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Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages. The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators.
The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers’ preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities’ suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers’ wishes. Final approval is expected next month. Reducing individual customers’ electrical use – if necessary, involuntarily – could avoid that, Rosenfeld said. “If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain,” he said, “there’s a lot less pain to go around.” “This is an outrage,” one Californian said in an e-mail message to Rosenfeld. “We need to build new facilities to handle the growth in this state, not become Big Brother to the citizens of California.”
Another example of Big Brother intrusion into our daily lives? You decide. Of course this will only apply to new construction and remodels, not the mansions in Beverly Hills, the hot tubs in Malibu, or Ahnolds and Marias digs in Sacramento. Right, share the pain.
#30–Fair Comment. Yes, comparing group outcomes and approaches is a good social tool to keep a check on one’s self. Compare Nuke policy, socialized medicine, vacation policy, death penalty, etc.
Doesn’t say who is right though and the technical issues remain? Heard last night that even while Germany signed a contract to help build that English Nuke Plant they had decided to no longer build Nuke’s themselves—details to follow?
What is the European plan for disposal of the waste? In France, I think it is storage on site. How much land area and cost is required to monitor this mess and how cost effective will it be over the next 100K years?
Now the converse must be true as well. Some in Europe must point to GOUSA and say “At least the activists there have the clout to stop this insanity!” Who is right?
So, as pointed out elsewhere with the jump off a bridge reference, care to avoid a completely ad hominem approach and actually address the issues?
Thank you very much for releasing this information. I look forward to the discussions it will generate.
OK, Bobbo, et al.
Tech worth looking into for nuke wastes, and you can google it yourself (just cut ‘n’ paste):
Nuclear waste reprocessing – unfortunately banned because it leads to weapons grade material.
High temp breeder reactors – EBR II – Sandia Labs
Best bet I’ve seen, and here’s the link:
http://www.physorg.com/news73578268.html
Some good research has been conducted on containment in carbon / boron buckyballs.
Awake, #26 -‘… charge a penalty for gas guzzling cars, such an extra tax by vehicle model and mileage rating… watch the population start to shift to high fuel economy vehicles and the price of gasoline could start to come down due to increased availability without building new refineries.’
They already do charge a gas guzzler tax when you buy a new vehicle that doesn’t get a minimum mileage rating. But folks spending $60k+ on that new Escalde, Porsche, Corvette, etc. that gets 12MPG could careless about paying $5+ a gallon. They can afford it. It’s the little guy that gets screwed. And the answer oil companies give us everytime we ask them to spend their recording breaking profits on new refineries is the same…’Nobody in their right mind will build new refineries during a ‘peak oil’ time. They’ll lose money.’
I’m still convinced oil companies invented the ‘peak oil’ theory.
I live in Sounthern California. Often we get a bad rap and sometimes it’s justified. Like many of you, we have been screwed for years on utilities. If it isn’t power it’s surely water as we live in desert after all & it wil always be a ‘drought condition’. And in the winter time, natural gas. They’re all crooks. Since the physcotic housing growth we had for past several years. we suffered urban sprawl like never before. We have been told by Edison that we have enough juice to survive with 75 degree weather all year. And that seems ‘good enough’ for local and state governments not to push power companies to expand the grid and make new plants. But they powers-that-be will continue to take your propety tax money.
#34–Bubba, apologies and thanks for making you work. Very interesting. Lets hope that kind of technology proves out for the long lived radiation as well?
Then we only have to worry about human error and human terrorism and secret corporate payoffs in this highly centralized capital intensive enterprise. But “progress” nonetheless.
How cheap would renewables be if the same subsidies were given to their development? and so forth.