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more power woes

2001-01-25 18:37:54+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Interesting SF Gate article on the CTC tax, yet another piece of the "deregulation" lie that's contributed to California's power woes (this week's Pacific Sun claims that California is actually 49th in per capita electricity use, there's an interesting DOE electricity usage by state that could be combined with population information to verify that). So, does anyone have experience with alternative sources? Solar4Power has some worksheets on sizing electrical systems, but I'd like some real world experiences on what the al useful life of batteries and such is, not necessarily to replace heating and refrigeration, but to run the computers and some of the lighting.

[ related topics: Politics Web development Cool Science ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:00+00 by: ebradway

The recent increase in natural gas prices is making me wish I had installed a geothermal HVAC last year instead of the traditional (high efficiency, mind you) gas furnace and electric AC. The geothermal would have cost about 50% more but would have used considerably less fuel. Jade Mountain looks like a good source for alternative fuel information. If you buy from them, remind them that they owe Qdebit.com about $7K

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:00+00 by: Dan Lyke

Wow, crossing that 2000 DOE electricity usage by state against 1999 population by state puts California dead last in electricity use per capita at a bit over 600,000 kilowatthours per person. At the other end of the scale, Wyoming used almost 2 million kilowatthours per person.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:00+00 by: TheSHAD0W

Going by "per person" is misleading; a lot of use is industrial. That electricity is "used" not by state residents, but by whomever buys the products, which are distributed nationally or internationally.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:00+00 by: ebradway

You can also compare based on consumer and industrial users. It looks to me like Dan's number will pretty much be the same. Of course the original point was that California, which probably hosts a larger percentage of 'the internet' (i.e., the servers), does not have a significantly higher rate of electricity usage. In fact, it is significantly lower than many other states.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:01+00 by: Dan Lyke

The breakdowns of commercial and industrial are also available in those tables. I think the real point is that it's fairly obvious that California's electrical supply has been completely mismanaged, although looking at the DOE table there are a couple of dramatic swings which make me wonder just how reasonable those numbers are (Delaware going from 307 to 71 million kilowatthours industrial, California's dramatic rise from 1999 to 2000 in industrial use).