This is about the growth of the annual bills for electricity. Electricity rate
has about doubled for me in the last few years. I though we were supposed to
experience lower rates enabled by harvesting renewable ("free") energies.As we all know, the U.S. has been investing in the sources of "free" electricity, mainly from the wind and direct solar technologies, the latter meaning the photovoltaic and thermal "power" plants. We also know that the investments have been heavily subsidized by the state and federal governments, i.e. taxpayers who also paid for the gov't offices and overseers. And financed also by the clean-energy-promoting groups that collect money from various additional sources such as the extra payments utilities were legislated to add to our monthly bills. You may have noticed that your utility bill GREW with the availability of the FREE energy, not declined. Maybe it grew as much as mine which about doubled in just 8 years. See the attached Excel graph. The rate on the graph is simply the billed amount divided by the consumption, and it is shown in both $/kW·h and $/GJ. As such, the rate includes the delivery and "other" charges, among the latter ones being the aforementioned additional fee titled on my bill as the Combined Public Benefits Charge. In light of this, would you like to support buying more electricity from these FREE-energy sources? I would not. My billed rate almost doubled as said when the proportion of electricity delivered by the two sources grew from 0.30 % to 0.85 % of the total U.S. electricity generation. The growth of the 0.55 % in some 7 years cost us dearly - see the graph. Imagine what the monthly bill will be when that portion reaches over 10 %! (Fortunately, it is unlikely to do so; see http://energy.sigmaxi.org/?p=743 .) Some think that it is okay to impoverish poor people further by producing expensive electricity just BECAUSE it is CLEAN (low on CO2). Beware that none of the wind and direct-solar plants will ever save more CO2 than their manufacture, erection, maintenance and dismantling generated, not to mention the cost of manufacture and installation of the wiring to the remote locations. And add to it the cost of the extra controls utilities must install. Is there a "clean" alternative? The average nuclear plant returns its carbon debt in 6 years and last many times longer than the renewable competition. Their output grew also in last years. The growth was achieved by routine improvements in the existing 3- and 4-decades old plants at essentially zero rate change. Those improvements, negligible in cost, resulted in the increase of electricity production TWICE as great as the increase from installing all the additional wind and solar plants. For reference, here are the average annual outputs for 2007 (as finalized in 2009): Electricity - all sources 437 GW Electricity - wind and solar only 3.7 GW Percentage of total electricity 0.85 % Percentage of total U.S. energy 0.11 % Electricity - nuclear plants only 92 GW Percentage of total electricity 21 % Annual growth in electricity consumption ~50 GW (compare with the 3.7 GW above). To adhere to the spirit of my membership in the U.S.Metric Association, the annual output is in watts. Stan Jakuba PS: A pleasing coincidence: I just heard on the radio that Pres. Obama is reverting his stance on nuclear energy and will "allow" building new nuclear plants in the U.S.
zzz.xls
Description: MS-Excel spreadsheet
