Re: Wind energy a boon for farmers - tenfold returns !

From: Jim Greenfield (greenfield_7_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/28/04 

Date: 28 Nov 2004 00:57:28 -0800

jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote in message news:<w4Gdnbth__X2BTXcRVn-jA@rcn.net>...
> In article <3c4afb26.0411231519.6919b620@posting.google.com>,
> greenfield_7@hotmail.com (Jim Greenfield) wrote:
> >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote in message
> news:<3_Wdndq5w_lEyT7cRVn-pA@rcn.net>...
> >> In article <3c4afb26.0411221554.353fb306@posting.google.com>,
> >> greenfield_7@hotmail.com (Jim Greenfield) wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> >> >> > .. Their volume still
> >> >> >apparently gets them a reasonable deal. It is the house-holder and
> >> >> >small business who are getting screwed.
> >> >>
> >> >> My electric bill is less than $30/mo. Before "deregulation", it was
> >> >> $30-$35/mo. and I had enough electric utility stock whose dividends
> >> >> paid the bill. I also was able to go to one place to deal with
> >> >> all my power problems. Now I need a flow chart that gives me
> >> >> directions about who to call, when to call, and where to call for
> >> >> each kind of problem. I opted to stay with the power generator
> >> >> (we were given a choice in this state to use the old way or shop
> >> >> around for power). Now the time period is expiring and I have
> >> >> absolutely no idea whatthehell I'm supposed to do other than
> >> >> I have to choose. Choose fucking what? I have one wire that
> >> >> comes into the house. From my POV, I should have one phone
> >> >> number to call when things go wrong. The biz has followed the
> >> >> telephone business model and that business is on its way into
> >> >> oblivion due to lack of interest.
> >> >
> >> >Yeh- some choice! Sounds like you get bargain power price,
> >>
> >> It is absolutely no bargain. I'm am getting what I pay for, namely
> >> bad delivery. To stay in business these companies need to remain
> >> profitable. To stay profitable, they need to have costs < income.
> >> If the income figure is forced by government to become less, then
> >> the expeditures of doing business have to be reduced at least
> >> the same amount. Since all other expenses of the company was already
> >> pared to minimum, the next cost-cutting is dumping people. The
> >> people who have to be dumped are the ones who are doing the actual
> >> work; the last people to be dumped are the paper pushers who
> >> did all the paperwork to dump the productions workers.
> >> And, that, boys and girls, is why IT is going offshore (IT is
> >> another name for paperpushing).
> >
> >We seldom get a power failure (yet), and the voltage is pretty
> >constant (no surges). I say "yet", because each summer (peak demand
> >due to air conditioners),
> >the suppliers threaten to increase prices if we don't limit
> >consumption- it might over extend their production capability.
>
> My neighborhood has acquired problems since the City Fathers
> decided it was a Good Idea to allow a gazillion new houses to
> be built on the old farm land. They put up 75 houses which
> max'ed the grid here. So a bandaid happened. Then they
> started to put up 75 more houses and every time a power tool
> was engaged, boom went the power grid.

We are currently in an earlier than usual heat wave- 4th day over
35deg C.
No power failure yet, touch wood, but one truck taking out a stobie
pole :-(
>
> Water pressure also is a problem because one of the 50 house
> tracts has to push it all uphill. I'm down hill and get higher
> pressure.

Keeps the plumbers on their toes. Ours used to be artesian, but now
has to be pumped out of the ground to a header tank. Water quality is
pretty average (so I stick to beer)

> >> >My bill is about $70 US a month, and that doesn't include hot water
> >> >(gas),
> >> >or heating (wood fire). A household of 3/4 small house.
> >>
> >> Wow. You seem to use a lot more than I do.
> >
> >1300 kwh in 90 days. This may increase a bit as we go into the
> >summer- turn the fridges up, and run the airconditioner a few times.
>
> It took me a while, but I don't have turn on my A/C until 17:00..
> unless it's extremely humid; humidity gets to me now.

I could get by without A/C, but my women folk suffer too much to be
without.
> >
> >>
> >> >So that is just for the lights, fridge, electricals.....
> >> >Just had a look at the bill- a "supply charge" of $30 on top of their
> >> >inflated price per unit. (about 11c US per unit- kilowatt?)
> >>
> >> I have five extra charges: distribution, transition, transmission,
> >> energy conservation, and renewable energy @~$.04/KWH.
> >
> >Incredible! There is a hole just up the road where natural gas runs a
> >turbine straight into the grid, and you STILL only pay a third of our
> >price.
>
> Note that this price is government controlled so that the voter^Wpeople
> can benefit from the deregulation. How politicians can talk about
> this without ROTFLing is beyond me. It's one of those unique
> ironies of life where a person blatantly displays his stupidity
> and is unaware how silly he looks and the people agreeing with
> him don't notice they've also grown goose feathers.

Sounds like SR! (oops- that just slipped out, so ignore)
Presumably the power producers still turn a nice profit, so if our
generators are using oil bought at world parity, and charge 3x as
much?????????
>
> My apologies to real geese who are 100 times smarter.
> <snip>
>
> >> >They sure do create something! How long are your supermarket qeues?
> >>
> >> Very, very long. Checkout girls used to be able to key in
> >> the prices a lot faster than those fucking scanners. Most
> >> of them had the prices in their heads. They rarely had to
> >> look at their keyboard since their fingers knew where
> >> all the keys were. It takes me 5 minutes to "logoff" using
> >> this fucking windows software when it used to take me less
> >> than a second to type K/F<CRLF>. And the system responded
> >> instantly to ack my command.
> >
> >When standing in line, while waiting for someone to go check a price
> >because something doesn't "scan", wouldn't you just love to hand them
> >a bill for the waste of YOUR valuable time?
>
> You should take a look at a thread in another newsgroup where we're
> talking about telemarketers, their negative impact on economies
> and how two people are starting a ripple that will become a
> world-wide tsunami soon. :-). [emoticon looks at sudden head
> attachment with label Naif Hat]

I only had to tell em to F*Off a couple of times, and now the phone
very seldom rings other than for a few charities which we have invited
to call each year. We must be on some "don't bother" file, which is
fine with me!
>
> >The latest plan here, is to get the customers to do their OWN
> >scanning, and pay on the honour system by card. Won't that be a hoot!!
> >I can just see mum (92).......
>
> You Mum would probably take to the gear very well. I like those
> things. I've been using them whenever I can just find out the
> bugs with the whole mechanism. Besides, it's a dirty pleasure
> to be able to thumb the screen and make it shutup.

What's to stop you walking out with stuff in the trolley for which you
haven't paid? Have they just swapped the checkout chicks for heavies
at the exits?
Any shoplifter worth his salt will quickly find a dozen ways to rort
it. Will the stores just up the price of everytning, to maintain the
bottom line?

Jim G
c'=c+v (oops again)