what on earth does electricity cost near you?

[madmax12]

These tax scams are especially loathsome when it comes to electrical power. You could cut corners if you had to by ditching your cell phone, cable TV, landline.... but how many people can realistically do w/o electricity ?

Unless you set yourself up totally off-grid, you have no choice in these problem jurisdictions but to pay these extortionist rates.

Either that, or vote with your feet and leave.

Rgds, D.

That's the thing about "it's a small world after all" and "go west, young man." The places to beat feet to are filling up with regulations themselves.

The days of sailing to "India" are in the past. If you want to live in a particular kind of place today, you have to make convincing arguments and win the population to your way of thinking. Those most successful at that, determine the way we will all live. In this life.

 

[dave1949]

That's the thing about "it's a small world after all" and "go west, young man." The places to beat feet to are filling up with regulations themselves.

The days of sailing to "India" are in the past. If you want to live in a particular kind of place today, you have to make convincing arguments and win the population to your way of thinking. Those most successful at that, determine the way we will all live. In this life.

Very true.

How many humans can gather in one spot before some form of government (not just a leader) spontaneously forms? My guess is less than 100. Whatever your guess is, how many places remain (where you could go and your survival is assured) that have fewer people than that number?

 

[3930dave]

Obviously, these utilities are going to trot out the cost-reduction story, as justification.....

H-1B loophole may help California utility offshore IT jobs - Computerworld

The beginning of the article:

"Southern California Edison is outsourcing part of its IT operations, and the jobs may be going overseas.

Edison (SCE) is working with Infosys, which is based in India, and iGate, a New Jersey-based company with major offshore centers, as it prepares to lay off workers, according to U.S. government records....."

What I don't get, in today's world, is how off-shoring IT work on critical infrastructure controls makes it past federal govt security reviews.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

If you're in Oklahoma, start planning/saving for off-grid.......

Oklahoma electric utilities want higher rate for solar, wind energy producers | News OK

The upside of this obstructive behaviour is that it is a pretty good indicator of how viable solar PV has become.

Rgds, D.

 

[dmccarty]

We used to have Progress Energy as a power supplier. Progress was created with a merger of FPL and CPL. Duke just "merged" with Progress and the merger was full of lies told by the head of Duke Power. The CEO of Progress was supposed to become the CEO of the merged companies but all of the sudden he was gone and the CEO of Duke was running the merged company. As part of the merger, the Duke CEO wanted to pass along a 300 million dollar expense to the rate payer. This expense was to cover the layoffs that were going to occur. I do not think that passed the rate commission because of the uproar but Duke has submitted several rate hikes. One rate increase was approved but a court has over turned the increase.

Duke just had a coal ash spill from a pond on the Dan River, one of my favorite rivers by the way, :laughing: and the Duke CEO said he expects the rate payers to pay for his mess.

Some of the rate hikes are because coal plants are being shut down due to EPA regulations and new power plants have to be built. The rate payers will have to pay for those increases due to regulation but Duke Power has been pushing for rate increases that exceed the cost of regulation. I never felt that Progress or CPL was shafting us with rate increases but I sure feel that way with Duke Power.

Later,
Dan

 

[therealmjfox]

I'm with you that Duke Energy has been a disaster Dan. Not just their rate hike requests but since Duke took over the time required to get power restored after storms has increased exponentially. Having lived in my rural area since 1999 I never had to use my generator (that includes through ice storms and hurricanes) until last fall when a fairly routine (for NC) thunderstorm caused a power outage that Duke took 30 hours to fix! Thanks Duke for finally justifying my generator purchase (I guess...). This is related to the propane cost threads in a way, I would like to ditch propane for all-electric because of the current cost and on purely economic grounds that it a sensible decision, but I need to keep my propane dual-fuel heat pump because unlike a fully electric heat pump, I can run the propane furnace on a consumer grade generator and still have enough juice left over for fridges, lights, and some other comforts.

Speaking of their rate hike requests Duke's behavior, and their friends in state government, has been pretty egregious. The state attorney general appealed their last one and won when the state supreme court ruled that the impact on ratepayers hadn't been considered. So the utilities commission "reconsidered", took no new testimony or info, and approved the same rate hike again. That is now on appeal. It doesn't help that our current governor (who appoints a lot of the utilities commission) was a long-time Duke Energy executive before he became governor.

 

[3930dave]

The corruption and interplay between corporations and govts is so common and widespread today, that mostly I find they don't even bother much anymore to try and hide it.

The Game, at that level, is mostly about Total Control, with Zero Accountability. As much as really I hate to admit it, most of these players play that game well...... too well, unfortunately for us peasants.

I've had a long term personal interest in alternative energy. What's happening now, in many jurisdictions, is that electricity costs are ramping up, at the same time as alternative energy system costs (esp. outside of batteries) are dropping. Small wonder utilities are scrambling to slam on extra charges for those grid-intertie "freeloaders".

IMO, as these costs keep scaling Up and Down, off-grid is going to start to make $ sense for even more people.

Hearing people on here talk about 5.x cents/kwh still today in some areas, with no Fantasy Charges added, really does make me look back on the Good Old Days here with fondness.

Rgds, D.

 

[dragoneggs]

My procrastination (rationing) saved me two bucks a gallon on LP. Just filled for $3.18. Still too high but better than the $5.30 something two months ago!

 

[dmccarty]

...
Speaking of their rate hike requests Duke's behavior, and their friends in state government, has been pretty egregious. The state attorney general appealed their last one and won when the state supreme court ruled that the impact on ratepayers hadn't been considered. So the utilities commission "reconsidered", took no new testimony or info, and approved the same rate hike again. That is now on appeal. It doesn't help that our current governor (who appoints a lot of the utilities commission) was a long-time Duke Energy executive before he became governor.

Only three of the seven commissioners were appointed by the current governor and the merger was announced two years before the current governor was sworn into office. If there was collusion among the commission over the deal it was from commissioners appointed by governors of both parties. The previous two governors left a great stink in the air.

My impression of the commission's past decisions was that they were sorta fair with the increases but the wacky merger with a sudden change of CEO's at the last minute and the rapid price increases is odd to say the least. Frankly, I don't see that the merger was in the best interest of the rate payer nor the stock holders but I don't know if the commission could really prevent the merger. One could make a dang good argument that Duke shareholders were shafted because of the mess at the Crystal River nuke plant that was owned by Progress. Duke almost bailed out of the deal supposedly because of Crystal River, but by that point, I was not trusting one word spoken by the Duke CEO.

Later,
Dan

 

[3930dave]

My procrastination (rationing) saved me two bucks a gallon on LP. Just filled for $3.18. Still too high but better than the $5.30 something two months ago!

Good savings, for the time-frame.

Interesting how the EPA is now cracking down on wood burning (long running existing thread on that), at the same time as virtually all other forms of energy are rising dramatically in cost.

Guess you can always just let your pipes freeze....

Rgds, D.