Sparetire

It's this neato little bright spot in a pool of inky ignorance that there are people who look at facts and numbers rather than emotions in order to make decisions.

I tried to read Atlas Shrugged. It was so repetitive in the development of almost all the characters that I had to put it down. It was actually aggravating. And yet, that Rand bitch really had a point about a lot of people.

Point being, I'm glad that there are people who are actually able to form an opinion based on fact, then feel excited when that opinion is vindicated. There may actually be hope for the species.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

^^ Ha!

News flash today!! This from a 100% accurate and unbiased source (NBC). Fukushima radiation underreported!!

Run for the hills!!

JasonC SBB

Bah, someone peed in your wheaties! It's not as if thread drift isn't an mt.net tradition. I can understand annoyance to that in the non BS sections, but in the BS/politics section?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

It just gets tiresome when it's the exact same argument (everything bad is the fault of government regulation / anarchy is the only political architecture which can worrk) in every single thread.

There's no challenge in it.

JasonC SBB

Never said it's the "only" solution. I'd be extremely happy if we moved towards a more constitutional gov't. And less regulation aka corporatism.

But on topic - do you have any idea how political winds changed that made the construction of the plants happen?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I honestly have no idea.

I think that part of it is due to the promises that the Obama administration made early on, vis-a-vis "We need to invest in a diverse portfolio of clean, renewable, energy sources," from whence came the $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for the Vogtle expansion, along with other loan guarantees and financial incentives for the other new reactors.

And I think part of it is technology; the fact that we've finally got some standardized designs which can be design-certified and then basically mass produced. That's really what made these specific licenses go through so smoothly.

But is there more to it than that? I assume so. I just don't know what.

Sparetire

I think theres a lot of people like me who dont neccesarily hate any new involvement or reg. We just want to see some more competence in the structure that handles it. Whats really depressing is the crushing incompetence in both the corporate and government spheres. Maybe its nostalgia, but it seems like you used to be able to at least choose between incompetence and evil. Now its just sort of apathy and mischeif. And they eat lunch together. And its not even good food. Just over-salted low grade steaks cooked on a propane grill with really undersized side dishes from a Sysco truck.

We try to get one entity to run something as complex as taxes at the federal level, but have like 31 for regulation of securities, bonds, etc.

gearhead_318

iTrader: (1)

This. One million times.

messiahx

iTrader: (2)

Interesting to see where some big names stand on on nuclear power: Branson, Gates, Bezos: Ultra-Rich Visions for Nuclear Power - IEEE Spectrum

Didn't read the whole thing yet but talks about the aging of our currently operating reactors: Fitness Tests for Old Nuclear Reactors - IEEE Spectrum

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

The herpaderp in this video about the dangers of nuclear power are....well, both hilarious and .

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Lesbians, ****, and nukes. Great stuff.

You know, I have honestly never watched even a snippet of "Bullshit," but that was a really refreshing presentation. And while a tad simplified in places, also completely true.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Because I couldn't think of anywhere else appropriate to put this:

Savers Push $374 Billion U.S. Utility Industry to Shift - Bloomberg

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Huh. My whole utility bill is less than $175 a month. About $100 less, in fact.

SDG&E has an interesting thing they've been doing lately, now that everybody has realtime-reporting meters. From time to time, they issue a "Reduce Your Use" day, where they send an email to everyone telling them "If you use less than XX kilowatts of electricity tomorrow between 11am and 6pm, you will earn a $1 credit off your bill."

The only problem is that they compute the target energy consumption as a percentage (usually around half) of your average energy use for that day/time period.

The only three things consuming any measurable quantity of electricity in my home during that time period on a weekday are the refrigerator and two PCs. And since the hard drives in those PCs are spun down, simply turning them off does not reduce my energy consumption enough to qualify for the credit. I would have to unplug the refrigerator in order to achieve that.

Do "normal" people leave their A/C turned on during the day while nobody is home? I have a very simple programmable thermostat (just the kind with a built in clock, no remote access) which turns the A/C off at 8am every day, and then switches it back on at 5pm. It cost me a very trivial amount of money (maybe $20) when I bought it 11 or 12 years ago at Home Depot, and I've been carrying it around with me from house to house ever since. It's basically a 1990s version of this one: 1-Week Programmable Thermostat-RTH221B at The Home Depot




I'm not sure why folks feel they need to wait for the Utility Company to give them a free thermostat. Programmable (non-remote) thermostats been cheaply available for many years, and require about 20 minutes to install and program.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I've had a weekly programmable thermostat for the last 10 years.

my current is pretty baus:

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

I think the idea of the wifi-enabled thermostats is kind of cool, but honestly I can think of only one or two situations in which a regular programmable thermostat wouldn't work just as well.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

name those tunes.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Here was my energy use for last Friday (Oct 5):




And for the following day, where the thermostat was programmed to have the A/C turned on most of the day:




SDG&E hasn't given me any incentives or provided me with any free hardware, that's just with the $20 thermostat that I bought more than a decade ago when I lived in Ohio.

This is pretty simple stuff.



Sidebar: I am slightly annoyed that my energy-hog neighbor gets a discount for consuming 30 KW/h instead of 60 KW/h on a certain day, whereas I get no discount for consuming 15 KW/h on the same day, simply because I always run the meter as low as I can get it without letting the food spoil, rather than being an energy-hog except on special occasions.




SDG&E's opinion of my total energy consumption for the Aug-Sep billing cycle as compared to my neighbors:



And that includes nightly charging of the plug-in EV that I use to commute to work.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

My problem with the A/C is that me and my fiance work completely different hours so it is almost always on and there would be no good way to program it because her schedule is revolving. I turn it up to 78 if I leave and no one is home but my fiance general forgets to do this.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

to be fair the stat isn't in the kitchen...

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Understood.

But in a typical suburban neighborhood, I'd wager that at least 2/3 of the houses are totally empty during the day while the kids are at school and the parents are at work.

How hard would it be to simply have the A/C and water heater switch themselves off during the period of time when nobody is home to enjoy the coolness / warmth which they are competing to provide?

To me, this is as absurd as leaving the oven turned on 24/7, regardless of whether you are cooking food in it or not. Or letting the car idle in the parking lot all day while you're at work, and then again in the driveway all night.