Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Making 'Clean Energy' Pay

[Lion Kuntz (lionkuntz]

--- Brian Bartholomew <bb [at] stat.ufl.edu> wrote:

> > or in Canada, perhaps big hydro
> 
> A casual google says that 2/3 of the power in Canada is from hydro,
> and hydro is already renewable.  I'm really not understanding this.
> What benefits do panels on the home bring that is worth
> redistributing
> Canadians' income tax money back to them in the form of a 6X rebate
> on
> home power?

Wrong question. Wrong assumptions. The power company pays the people
from ratepayer's bill payments. The tax-payer puts in nothing via
taxes. The payment only applies to power sold, which for most people
could only be a part of the summer and the rest of the year they are
buying from the grid at rates high enough to pay them their $0.42 per
kWh in the summer.

Peak power in urban areas occurs in midday mid-summer and the rest of
the year the demand is less. That means that utilities have to be
overpowered all year round to have large enough capacity for that one
peak daylight season. Midsummer is also the lowest water flow time of
the year. Rather than building peaking plants, which are the most
expensive type, they can avoid that if enough home-owners supply
themselves during peak use summer months. That has a positive social
value worth rewarding.

Californian's have instituted $2.7 billion program for 1,000,000 solar
rooftops. One benefit is guaranteed customers give assurance for solar
manufacturer's to invest in the PV plants. Since 1979, every doubling
of installed systems coverage has produced a 19% reduction in price of
PV systems, through volume productivity gains and through improved
learning. That is a social good wortyh investing in. My utility bill
will reflect 40 cents a month increase as my share on that subsidy --
something I prefer to chopping down giant redwood trees that shade the
roof.

Subsidy for PV installations also fosters local manufacturing. That is
a public good in jobs, energy security, environmental improvements,
increased tax base.

Finally, the cost of living means you pay it or you die -- it's as
simple as that. Living, above all other things, requires a habitable
environment as you would learn in one hour if they let you visit the
space station how expensive (and fragile) an artificial environment
costs. If for any reason you don't care about environmental security
and only care about money, how many dollars would you take to trade
places with Kenneth Lay right now?

There's a hurricane in the tropics right now, named Typhoon SOULIK. The
Navy has it predicted to graduate to category-3 in the next 24 hours.
You can watch it hour by hour here on these satellites:

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/mtsatfloat1.html
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/mtsat/flt/t1/rb-l.jpg

If you watch this satellite you can follow it hour by hour up to the
top right of the screen, which is Alaska and British Columbia:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/mtsat/nwpac/rb-l.jpg

If you want to follow it further you have to switch to these satellite
views:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/nepac/rb-l.jpg
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/weus/rb-l.jpg
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/eaus/rb-l.jpg
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/rb-l.jpg

Depending on where you live it may be taking your roof off your house
in 10 days, like Typhoon Shanshan did last month, spawning 17 tornadoes
on day and 37 the next day in the US south east around Kentucky.

Tropical Storm Beninca from the same spawning grounds stopped the
Alaska Pipeline on both ends, then broke the electric power in Buffalo
with snowfalls.

I collected the hour-by-hour photos of BEBINCA just to shut the mouths
of scoffers.

http://ecosyn.us/Temp_4/Bebinca/Bebinca_01.html
http://ecosyn.us/Temp_4/Bebinca/ioke_bebinca_compare.html
http://ecosyn.us/Temp_4/Bebinca_to_Alaska/Bebinca_to_Alaska2.html
http://ecosyn.us/Temp_4/Bebinca_into_Alaska//Bebinca_into_Alaska2.html

http://ecosyn.us/Temp_4/Arctic_Ice_Melt.html
http://ecosyn.us/Temp_4/Mystery_Solved/Ice_Mystery_Solved.html
http://ecosyn.us/1/temp_sep_06/IOKE_IR_Funktops.html
http://ecosyn.us/1/temp_sep_06/IR_WEUS.html

Earth has a message for all of you: Pay the cost of living or get off
this world.



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com