It is MY thermostat isn't it?
 

Anyone else see this?

I'm not thrilled about this plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/11control.html?em&ex=1200200400&en=fdc66b5d69c13c6 e&ei=5087%0A

Yeah, I saw that. The CEC should be working on approving more permits to construct power plants, don't ya think?

It is your thermostat, but the power is not yours and neither are the generating facilities.

The problem with more power plants is that they impose huge environmental costs.

Besides, do you want one next to YOUR house?

It's too bad people can't control their own power usage. A recent experiment showed that they conserved quite a lot when they had the ability to monitor it. The problem is that it costs a lot to do that right now.

Get to work on cheaper solar cells if you want more power.

California is putting in new power stations. There is a brand new 7H plant just off I-215 in near Hemmit. I think 4 turbines were installed in Escondido. But 5 plants isn't nearly enough. The good news, these are some of the most efficient, lowest emmsion plants around. The 7H beats 60% thermal efficiency.

Sucks to be you, California.

I have a power station in my neighborhood actually. I also have a sewage treatment plant and a refinery.

Thankfully I do live on the coast and do not really require AC very much though it had been something I was considering upgrading in the house.

I know you don't want my answer. ;)

QUOTE: "It is your thermostat, but the power is not yours and neither are the generating facilities."

It's too bad people can't control their own power usage."
____________________

Interesting post. Always amusing to see contradicting comments in adjoining paragraphs.

It is indeed MY thermostat. I am purchasing a product (electricity). If I want my house to be 80 degrees in January, or 60 degrees in August ...I crank it up (send me the bill please).

If I am a 'Greenie' I can put on several layers of clothes, cuddle up with my dog, set the thermostat on 60 degrees and cry about others using up OUR electricity!

Really funny *****.

If you want rationing, I suggest you move to a third-world country. Or boost the price to FORCE conservatism (good luck with that!).

As for power-plants in neighborhoods ...reminds me of similar complaints about airports. The noise!! The noise!! Don't buy a house/property near one and then start the bytchin!

And yes ...they can be built out, AWAY from population centers. They are called 'Transmission Lines' for a reason.

freedom, slip slipping away!

My wife has MS, We need her to be cool everyday in the summer. our house HAS to be below 75 or her health suffers.


California has WAY too many laws. They need a moratorium on laws

I'm sure the collective will hear your appeal, now take a number please.

Why in the world does the government have to be involved in every aspect of our lives. Bye Bye freedoms.

Welcome to the People Republik of Kalifornia.

First, I know where Mikey lives and he between a rock and a hard place, or really, between a power plant, a refinery and the airport. I haven't heard him ***** much about it, since all of that was there when he bought.

But to solve the energy issues in CA by letting the "government" control your usage is assinine. The problem has been a lack of development.

As far as transmission lines go, no one wants those either. And the farther you are from the generation, the more is lost in the transmission.

Looks like the idea is that in emergencies, when the system is at risk of brownout or blackout, they can reach out and lower thermostats (or raise them, in summer), to avoid brownouts and blackouts. During non-emergency times, you can set your thermostat as you wish.

Makes sense to me. Yes, the feature could be abused, but so can anything.

It isn't the ideal solution. The ideal, I think, would be for electricity price to fluctuate according to demand/supply, and you and your appliances would have to be smart enough to lower consumption when price is high and move the consumption to when price is low. But I don't think the necessary products/technology exists yet. This is a practical solution in the meantime, to reduce power emergencies and blackouts.

I know the guy pictured in the NYT article, the commissioner of the CEC. He used to be my neighbor, we'd get together and talk about the market etc. Art is far from a crazy greenie. He is a top physicist, was at Lawrence Berkeley Labs for a long time, won the Fermi award for particle physics.

I say keep the gov't out of our houses. Instead, let the market dictate power usage with incentives to reduce usage or penalties to discourage overuse. An average to the market single family house gets so many kilowatts per year at a flat rate. Less than that usage gets an incentive to save more, energy hogs or familys of few people rattling around in 4,000 sf grand mansions get the hose. That is a sure and fair learning curve.

Un******* believable.

In the event of an impending brown or black out why cant they shut down the power to the billboards or office towers that are lit 24x7. I think there are better areas to conserve energy before you start messing with peoples thermostats.

Way too much common sense going on here, besides, we in California are totally controlled by Democrats,

I'll make a fortune selling lead laced thermostat covers to Californians... Block the radio signals, keep your house cool....

...or just install a simple hidden one in the basement to override it.

And to think it's all based on the theory of global warming.

I wonder when we will reach the breaking point, and stop this hysteria.

I say cut off ALL your power right now.

Or install a bypass switch to kick the AC back on, over ridding the thermostat. I can see a lot of people getting electrocuted fiddling with there AC system because of a law like this.

All your thermostats are mine.

The alternative (other than building more power plants, which they should do) is rolling blackouts.

Because in CA, brownouts and rolling blackouts happen in the height of the day, in the height of summer, when A/C use is maxed out. Not at night as you may be thinking.

Shut down power to office towers in the middle of the day and you strand elevators, crash data networks, shut down businesses, turn off traffic lights, etc, all kinds of things that are really bad.

To fend off blackouts, better to remotely reduce A/C in some residential neighborhoods. So somebody who wants it 60F indoors during a 110F heat wave and has never bothered to insulate, has to deal with it being 70F for a couple hours.

Not an ideal solution, like I said, but works in an emergency.

Nothing to do with global warming.

It is based on the reality of brownouts and rolling blackouts in California.

...caused by the lack of energy production, because the environmentalists won't allow energy plants to be built because of their insistence on the theory that it is harming the environment, when there is no factual proof of that.

Global Warming is the lever by which our entire standard of living will be destroyed. Wait and see.

I would also prefer an economic incentive like this.

It may be that its is politically impossible to make such a major conservation-encouraging change in CA electricity billing right now, so they are doing what is feasible.

It may also be that the remote meter control feature deals with a different issue, which is local power shortages during brief periods of extreme demand.

When you think about it, the issue of emergency local power shortages and the issue of overall electricity conservation are not the same.

As electricity supply for California is ample for >99% of the time and in >99% of the state, and only inadequate <1% of the time in <1% of the state, can you really say CA doesn't have enough electricity?

Seems to me, CA has plenty of electricity, but needs to work on smoothing out the peaks and valleys. And if you only need to smooth off the top <<1% peaks, makes a lot more sense to do that than to shift the entire mountain range.

So the politicians, rather than face the wrath of the people for their inaction in building the required number of power plants given the growth of the state when the rolling blackouts reach a fevered pitch have sought fit to minimize the impact of those blackouts by intruding on your rights.

Right. Just wanted to make sure I understood what was going on.

Kapt

I'm not a liberal by any stretch but "intruding on your rights" as in rights to buy electricity? I don't think so. But I agree, a better energy policy is what is needed.

How about my freedom of association, to conduct business and buy a lawful product without government interference?

It's time to try nuclear power again. Clean, limitless, and the Navy has been doing it for decades without incident.

California is an energy importer. You are 1 transmission line away from rolling blackouts. California has the fuel (Natural Gas and Oil) but hasn't built power plants in multiple decades, with a few exceptions recently. When the rolling blackouts were going on, 600 MW worth of power gen equipment was sitting in a parking lot in South Carolina, instead of being installed in a plant, because of environmental red-tape. And your governor of the time wouldn't help get that equipment installed on an emergancy basis.

Paradise!

+1

The US Navy powered towns in SC and ID with no problems, and NY also if I remember correctly.

Last time I counted, the US has 66 Nuclear Power Plants operating. I would guess that some people have no clue they are even around.

How many in Kalifornia, which is the subject of the thread?

edit: I checked - two. They have all been closed, except Diablo Canyon and San Onofre Reactor 2

I live 50 or so miles from one.

We like to fry up the three-eyed fish from the reservoir.

"nuclear power ... Clean..."

- Duh!

It has no day to day emissions. It is hardly clean -- unless you have one hell of plan to deal with the nuclear waste generated.

Then there is the problem of one getting hit by terrorists - or of them getting a hold of the waste during shipment or storage.

The Navy DOES do a great job of guarding theirs. A friend of mine was doing studies (on possible radionuclide transport by rattlesnakes as they burrow thru soil & eat rodent burrowers) on the INEEL site - back when it was a Navy run facility.

One day his graduate students forgot to check in before driving around to their study sites. It took about 4 minutes before they were surrounded by naval sharpshooters in helicopters. When challenged by bullhorn, they yelled back "We're just graduate students" and held up some of their snakes.

I'm sure that was amusing.

But unless you are prepared to buy that kind of security at commercial plants, forget it.

Most commercial plants use Wackenhut, which is almost as good as the Navy.

As for the spent fuel problem, U.S. law prohibits reprocessing spent fuel rods, which is by far the best method for dealing with them.

How can a society so convinced about global warming ignore an obvious source of fossil fuel use mitigation? Seems to be hypocritical. The Navy is a shining example of nuclear (pronounced "noo-clee-err") power use, and should make the case that it is safe and viable.