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Post by trapper7 on Aug 19, 2011 11:27:37 GMT -5
New EPA regulations for coal-fired power plants will raise the risk of blackouts and lead to higher electricity bills for many Americans.
New EPA standards mean coal plants will have to be updated in the next 3 years to comply. Faced with the high costs of updating the plants, power companies will likely choose to take a number of them off line instead. That will reduce their ability to produce sufficient electricity during periods of high demand.
In Detroit, Detroit Edison's parent company will have to close 10 coal-fired plants. To counter this, the power company plans to run on natural gas, which cost much more than coal. This will boost electricity bills by close to 35%.
"The consequences of the coal mandate will be huge", the newspaper's opinion page states. "President Obama has proven wholly inept at putting Americans back to work. But, as an economy killer, he is without equal."
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Post by haus on Aug 20, 2011 19:58:00 GMT -5
I drove past an electric power plant being buillt in kiowa Oklahoma. In a year they built a natural gas powered plant from scratch. If their are blackouts its because they didn't plan ahead. I imagine the air scrubbers and such needed to retrofit their current facilities is cheaper than building a new plant. Once the price drops on solar panels my roof will be full of them. The years to get your money back out of them is too long currently.
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Post by trapper7 on Aug 22, 2011 15:10:39 GMT -5
It takes too long to get your money back on wind generators too. Neither one is practical at this point.
I have a solar panel on my boat lift that charges the battery that powers the lift. There's a huge difference in the amount of power it takes to work a boat lift versus a home's needs.
Right now, solar and wind power accounts for less than 5% of America's energy needs. It's not the answer in the future, nor will it ever be.
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Post by haus on Aug 22, 2011 20:34:39 GMT -5
Wind power has too many moving parts that require upkeep. I'm not entirely sure that solar power doesn't still have merit though. If the cost vs output savings were to shift dramatically. I don't believe in going all yuppee off grid, but even a 50% cut in use would be a good amount of savings. LED tvs, LED lighting, and other high efficiency appliances would all add to the possibility of it working.
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Post by japflapper on Aug 24, 2011 13:39:25 GMT -5
My brother installed solar panels back in the late 70's! Was going to be the new thing, still hasn't happened, won't happen in another 30 years either. But O keeps wanting to throw money at it, even though the big solar companys are now going belly up cause there is no demand for their crap!
As for this EPA junk, it's just O's way of getting cap crap and tax through without going through congress, just another of his many round about ways of getting his agenda in place with or without congressional approval! We may as well have a dictator!
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Post by trapper7 on Aug 24, 2011 15:28:37 GMT -5
Why is it that we always hear about how the US is looking into solar, wind, and other natural sources of energy, yet other countries continue to use fossil fuels? Looking at the high prices paid for gasoline in other countries it's obvious raising prices doesn't make countries search for alternative methods.
America needs to wake up and realize what other countries already know: Fossil fuels are the way to go for now and the distant future. This administration and the democrats are slaves to the environmentalists.
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Post by haus on Aug 24, 2011 18:11:42 GMT -5
Of course a disaster can also be something companies look forward to. Not that a power company would take advantage of customers:
Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, Enron energy traders can be heard – on audiotapes obtained by CBS News – gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on, and cash-in on, the Western power crisis.
"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."
"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.
"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.
The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.
"If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?" an Enron worker is heard saying.
"Oh, it's not something you want to just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way," another says.
"Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down."
Officials with the Snohomish Public Utility District near Seattle received the tapes from the Justice Department.
"This is the evidence we've all been waiting for. This proves they manipulated the market," said Eric Christensen, a spokesman for the utility.
That utility, like many others, is trying to get its money back from Enron.
"They're f------g taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"
"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"
"Yeah, now she wants her f------g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a------ for f------g $250 a megawatt hour."
And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis.
"Government Affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling," says one trader.
"Ok."
"Do you know when you started over-scheduling load and making buckets of money on that?
Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win.
"It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay Secretary of Energy," says one Enron worker.
That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices.
"When this election comes Bush will f------g whack this s--t, man. He won't play this price-cap b------t."
Crude, but true.
"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.
Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's lawyers argued they merely prove "that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor."
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Post by japflapper on Aug 25, 2011 16:02:02 GMT -5
Memory is a little fuzzy but didn't Lay end up going to prison? Crooks come in all shapes size's and colors, but no mistaking california's goofy laws and regulation's is the main cause of ALL of their problems, not just their energy.
I imagine what Bush was talking about is that if you put a cap on the price of energy some companys rather than sell them energy at a loss would simply laugh and tell them to build another wind farm or solar panel, which would make a heck of a crisis! I don't think the gov. has the right to tell private company's what they can and cannot charge for their services! Think that was tried in the old Soviet Union!
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Post by trapper7 on Aug 26, 2011 10:28:31 GMT -5
What it boils down to is when Bush left office in my area gasoline was $1.66 a gallon. Now that we have a democrat, champion of the poor, gasoline is $3.85 a gallon. It seems when the democrats are in control, the poor get poorer.
People coming to our food shelf complain that they can't afford to look for work with the price of gas what it is. In the past year our food shelf client's numbers has increased by close to 100%.
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Post by japflapper on Aug 26, 2011 19:26:08 GMT -5
Record numbers of people on food stamps, welfare, unemployment, etc, etc, etc. under his term. He IS the Food Stamp President!
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Post by haus on Aug 28, 2011 13:51:05 GMT -5
I haven't looked in a while but last I heard people were also paying down personal debt. Companies don't make money without someone buying their products. How much of this economy problem is our own fault? Americans have been and continue to live outside their budget which drives economy. Once a correction takes affect, most everything slows down to a stand still. Accept Ipods and Iphones. Then everything goes on auto pilot. People get laid off, more people stop buying, more people get laid off, people lose their house, unemployment costs skyrocket, etc....
We heard terrorists, retribution, and WMD's for years and people were scared even though your more likely to get hit by another car on the way to work each day. Then we hear RECESSION and DOUBLE DIP RECESSION. heck its no wonder people stopped buying, either the president wants you to think you could blow up any minute or that we are nearing the next great depression.
Its like the president and media are working on their psychology dissertation and we are just the subjects, and they study how we react.
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Post by japflapper on Aug 29, 2011 19:57:23 GMT -5
Democrats did all they could to convince everyone we were in a recession when Bush was in office, they finally after 2 years or ranting got their way, it did help them to get alot of their bs agenda passed though, now they just don't have enough brain matter to figure out how to get people to believe we're in a 'recovery' as they call it.
Before that they tried their best to make us lose the war in Iraq, luckily they didn't succeed in that!
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Post by trapper7 on Aug 30, 2011 11:50:51 GMT -5
Media will never remind the public that democrats controlled the house and senate during Bush's last 2 years in office. Then along comes Obama and they control it all. Things should have improved if the democrats weren't to blame. Instead, things got worse.
Now, the media is saying Obama has the same situation Bush had his last 2 years. Not so. Democrats still control the senate. Republicans have tried to push through their ideas in the house only to be stopped by the senate.
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