New Years Quick Hits - Renewable Power Costs

This article is written from the Green point of view, so attacking what the power companies are saying, but the point is, these two power companies: PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric, two Oregon electric utilities, are blaming their requests for rate hikes on the costs of incorporating green power into their systems:

The Citizens’ Utility Board (CUB), a Portland-based watch dog organization that has saved Oregon utility customers $3.9 billion since it was founded in 1984, has responded to news of large electricity rate increases for 2011, and clarified several issues with an article in the Oregonian that put much of the blame on renewable power for the 14.5% and 4.2% increases by PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric (PGE).

Being in the industry myself, I can tell you that the rate hikes are justified, and common throughout the country. I'm not going to copy the special pleading the Greenies on the Board make to say the utilities are phonying up these costs; read the article if you are interested. I know the costs are real. If you believe Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW) is destroying our planet, then maybe these costs are justified. I don't believe it, as there is absolutely no proof of it, and even if AGW were a proven thing, I'm not sure it would be a bad thing. Surely a warmer, moister planet would be better than another ice age. But, that's off the point. The point is, this backs up my claims about higher electricity costs to the customer due to adopting renewable energy policies. The customer always pays.

Eco-Tyranny #3 About to Fall?

[Author's note-this post has been re-written in light of the math error made in the original article and the subsequent change in economic benefit]  Another scam effort at Federal Government tyranny that has been creeping along and was about to become a real pain to forced on the common man may be about to subside.  Not go away, but subside:

Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan – the man running against Texas Rep. Joe Barton to be Chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee in the next Congress– has reversed his position on CFL light bulbs. The move is significant not only because Upton wants to be chairman of one of the House’s most powerful committees, but also because he championed the incandescent bulb ban and switch to CFLs just three short years ago.

I guess I had sort of heard that they were going to phase out incandescent bulbs, but I didn't really think they would do it. Evidently, this liberal Republican from Michigan, has introduced a bill that was passed that would sunset incandescent bulbs. I knew that some states were doing that, but I didn't think the Feds were going to try to do that.

I detect a sleezy politician here: not 'til the nation got rocked by the Tea Party does this slimeball see the infringement on an individual's right to run his life and the obligation of the Federal government to keep their nose out of business they have no constitutional mandate to stick it in. Rack up another victory for the Tea Party, at least hopefully, soon.

We should have ToeJamm run another economic analysis for us I am glad ToeJamm checked my math for us, plus, I have since gone to the store and gotten more facts, so am not entirely winging it with some of my figures: No, I'll do it this time.  The cost of electricity in households across the nation varies quite a bit, but I think 10¢ a kilowatt-hour (kWh) is a fair number. Portland probably pays more, because PGE is very expensive, but other places probably pay less. 17¢ a kWh is probably on the high end.  A kilowatt-hour means 1000 watts for 1 hour. That would be equivalent to letting your wife or girlfriend's hair dryer run for an hour: costs you 10¢. Electricity, even now, is quite a bargain for what you can do with it. OK, now I normally use 60W incandescent bulbs in my house. The equivalent-brightness CFL bulb is 20W. So, for me to change to an equivalent-brightness CFL would save me 40W. If I leave my CFL lightbulb on for an hour I've saved myself 40 watt-hours of electricity. Note, not 40 kilowatt-hours, but 40 watt-hours.  So, if my electricity costs 10¢/kWh and I've saved 40 Wh of electricity, how much money have I saved?  By my calculation, I save 0.04¢ an hour by using a CFL bulb, but that calculation is wrong, per ToeJamm, it is 0.4¢ an hour saved.  But still, that's a savings, right?  Well, what about the costs?  A pack of four incandescent bulbs costs about $2, so 50¢ each.  One CFL bulb costs from $6-$8. I bought a pack of four today for $14.00, so $3.50 per bulb  How long does the CFL bulb have to run before you make your money back from your big investment?  Let's choose $6 $3.50 for the CFL bulb, even though they're often more expensive.  $6 3.50- $0.50 = $5.50 $3.00 for the difference between the two.  So, $5.50 $3= ($0.0044/hr) x X hrs.  Solving for X gives 13,750 750 hours or 573 days of continuous use to break even.  My 60W bulb says it will last for 1500 hours.  I did a test once between a 60W incandescent and a 20W CFL on the same light switch, the CFL lasted about twice as long as the incandescent however, the CFL bulbs I bought today say they will last 8000 hours.  I don't believe that for a typical application, as I have tested it out repeatedly in my house and they don't significantly outlast incandescent bulbs. so that modifies the equation a tiny bit,  but, in a nutshell, you will never come close to making your money back.  Now, who's the sucker I mean responsible environmentalist?  Well, I own some CFLs, so count me as one of those suckers people who know the value of a dollar.   But, it was my choice to be a sucker make the purchase.  That's fair.  But, these statist, mother-knows-best, nannies want to force us all to involuntarily lower our standard of living have the government make our shopping choices for us for a very small comparative benefit.  They WILL be defeated.

It's a trend, Jeff!

PS: And that doesn't even take into account the question I raised when we discussed Prius'.  Why is the CFL bulb so expensive?  Again, cost is relative to the energy required to construct, in a nutshell.  My guess is you need to subtract quite a bit from your electricity savings in the whole-earth calculation of your power consumption because so much energy was used to build the CFL bulb as opposed to the incandescent in the first place, but I don't feel like expending the energy to prove that.

PPS: Besides being able to sound our arguments off each other to see where we have significant flaws, we get to learn things through the time we put investigating and discussing our article.  I am very happy to learn that it does make economic sense to buy CFL bulbs!