[roccman]

Link

"FERC commissioner Suedeen Kelly, speaking on her own behalf, said the situation is nothing short of a crisis.

"There's not enough time to build our way out," Kelly told the Western Governors' Association here Monday"



Popcorn please.

[Troyboy1208]

"We can correctly call this a crisis," Kelly said. "We don't have enough time to build generation to meet increased demand this summer."

-Also from the article.

I was reading the article thinking it was 10 years out...but then at the end of the article I read the above quote from FERC.

[Twilight]

Yep, I've seen a similar article today about the Texas grid, boasting about how recommissioning mothballed plants boosted their spare capacity above 14% for this summer. Not only is that considered at the lowest margins of adequacy in countries such as the UK, but they forecast demand-driven erosion to around 10% by 2009, omitting to mention that at that point, there is no guarantee a demand surge or single plant failure won't trigger blackouts. Oh, and 50% is gas fired, with the decline rates being what, these days?

[shortonoil]

You can build a completely energy self sufficient home for about $40,000 in additional capital cost, or about 15% of the cost of a median American home. When governments start promoting this sort of development, you will know that they are serious about an energy crisis. Until then, they are just continuing their dance, with their corporate contributors.

[gw]

How do they expect people to voluntarily conserve electricity when retail price controls are in effect?

Price controls lead to shortages, this has been demonstrated time and time again.

[Twilight]

Problem is, the capital may not exist, or there may be problems with its creation. I'm sure I'm just echoing something you have already considered, that when the time comes to roll up one's sleeves, the country may be unable to afford even what appear to be modest sums. $40k per house may be an unaffordable luxury by the time someone upstairs gets up off their ass.

[shortonoil]

Twilight said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')roblem is, the capital may not exist, or there may be problems with its creation. I'm sure I'm just echoing something you have already considered, that when the time comes to roll up one's sleeves, the country may be unable to afford even what appear to be modest sums. $40k per house may be an unaffordable luxury by the time someone upstairs gets up off their ass.

[Cobra_Strike]

Show me a decent bit of property for less then or equal to 40K in the Northwest for one...I want one...

Important...this is one more person saying things are getting bad.

[retiredguy]

Ditto what Gideon said. $16K worth of PV would give me 25% of my minimum electric usage. I do heat primarily with wood, but gas provides the secondary heat, all energy for cooking and hot water.

[Revi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou can build a completely energy self sufficient home for about $40,000 in additional capital cost, or about 15% of the cost of a median American home.

[kjmclark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou can build a completely energy self sufficient home for about $40,000 in additional capital cost, or about 15% of the cost of a median American home.

[manu]

Or you could just build a sod house. Anyone who is in the upper Midwest or Northeast should be building these now if they are serious about living in those places.

[savethehumans]

Also from that article:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')The governor feels really what the state can do is set the stage and make the case that transmission is important," Freudenthal spokeswoman Cara Eastwood said. "It's a complex issue, and it's a challenging issue that has to be overcome in some way."

[shortonoil]

pstarr said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 's')hortonoil is right. For $40,000 you could buy

[Revi]

Here's what we've done to our house and saved at least half our fossil fuel use. We have saved a lot of money too. I'm pretty sure it's almost paid for itself by now. We live in an ordinary house, but our bills are way less than half what our neighbors pay. The solar hot water has been doing really well lately. Over 150 degrees yesterday!

http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm

[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Twilight', 'Y')ep, I've seen a similar article today about the Texas grid, boasting about how recommissioning mothballed plants boosted their spare capacity above 14% for this summer. Not only is that considered at the lowest margins of adequacy in countries such as the UK, but they forecast demand-driven erosion to around 10% by 2009, omitting to mention that at that point, there is no guarantee a demand surge or single plant failure won't trigger blackouts. Oh, and 50% is gas fired, with the decline rates being what, these days?

[Judgie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', '[')b]pstarr said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 's')hortonoil is right. For $40,000 you could buy

[Revi]

I think now that an official has noticed there may be a problem it is time to get things like solar panels. A friend got a bunch of Kyocera 100 watters for a nice price and is storing them for when he builds a place. I thought that it was a little excessive, but we had a silicon shortage and panels were very hard to get. We got our BP 75 watt panel just before they said that they were sold out for a year.

It's a good time to move on things. Before the herd panics. This summer they might start to stampede.

[PeakOiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') think now that an official has noticed there may be a problem it is time to get things like solar panels. A friend got a bunch of Kyocera 100 watters for a nice price and is storing them for when he builds a place. I thought that it was a little excessive, but we had a silicon shortage and panels were very hard to get. We got our BP 75 watt panel just before they said that they were sold out for a year.

It's a good time to move on things. Before the herd panics. This summer they might start to stampede.