy look good (to even our clowns in the beltway - like say even john kerry, our very own francophile and suddenly new semi-kinda-supporter of nuke energy (well... after he was against it at seabrook, kinda like he was For the iraq-attack, before he voted Against it - and some wonder why i compare (some of) the dems politix to The Exorcist movie, you know - that scene where the girl spins her head 360degrees around on her shoulders and pukes out green vomit ;)

[Starving Steve]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

Las Vegas: 57cents per kwh @ peak hour. That is 36 pence per kwh @ peak hour. Cut-off the Hoover
Dam, and boys and girls in Las Vegas would be paying about one pound per kwh @ peak hour; i.e, they would be paying about 3x what they pay right now, at least.

Selling from your roof, shmoof, if Las Vegas is short of power with solar-electric from their huge Nevada Power Company generation site, solar is a complete waste of money. And unless you are installing windmills in eastern Colorado or in Wyoming, windmills are also a complete waste of money.

And let the green energy bunch pay the monthly utility bills since they talk so big........

The reason why the UK has no power now ( and no energy future now ) is because the people in the UK went with windmills, tidal and solar. The pot-heads you let shape the nation's power plan, one or two decades ago, were thinking that problems with green power would be long solved by now..... But here we are now, and the problems with green energy are not solved by now---- maybe because the problems are impossible to solve except in dreamland.

I hope you all have deep pockets, because your utility bills are going to be astronomic.

Kids: Tack this blog onto your classroom's front-door, too.

[Starving Steve]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

wow... ya mean somebody has higher rates than we do out here?

and would that mean that los wages also has OFFpeak rates?

if so, then if one also has some PVsolar, batteries and an inverter, one could actually beat em, using a swampcooler for a/c - most/some of the time, anyway - the idea being that if yer usage is such that yer 'base load' could be covered by PV and/or the batts, one could exploit the offpeak rates and actually save money - and.... remember what ole uncle ben (the other one, with his face on the c-note) said (paraphrasing) a dollar saved is a dollar in yield, risk-free (here in ZIRPland, not to mention tax-free)

The 57cents per kwh peak-hour is 36 pence per kwh peak-hour. I did an arithmetic error. But my point is clear: You would have to use the cheaper off-peak rates in Las Vegas. So that means, kiddies, you all would have to wash clothes at 4 AM and maybe dry them at 6AM. Your breakfast and lunch would be cold. You might get hot coffee in the morning if you get up at 6AM. Your dinner would be cooked at 1AM. You might have to cook dinner outside in order to keep your house cool enough to sleep inside.
There would be no air-conditioning. To keep cool, you would have to keep an ice-cube in your crotch and lay on the floor, at least until you cook dinner at 1AM..... And as far as a swamp-cooler, that is a joke. I spent one night with a swamp-cooler in Mexicali, Baja California, and I was up sweltering all night long in a motel room, as the locusts jumped over me, back and forth.

Oh, and let's hope that the Hoover Dam still has water inside it to generate some power for Lost Wages, Nevada. Without hydro-electric from Hoover Dam, Las Vegas will have ONE ENGLISH POUND PER KWH, PEAK-HOUR ELECTRIC RATES, if they are lucky.

[lektrode]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

The 57cents per kwh peak-hour is 36 pence per kwh peak-hour. I did an arithmetic error. But my point is clear: You would have to use the cheaper off-peak rates in Las Vegas. So that means, kiddies, you all would have to wash clothes at 4 AM and maybe dry them at 6AM. Your breakfast and lunch would be cold. You might get hot coffee in the morning if you get up at 6AM. Your dinner would be cooked at 1AM. You might have to cook dinner outside in order to keep your house cool enough to sleep inside.

uhh... read what i wrote AGAIN, mr steve.

if one has an inverter and batteries, one can TIME SHIFT ones grid-electric consumption
hows that?
by using battery when PEAK rates are in effect and then recharge during/with OFFpeak rates
and its even better if one gets some recharge with PV
if there truly is that big of a swing in price tween peak/offpeak, i bet such a setup would pay for itself in... uhh...ummm... short order

There would be no air-conditioning. To keep cool, you would have to keep an ice-cube in your crotch and lay on the floor, at least until you cook dinner at 1AM..... And as far as a swamp-cooler, that is a joke. I spent one night with a swamp-cooler in Mexicali, Baja California, and I was up sweltering all night long in a motel room, as the locusts jumped over me, back and forth.

you might be right on the swampcoolers - altho eye do note LOTS of them on roofs in SLC
and one would think that Utahn's are perty smart when it comes to keeping their cool
could be the humidity is higher in baja? (so a swampcooler wouldnt work as well) or happened to be at the time you were there?

[Starving Steve]

Re: They suddenly Sussed that if you want to keep the lights on.....

Yes, in Lost Wages, Nevada you do get a big drop in power rates between peak and off-peak hours. You might be able to arrange a real sweet deal with Nevada Power Co. to get a terrific deal on kwh rates if you would be willing to do your electric consumption after midnight in the very early hours of the morning. I think that is what Nev. Power Co. is trying to get its customers to do, because it would even out their power demand and be good for them ( Nev. Power Co. ) too. They wouldn't have to build new power plants to take care of (supply) brief peak power-demand periods in Las Vegas.

And yes, you could put solar panels on your roof-top and sell the power to NPC. You would have to work out some arrangement with NPC. But again, the profits from doing so (swapping kwh with NPC) would likely be marginal in terms of the capital cost of the solar panels on your roof.

All that I am saying is that if solar power is this marginal in the brightest/bleakest of deserts, imagine how ridiculous solar power investment might be in the United Kingdom or British Columbia, Washington state, Newfoundland, north-west Europe, New Zealand, etc.

Furthermore, twenty years ago we might have been able to get by (slide by) with marginal energy solutions ( gathering a kwh here and saving a kwh there, swapping a kwh here and there, etc. ) but right now when the lights are going to go off and the British are going to freeze in the dark ( not to mention the Canadians and the Americans as well ) affordable, reliable and gigantic solutions are needed for electric power generation. These solid solutions are: atomic reactors, hydro-electric dams, natural gas-fired power plants, and coal-fired power plants. So, it is atomic, hydro, and geo-thermal, immediately. And this should have been planned for twenty-years ago and be ready and online now... We should never have let the energy generation situation ever have deteriorated to a point such as this now.

Kids in school or in university: Tack this blog onto the front-door of your classroom. If your teacher thinks the UK or Canada or America can slide through this crisis with more Mickey-mouse green-energy solutions, then have your teacher or the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Pacific Institute, the EPA, the Univ of East Anglia, Green Corps, Green Lobby, Beyond Coal, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Dr. David Sazuki , Al Gore, the Rocky Mountain Institute, Green-blog, the Heartland Institute, or whomever pay for your electric bills from now on, as they come in.