Big drop in U.S. electricity consumption confounds utilities 14

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1. 

   Alison Wiley Posted 10:35 pm
   20 Nov 2008

   Less Power Is Real PowerThe utilties are spooked because it means lower profits for them, but for consumers to use less energy is the best possible thing for climate change, given that coal-burning is the most prevalent source of our energy. We've got to redefine what economic progress means, and using less energy and gasoline is part of that new definition.  We also need to buy carbon offsets to reflect what we DO use. My household just bought our offsets easily and inexpensively: http://www.diamondcutlife.org/buying-our-carbon-offsets/

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2. 

   Delay And Deny Posted 12:06 am
   21 Nov 2008

   Plugins a Bailout for Power Companies
   
   This is why Grist and the power companies have been running H28R articles about hydrogen.  The only way they can survive is by pimping more electricity to energy wasting battery cars that don't work.
   Meanwhile the FCX clarity, the Mazda5, the BMW Hydrogen 7 and the GM Equinox continue to roll on...even though the compromised New York Times wrote and anti-Hydrogen hit piece on Honda's new fuel cell sports car which has been getting rave reviews by others.
   Hydrogen can't be stopped by Grist, it's Democrat Bailout Buddies, and all the rest.

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3. 

   jestbill Posted 1:13 am
   21 Nov 2008

   media, media, mediaSo it's a big deal that people who are not directly affected by higher prices also start saving?
   
   Maybe they watch TV?
   Hydrogen cars have to get their hydrogen from somewhere: somewhere that uses the energy and produces the CO2 that they supposedly save.  I expect Grist readers to know that.

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4. 

   Solar John Posted 1:22 am
   21 Nov 2008

   ChillObviously the trend to use less electricity is due to cfl lights, a switch to energy-efficient appliances,and a need to reduce household expenses due to higher gasoline and food prices.  The utility companies should just relax.  Consumption will climb sharply when PHEV's become available in a year or two.  

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5. 

   redambrosia99 Posted 2:06 am
   21 Nov 2008

   duh!Of course we're gonna use less energy if they keep raising prices!  Something's gotta go, and if we can't afford food over heating, put on more sweaters.

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6. 

   Zephaniah Posted 2:40 am
   21 Nov 2008

   Stop rate decouplingPeople who use less energy should pay less. Rewarding conservation should be a basic policy that guides utilities in rate setting. We need to monitor utilities and stop 'decoupling.'  
   
   The following is a quote from the Wall St Journal article about utilities response to lowered electricity use.
   
   "Utilities are taking a hard look at the way they set rates and generate profits. Many companies are embracing a new rate design based on "decoupling," in which they set prices aimed at covering the basic costs of delivery, with sales above that level being gravy. Regulators have resisted the change in some places, because it typically means that consumers using little energy pay somewhat higher rates."

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7. 

   Pangolin Posted 2:44 am
   21 Nov 2008

   Low hanging fruit.....There's massive amounts of power savings available that will be slowly worked into the system. Our buildings are full of old, inefficient, refrigerators, air conditioners, lights, ducts, motors, water heaters and heat pumps. As older equipment dies the availability of efficient replacements on store shelves makes upgrades almost automatic. There are 30-year-old AC units out there clanking away on half their rated load of refrigerant just waiting for somebody to strongarm the property owner into replacing them.
   A vigorous inspection and replacement program that allowed billing of replacement lighting, refrigerators and AC units through utility bills could free far more grid capacity than plug-in hybrids could possibly require in the short term. In particular retail and commercial buildings use far more power than strictly required due to the problem of leased buildings maintained on least-cost budgets.
   It's past time to pick the low-hanging fruit.

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8. 

   Pangolin Posted 3:18 am
   21 Nov 2008

   Decoupling works. Where utilities can properly decouple the selling of power from the rate structure then grid protection becomes a natural part of business. The cheapest way to deal with increased load is to find energy savings in the load zone that are cheaper to implement than grid upgrades and new production capacity.
   Where the utility can be paid for energy savings less wire gets hung, fewer tons of coal go into the atmosphere and customers share in the savings. As an added benefit the utility no longer has an incentive to combat or delay integration of grid-tied micro-generation as they get paid for providing the grid as well as delivering power.
   If the only way the utility makes more money is to sell more power then building massive coal or nuclear plants makes more sense than cooperating with some farmer who wants to tie his methane fired generator to the grid. Decouple the charge for grid service from the charge for power and utility gets an incentive to use distributed power sources and energy savings rather than big centralized plants. Big centralized plants mean coal, gas and nuclear for the time being; power sources that I would like to see phased out.

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9. 

   Colin Wright Posted 5:51 am
   21 Nov 2008

   Decouple electricity from private investors!Next step: private utilities go begging for $ from Congress!
   Real solution: socialize the electricity grid. Capitalism works on the way up. But not on the way down. (Why would people invest money in companies if there is little chance of return?) We already have good models for municipally-owned utilities, like carbon-neutral Seattle City Light. Reserve market-based approaches to industries that we want to grow, like green electrical generation.
   There are similar lessons to be learned from companies dependent on soon-to-be-declining resources (like oil).

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10. 

    GonzoDon Posted 7:59 am
    21 Nov 2008

    Good news! -- right?Only a publication with the mindset of the Wall Street Journal -- i.e., filtering all news through the perspective of a quarterly profit-and-loss statement -- could spin a story like this in a negative light.
    Good grief.  Less energy consumption means less fossil fuel (mostly coal in my neck of the woods) is being burned to generate energy. Fewer greenhouse gases.  Less mining is scarring our planet.  Less habitat is being disrupted and fragmented.  This is all good, good, good.
    But you'd never know it from the WSJ.  The poor utility companies have their shorts tied in knots over the horrifying spectre of Americans learning to live with less -- perhaps permanently, and not just temporarily.
    Oh the horror of it all.  Next thing you know, humans will be stabilizing their population and consuming less paper, gasoline, and freshwater.  The end is near, my friends.

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11. 

    Pangolin Posted 4:53 pm
    21 Nov 2008

    Economic contraction is death....to capitalism. Capitalism relies on the concept that somebody in the future is going to hand over more resources (money) then in exchange for a smaller resource investment now. This is very difficult in a steady state economy and almost impossible in a contracting economy.
    Wall Street hates retail efficiency measures because they make it hard to calculate a return on energy production investment. Of course the risk-free investment market really isn't capitalism then but simply socialism for the rich.

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12. 

    jestbill Posted 1:42 am
    22 Nov 2008

    capitalism is dead from economic contraction?Not!
    Economic contraction might be death for some current ideas about capitalism--cowboy capitalism, eternal growth capitalism--but capitalism will survive.
    Now, if the "economy" became completely steady-state, with no new inventions, no new building, then maybe capitalism would become useless. Not going to happen soon.

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13. 

    Colin Wright Posted 7:41 am
    22 Nov 2008

    Bring out your dead...jestbill, you have a good point. Crisis seems endemic to capitalism. And as the economy becomes more global, the crises have also gone global. When US consumers cut back, factory workers are laid off in China, etc. Perhaps now we have the mother of all crises? But we should not underestimate the ability of capitalism to adapt.
    Nevertheless, the only capitalism we have known has been underwritten by cheap fossil fuels. Can renewable energy systems come online quickly enough to forestall a net decrease in available energy? Thinkers like Richard Heinberg think not and believe that we will never see economic growth again. Economists like Jeff Rubin believe that the current crisis is a result of the last spike in oil prices. Petroleum geologists like Chris Skrebowski have totaled up the new oil projects and predicts a net decline starting in 2011, right around the time we might possibly get the economy growing again.
    So I think we do have to weigh in our thoughts and plans the possibility that new economic models are going to be required to get us through to some kind of sustainable future. I wouldn't want to be doctrinaire about it, but I think that will entail a more sophisticated way of thinking about governments and markets. Surely we will need entrepreneurial thinking, but I think we ought to find ways to channel that energy into socially-productive directions.
    In my view, it's not too early to be thinking ahead to confront these problems.

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14. 

    rajan Posted 4:58 am
    25 Nov 2008

    Hydrogen EconomyScientists generally don't like to get into the political fray, lest we offend someone who may be funding us in the future. That being said, at a conference of (a lot of) the leading solar energy scientists, it was fairly clear that the hydrogen economy is the necessary way forward. Again, nobody said it in so many words, but it wasn't really ambiguous.
    There's only so much energy that we can store in Li atoms and ions, and chemical storage really makes a lot of sense. We do need to get the hydrogen gas from a renewable resource, but thinking far-sighted, after that renewable energy is available, how will we transport the energy? Right now petroleum is a really nice store of energy -- easily transported, fairly dense (energy/unit mass), not extraordinarily flammable (like H2). Replacing petroleum with electric cars is not feasible because people don't want to pull over after 150 miles and wait for 3 hours. They want to pull over, take the kids to McDonalds, and fill up on something that they don't care where it comes from.
    Hydrogen is the most promising way to keep our economy going (whether you like it or not).  

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