Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Friedman

2007-08-22 Thread Jim Devine
Gene Coyle wrote:
 I'm told that today's Thomas Friedman column extols decoupling for
 utilities.

 It is no surprise that he doesn't know what he;s talking about.

 Can anyone who gets the column send me a copy?

The New York Times / August 22, 2007

Go Green and Save Money
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Have your eyes recently popped out of your head when you opened your
electric bill? Do you, like me, live in one of those states where
electricity has been deregulated and the state no longer oversees the
generation price so your utility rates have skyrocketed since 2002?

If so, you need to listen to a proposal being aired by Jim Rogers, the
chairman and chief executive of Duke Energy, and recently filed with
the North Carolina Utilities Commission. (Duke Energy is headquartered
in Charlotte.) It's called save-a-watt, and it aims to turn the
electricity/utility industry upside down by rewarding utilities for
the kilowatts they save customers by improving their energy efficiency
rather than rewarding them for the kilowatts they sell customers by
building more power plants.

Mr. Rogers's proposal is based on three simple principles. The first
is that the cheapest way to generate clean, emissions-free power is by
improving energy efficiency. Or, as he puts it, The most
environmentally sound, inexpensive and reliable power plant is the one
we don't have to build because we've helped our customers save
energy.

Second, we need to make energy efficiency something that is as back
of mind as energy usage. If energy efficiency depends on people
remembering to do 20 things on a checklist, it's not going to happen
at scale.

Third, the only institutions that have the infrastructure, capital and
customer base to empower lots of people to become energy efficient are
the utilities, so they are the ones who need to be incentivized to
make big investments in efficiency that can be accessed by every
customer.

The only problem is that, historically, utilities made their money by
making large-scale investments in new power plants, whether coal or
gas or nuclear. As long as a utility could prove to its regulators
that the demand for that new plant was there, the utility got to pass
along the cost, and then some, to its customers. Mr. Rogers's
save-a-watt concept proposes to change all of that.

The way it would work is that the utility would spend the money and
take the risk to make its customers as energy efficient as possible,
he explained. That would include installing devices in your home that
would allow the utility to adjust your air-conditioners or
refrigerators at peak usage times. It would include plans to
incentivize contractors to build more efficient homes with more
efficient boilers, heaters, appliances and insulation. It could even
include partnering with a factory to buy the most energy-efficient
equipment or with a family to winterize their house.

Energy efficiency is the 'fifth fuel' — after coal, gas, renewables
and nuclear, said Mr. Rogers. Today, it is the lowest-cost
alternative and is emissions-free. It should be our first choice in
meeting our growing demand for electricity, as well as in solving the
climate challenge.

Because energy efficiency is, in effect, a resource, he added, in
order for utilities to use more of it, efficiency should be treated
as a production cost in the regulatory arena. The utility would earn
its money on the basis of the actual watts it saves through efficiency
innovations. (California's decoupling systems goes partly in this
direction.)

At the end of the year, an independent body would determine how many
watts of energy the utility has saved over a predetermined baseline
and the utility would then be compensated by its customers
accordingly.

Over time, said Mr. Rogers, the price of electricity per unit will
go up, because there would be an incremental cost in adding efficiency
equipment — although that cost would be less than the incremental cost
of adding a new power plant. But your overall bills should go down,
because your home will be more efficient and you will use less
electricity.

Once such a system is in place, Mr. Rogers added, our engineers would
wake up every day thinking about how to squeeze more productivity
gains out of new technology for energy efficiency — rather than just
how to build a bigger transmission or distribution network to meet the
growing demands of customers. (Why don't we think about incentivizing
U.S. automakers the same way — give them tax rebates for
save-a-miles?)

That is how you produce a more efficient energy infrastructure at
scale. Universal access to electricity was a 20th century idea — now
it has to be universal access to energy efficiency, which could make
us the most energy productive country in the world, he added.

Pulling all this off will be very complicated. But if Mr. Rogers and
North Carolina can do it, it would be the mother of all energy
paradigm shifts.



-- 
Jim Devine / In every [stock-dealing] swindle every one knows 

Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Friedman parody I wrote

2006-06-21 Thread Sandwichman

I suspect this is a actual Friedman column, Walt, and you're just
making it seem like a parody by saying it's a parody you wrote. ;-)
I hereby authorize you to use the title, Son of Sandwichman.

On 6/20/06, Walt Byars [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

The World is Flattening, But our Metaphorical Tectonics Have More in Store


--
Sandwichman


Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Friedman parody I wrote

2006-06-21 Thread Perelman, Michael
Why not father of Sandwichman?



Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901


Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Friedman parody I wrote

2006-06-21 Thread Sandwichman

On 6/21/06, Perelman, Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Why not father of Sandwichman?


Because:

1. No alliteration.
2. No play on words on a notorious serial (or cereal) killer.

--
Sandwichman


Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Friedman parody I wrote

2006-06-21 Thread Sandwichman

Salami tactics?

On 6/21/06, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

On 6/21/06, Perelman, Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Why not father of Sandwichman?

isn't that former Congresscritter Tom Deli?

JD




--
Sandwichman