Chuck wrote
>
>I recall a presentation some 20+ years ago on a proposal to build
nuclear
>power plants in Nova Scotia, one of our Maritime provinces. Nova
>Scotia has
>lots of coal and (used to have) access to cheap oil from Venezuela
>(that was
>before 1980!) The idea was to use the nuclear power plant to
generate
>electricity and use that to generate hydrogen by electrolysis.
>The hydrogen
>would then be combined with the coal from the Nova Scotia coal
>mines to make
>a synthetic fuel (note that the South Africans used to make synthetic
fuel,
>so this is not a new idea). The synthetic fuel would be then be used
in
>diesel locomotives. I asked the speaker if it would not be a lot
>simpler to
>just electrify the railroads. His response made it quite clear that
the
>goal of the exercise had nothing to do with transportation, but to
come up
>with a "make work" project to keep the coal mines in Nova Scotia open.
No,
>I am not making this up! It's an example where the energy balance
does not
>even factor into the equation.
And Glenn responded:
Too true when we let governments run things. Part of California's
problem
is that the government won't let PG&E charge what it costs to
manufacture
electricity. Thus, PG&E is paying more for its raw material than it
can
recoup in income. That means bankruptcy. But the politicians are happy
because they don't have constituents calling them telling them that
electricity costs are too high. The real fix is to pay the real cost of
the
product.
REPLY: I am all with Glenn that we should pay the "real cost of the
product". But there is a problem with this when those who supply the
product have a monopoly on their services. In such cases what is charged
to consumers and the real cost of the product may have little
relationship to each other. Trusting the "free market" in such cases
also has its problems. Since the public generally neither gets to see
the utility's books nor the invoices that the utility receives from
their suppliers, it seems that in these cases there is a genuinely
positive role for an independent body to play in seeing to it that fair
prices are charged to consumers - prices that include the "real price of
the product" but do not involve gouging. In Michigan we are just about
to bear the brunt of our actions in utility deregulation. When this was
done about 15 months ago, the agreement was that utilities would fix the
price they charged to consumers for at least two years (a foolish
agreement in my opinion but...). Now the utilities have applied for
early release from these commitment and want to raise the price of their
product by 75 to 100% - reflecting, they say, the increased prices they
have to pay their suppliers. None of which makes us consumers happy. For
me it will merely mean somewhat less discretionary spending. But for low
income people this will be a very severe jolt.
We can be sure that energy prices will continue to rise in the future.
My greatest immediate concern is for those who can ill-afford such
increasing costs. My longer concern is that our entire economy could be
imperiled.
kpiers
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 25 2001 - 08:53:31 EST