Energy: Costs, Regs & Alternatives
Brent Finnegan -- May 7th, 2008
Considering much of Mark Warner’s speech yesterday was about alternative energy, I thought this Media General article was interesting. Virginia energy lobbyists are already complaining about Sen. John Warner’s proposed clean energy regulations.
Virginians’ electricity bills face a double whammy this year: higher prices of natural gas and coal and pending climate-change legislation [...] Using cleaner technology at their plants, as Warner’s bill would require, would cost too, industry leaders warned.
“Consumers have seen nothing as far as rate increases,” said Myron Rummel, president and CEO of Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative in Mount Crawford.
Consumers there have seen about a 15 percent increase in the past year. Rummel warned that if utilities have to buy new emission-lowering technology, consumers would pay the added cost.
“Nobody’s seen the full force of environmental legislation,” Rummel said.
The supposed aim of the legislation Rummel is referring to is to incrementally reduce greenhouse gas emissions between 2015 and 2050.
Last month, John Warner said he hoped to gain support among his fellow Republicans for the bill, but if the energy lobby has any influence on Republicans in DC, it’s hard to believe that they will. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act will go up for debate before the Senate next month.
““Consumers have seen nothing as far as rate increases,” said Myron Rummel, president and CEO of Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative in Mount Crawford.” followed by ““Nobody’s seen the full force of environmental legislation,” Rummel said.”
Now that’s a threat if I ever heard one.
Mr. Rummel must have missed the memo before he blamed huge rate increases on “environmental legistion”: Dominion (who supplies SVEC) just asked for an 18% rate increase due to “fuel costs”.
Unfortunately these companies neglected to make these costly upgrades over time (assuming that they have the long and costly upgrade process to go, since they are stating this their case for potential rate increases). If energy companies had made these investments as they built their existing power plants, this could have been phased into their pricing long ago. Unfortunately environmental legislation gets such a bad rap by the conservative media bias (ie 99% of all media) that you are obviously a communist if you give a shit about the environment that we live on, breathe in and are sustained by. Damn reds and their liberal soft skins, can’t even breathe underwater or absorb lead into their skin without moaning about it!
Myron Rummel: If Shenandoah Valley Electric Coop has another week with 3.5 hour power black-outs I will be forced to cover my roof with photo voltaic electric panels, require the co-op to purchase the energy, and advocate for a change-out of your senior management. You need to mind your knitting mister.
And now this:
This stuck out to me from that WHSV article you cited, finn:
“Some customers say they’re running out of solutions.
‘We can light candles all night long, and the electric bill is not going to go down any lower than what their minimum is,’ says Dove.”
What incentives are companies like Dominion putting in place to use less energy than before, when you still pay the same high minimum cost even if you just use a fluorescent light bulb for fifteen seconds every billing cycle. It’s comfortable to blame China and India, of course, because they’re not around to point out that they’re simply catching up to the number one user of energy in the world…the US. As I understand it, our country of 300 million consumes more than China and India together, which have about 2,400 million people (yes, I know that’s usually read 2,400,000,000, but I wanted to point out that an American consumes as much energy as 8 Chinese and Indian people). The earth can’t sustain them emulating our lifestyle…and it can’t sustain us continuing our lifestyle.
Our electric bill at Midtowne this month was $385 (720 sq foot store). People won’t buy warm soda, or shop in a sweaty store. Take a look at the consumer price index this year for a good laugh, I mean sob story.
Hey, I found out more info about what I was talking about in a previous comment. According to the US Dept. of Energy, the US doesn’t just consume as much oil as India and China combined. It consumes <a as much as India, China, Japan, Russia, and Germany combined, and those countries are #2-6 on the list of biggest consumers of oil in the world!
Two brief follow-ups…
First, I saw this article about John Warner’s greenhouse emissions bill:
And this one, from the Roanoke area: