We have the Power.
The electric industry should be running scared. Imagine when we wake up. The technology is there, but not the organizing capital. That is not quite true. I should say not the organizing will (yet) for we as ratepayers and taxpayers are the source of their capital.
We can be local and generate what we need. We would fund it, build it, distribute it, and collect user fees, just like the utilities. But this industry not only borrows to build it, leaving little capital for us, they build big, send afar, and buy back, and then resell and make a profit over whatever their debt is, and all of it funded by us.
We are hostage purchasers then, with little access to funds to disconnect while we pay them user's fees. Of course all this trading causes increased rates for the consumer. I figure about 300% more than if it were local owned, produced and distributed. And it prevents us from having local control over how its done.
The electric system is different than most businesses for as long as they can stay connected they can extract. Most other industries leave when they have extracted all that is profitable. Even if we refuse to use their product, they can still extract and transmit and use our existance as justification for their continued intrusion.
Do you remember the old phone companies, and how they had to reorganize once other methods of voice communication came into use. The electric industry is going through the same. I read recently that one of the Maine utilities will not pay for excess electricity generated back into the grid by a resident, but they do supply the special meter to connect to the powerline. So you can draw from the grid in slow times and put back when you have excess. Any electricity in excess of your total usage is free power to the company. Ideally you could be paying nothing. Too good to be true? Yes. The utility limits the number of people who can do this to 3% and may reduce it further because or the irregularity of the sources. Yet they will allow wind turbines to connect and I am sure they will pay them for their electricity even though they are irregular and can at most produce about 20% of their rated power on an annual basis.
So every turbine that connects eliminates a large number of smaller household and business sized suppliers! I feel like protesting! This may be the hidden factor influencing the current push for wind.
What do you think?
Mary Ellen Marucci
Views: 139
Comment
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Comment by Mary Elen Marucci on July 27, 2010 at 1:49pm
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Has anyone read Power Struggle: The 100 year war over electricity? I think it a must read for anyone dealing with it. Even though the utilities have since broken up into transmitters, producers and distributers they really have not. the illusion is just a shell game. With the resitance to small nuclear stations on government or military/research sites, the surplus electricity that flows through the grid is free juice. Very hard to stopan unwanted facility if you don't know who the stakeholders are.
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Dear Joanne Moore,
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. Unfortunately no one person can have the answers. that is the problem we are currently facing. Our governments and big business tell us they do, and we, not knowing any better , believe them. That is until we are put face to face with the results of their solutions. They have the funds ( ours) and they direct not only the research burt also the development of technologies that increase their control and reduce ours. But what our big business and government really mean by telling us what is good for us is what is good for them. We supply the energy, money, and ideas and they distribute them to enlarge their influence and control.
I favor using what is locally available ( except for fissionable products) if you can do it with great efficiency and consideration for other lifeforms ( including us). But more than likely the best solutions will come from Reduce, Reuse, and Refuse than from anything new.
I am in the process of figuring out how to survive without having to get hooked on the grid.
I think building codes need to be developed that respect everyone's need to access wind, water, air and light and at the same time protect against intrusive sound, ground vibrations, and all forms of human generated EMF. Unlikely to happen here, now, or soon, unless of course there is a complete shutdown of the centralized grids, which theoretically can happen from extreme sunspot activity and other forms of EMP. I hope to design a small business that is responsive to the land on which it sits and utilizes the energy available on site. It is the easiest way to go if you consider the long haul.
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Comment by Frank J. Heller, MPA on March 31, 2010 at 2:53pm
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Ellen, phew you had me worried. I've always advocated energy self-sufficiency, and generation as local as possible using local renewable resources---water for some, solar for others, biomass, etc.
I've explored energy coops for new microhydro generators...talk about regulations, just to hook up your neighbors to your generator. The huge problem is that we are all connected to the grid, either to dispose of unneeded power or to get it when the wind dies down-- in theory, batteries, capacitors, energy modality changes...wind to air pressure; pumped storage, etc. are all good; but for reliability and ease of use there is nothing like that power line coming into the house.
I think it is also difficult to get a coop into the energy business...I've tried with the milk producers for digesters and got no where; but that doesn't mean some other coop might begin to generate and distribute--the tricky part, electric.
I've already gotten a verbal o.k. from a PUC commissioner for the redistribution of excess kWh's from a restored hydro generation facility to low income 'lIHEAT' clients of a town. ...again it depends on a willing town, and the 'grid' to bank the kwh's for redistribution to low income residents.
A better target of opportunity are remote, i.e. off of town water and sewer, developments--resorts, companies, retirees, etc. that have some potential to generate power for residents. There are island resorts in the Pacific which are self sufficient and use fuel cells to generate electricity from CNG in combination with solar PV. Maine has these on the drawing boards and citizens can intervene during the approval process via zoning and other land use hearings.
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Comment by Joanne Moore on March 31, 2010 at 11:17am
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While I applaud your effort to think "out of the box" and to think a locally owned cooperative would be a greater benefit to customers served, I can't help but think of the tremendous initial costs to achieve this goal. And I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting as a source of power. Surely not wind. Can you be a little more specific? Thanks.
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Dear Mr. Huber,
It makes perfect sense to use your power where you extract it. It never made sense to take motion and turn it to electricity if you could use it directly. Even solar electricity to heat water is wasteful where you can heat the water directly with the sun. So each source of energy has it uses, and matching them is a great way to save and an a great way to use the creativity of our youth. When it is done locally there is less incentive to do damage to the environment or the people. And local production means local long lasting jobs.
Also, I cannot think of a reason why a locally owned cooperative would want to build up debt just to raise rates, since it would be themselves who would have to pay it.
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Dear Mr. Heller,
I am so glad you responded. I would otherwise not have known that I was suggesting a government takeover of CMP and BANGO HYDRO. What I thought I said was we should use what we have and stop selling it and buying it back. Instead we should opt for independence at a local level. I did not mean by "local" the government of Maine, nor the US government, and not necessarily town government. I guess if I had to define the unit that the word "local" means to me within the context of this discussion it would be the area acknowlegded as a community by its residents.
When you begin to survey your local energy resources the lines of distinction may extend beyond your local schools, dump and town boundaries. I cannot conceive of that happening in this state but it is a possibility. So to avoid such confusion it might be best to describe a local division as one area that has enough resources to meet the energy demands of its occupants. Since the users would also be the owners it is unlikely they would ramp up the cost and the debt to make a profit! You may consider this crazy but I see it as a recovery from addiction. We have lived so long with private electric utilities, yet some of us still call then public utilites. Even FDR in the 1930's failed to break them all up. I believe the only one he could not break up was Northeast utilities. They are for profit government regulated monopolies. The regulation prevents them from directly being sued. In fact they went to the federal government and wanted to be regulated to insure their turf. The recent split off of production from distribution means more levels of profit taking.
I hope you are not as confused by my response as I was by yours.
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Rhode Island's PUC just set an important precedent in rejecting an offshore wind plan there agreed to by the parties, as not "commercially reasonable". The Windies there then can't borrow the necessary bucks - and poof goes the windsprawl attempt. As to th Biggies' replacement with community scale micro-utilities, it would have to be a mix of electricity generation, and also, various ways of using captured kinetic energy mechanically i.e. like the actual milling of grain and other items that has been performed by watermills and windmills down the millenia. Cannot some of what we presently use electricity for, be accomplished with mechanical energy?
by the conservation of energylaws the potentaial energy
According to the Providence Journal:
"During the hour-long hearing that capped nearly four months of deliberations, the commissioners all spoke out against the proposed contract, saying that the price of power agreed to by the two sides was too high and that the overall deal — according to the standard set by statute — was not “commercially reasonable.”
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Putting CMP and BANGO HYDRO and the smaller ones out of business in favor of a Government run corporation?
Are you crazy...has the history of state run mental hospitals and the current sinkhole called the public school escaped you? Spewing left wing screed doesn't help refine the present discussion, esp. since you are in 'take over' mode....btw. go to the PUC and look up 'netmetering' and learn how residential generators can zero out their electric bill with electricity generated from hydro, wind or biomass sources; or can become electric suppliers should they be able to produce more than they use. This is a reasonable limitation and one you'd expect from any electric distributer based on the loads on the grid from power surges when the wind blows or the sun shines...hydro is far more regular and preferred by electric companies.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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