PART TWO OF TWO PARTS
In PART 1, I detailed how you, as a residential consumer, use electricity, and how you will be slugged further for using it. If you have not read PART 1, it is directly above this on the Home page, or for those of you who are visiting externally, then take this link.
This diagram for Load Curve for actual consumption of electrical power was also in PART 1, but I refer to it again further down, so I have also included it here. If you click on the image, it will open in a new and larger window.
Load Curves for actual electrical power consumption.
SMART METERS
These have already started rolling out in some States, and they have even started to roll out here in Australia, with two States already legislating for their introduction.
Now go back to the above graph at your second window. See those periods of time when the peaks are. That is where these Smart Meters are aimed squarely at. You are told they will be installed at every residential electricity metering point. You are told that they will monitor your consumption of electrical power. You are told that this will be an effective measure to help you reduce your consumption. You are told that during the Peak Power times, they will be used to either reduce that Peak Consumption, or in some cases to remove selected components in your house from access to electrical power so that Peak Power can be reduced. You are told that these are a boon for residential areas, because you, the consumer, can then use your electrical power more efficiently. In the small type however is shown that at times of Peak power, then the power you use during that time will cost you more. When asked to further explain this, it is mentioned that you can then change your consumption from these high cost times to times when the power is cheaper. This makes it sound really wonderful for you the consumer, so the intent is to have it sound like it’s a good thing.
However, go back to the graph. Look at those Peak power times. The big hump in Summer from 8AM until 10PM, and in Winter that time in the morning when you cook your breakfast, and that time from late afternoon/early evening till midnight. The time when you get home, and turn on the lights and the heat, almost an essential in the cold Winters, and, most importantly, the time when we all cook and eat dinner, you things you do in a normal lifestyle.
These smart meters are aimed squarely at the residential sector. We all have homes to go to. We all come home from work. We all cook and eat dinner. We all like the comfort of our own home.
So, they are actually going to charge you more again for the same electrical power you already use during those times. They tell us we can alter our usage to times outside those peak hours. So, one answer is to move the dinner time out until after midnight. Don’t turn on the heat. Don’t shower after work. Fine. We can all do that. However, if we all do that, does it not just extend that Peak Power period when those CO2 emitting plants are already running, and they will just have to be running for longer.
This is only aimed directly at the Residential sector which consumes 38% of all the power produced, and any increase, no matter how (seemingly) small at that residential cost level will still amount in huge amounts of money for Governments, not the provider, but a levy passed directly from them back to the Government, in the same manner as for the Carbon Cap and Trade Tax.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Last week I posted on the subject of Household Solar with the post at this link and I showed exactly how this is not all it is made out to be by those who trumpet its effectiveness. I specifically detailed how it is not effective as a supplier of electrical energy for the household application, as it cannot supply power outside of daylight times. After hours, you are still drawing down all your electrical power from the usual grid in your area, so you are still consuming power from those plants that run up during those times. You cannot justify that it is still the same as what you are producing, because, theoretically, the power you generate during the day that is supplied back to the grid is supposedly being consumed by those others connected to the grid. You are still a net consumer of power FROM the grid. The only thing that this form of power actually IS, is revenue neutral. To do this Governments have to provide subsidies at the front end in the amount od 20 to 25% of the total installation cost, and then to pay you a feed in tariff of two to three times the cost of what you pay for the grid electricity you consume. This is the only way that this form of power can be made to pay for itself, and in actuality takes you up to 25 years to recover that cost, incidentally just about the same time as for the life expectancy of those panels. If the Authority said they were raising the cost of your electricity three times, you would squeal like a stuck pig, and yet it;s okay for you to aske them to pay you that three times for what you produce extra that is fed back to the grid.
Now consider the introduction of these smart meters if you do have a roof full of solar panels. They produce power during daylight. You come home after work and consume what you always have during that evening period, that Peak Power period. Now you have to pay the extra for that consumption. So, it now stands to reason that the extra cost for the power you consume from the grid during Peak power times will negate almost completely the feed in tariff you were relying on to recover your original outlay, especially when taken into account with the now added cost of the Carbon Cap and Trade Tax.
So, effectively, Carbon Cap and Trade and Smart Meters will kill off completely the household solar panel ‘theory’ of saving power.
Think again how many realistic ways you can save power during those Peak Power times. Do we all eat our meals after midnight, skip breakfast, shower at 2 in the morning, go without heat in Winter, or air conditioning in those States where it is hot in the Summer?
WHY HAS IT COME TO THIS?
Governments everywhere are desperately trying to find measures to cut back on the consumption of electrical power. They introduce measures like this to make vast sums of money, in the distorted thinking that if they price electricity so high, then people will cut back on their consumption of it. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a false economy. (for you the consumer, that is) You can’t cut back in the significant amounts that is hoped for.
This has come about specifically because those Governments have steadfastly neglected to construct new power plants, and in fact have actually refused to even think about constructing new plants, because of what they ‘perceive’ as an electoral backlash by those green hued ‘friends of the dirt’ who will come out and vote against someone who does propose it, while the vast bulk of the rest of us only want that power to always just be there, so voting against it is something they don’t really take into consideration when the bigger picture is considered.
Now it has got to the stage where those already existing power plants have reached the age where they are approaching time expiry. An average large sized coal fired power plant has a life expectancy of 50 years, which can be extended out to 60 and 75 years, but the average is around 50. The whole inventory of U.S. coal fired plants is now 48 years. They are all getting old, and with no new ones being constructed, for political reasons alone, then they are closing down. These are all old technology plants, whereas new, efficient coal fired plants, similar to those being constructed in China at the rate of one new plant every 7 days, and those plants are considerably smaller for a greater power production, and emit less CO2, more efficient all round.
NO, this is definitely not a way to save on the consumption of electrical power, and consequently less emissions of CO2, because people will always consume roughly the same amount of power that they always have consumed.
The only thing that will be happening is that Governments will now be making vast amounts of money from charging you three times for the electricity you consume. The will couch it terms that sound warm and fuzzy, almost like ‘well how can you argue against something that is such a responsible thing to do?’
All that money will just flow in like rivers of gold, and not one penny of it will be spent constructing new power plants that actually will be able to provide the electricity we all need, and when we actually need it, electrical power that has now become a staple of life as we know it, and if that electrical power is no longer there, there will chaos in the streets. Pity help those politicians then.
So then, what can we do?
Nothing. All we can do now is pay ….. and pay ….. and pay.
These power plants do not just appear out of thin air. A lot of forward planning needs to go into them. It’s almost got to the point now where it is too late, so really, all we can do is pay. Euphemistically speaking, they’ve got us by the (insert suitable noun here). All they need to do is squeeze. All we can do is squeal in pain, oh, and pay.
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Infrastructure Problems, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Carbon Cap And Trade Tax, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions, Climate Change Religion, Climate Change Scaremongering, Coal Fired Power Generation, Electrical Power Load Curve, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Household Electrical Power Usage, Household Solar Power Generation, Smart Meters, U.S. Electrical Power Consumption 
