When you can’t sell this on the green left coast, you know its gotta fail worldwide.
Gotta love this quote, one of the best denials of reality I’ve ever seen:
“It was a demonstration program, and it’s successfully concluding after meeting its goals,” Romans said. “Certainly we would have loved for more customers to have participated.” said company spokeswoman Katie Romans.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/10/BUPR1LTB45.DTL#ixzz1dWdO8WPl
Now if that way out alarmist Mary Nichols and CARB can get a clue, we might be getting somewhere. CARB is still set to enact cap and trade in California.
I wonder if customers will get the 10 million dollars back they contributed to this “successful demonstration program”?
On the plus side, even Joltin Joe Romm thought the program was dumb
The spin PG&E put on the announcement would be enough to power several generators:
Calironia’s CARB is bad for California, but good for the nation as a whole. It will expand the business cycle for the other 49 states, while California’s declines.
The opportunities are tremendous as the displaced business’s reap the rewards of expansion in the economic viable 49.
Imagine, people will not voluntarily pay more for electricity. Now, we will see the Green Shirts employing force.
Give em a fair trial and a nice hanging —- Rooster Cogburn
Hah! You folks have never worked for an investor owned utility in California. All that green crap is mandated by the state. Administrative law judges reduce the companies rate of return on investment if the company does not make these noises. Fortunately there are enough believers around that PG&E and SCE can hire them to run these silly projects. Gag reflex keeps normal people in those companies from taking these green projects on. The normal folks can keep on trying to make do with the reduced maintenance funds allowed by those same administrative law judges. After all, if you spend money testing and maintaining natural gas pipe lines, you are just wasting customer money – or so the CPUC said in the past.
The company wanted 160,000 sign-ups but got only 29,623 at the end of their ‘campaign’ to coerce their customers into paying more for their power in order to let some trees grow bigger and better.
I wonder why the scheme was such a dismal failure? Can’t figure it out, myself.
Nice try. Get your customers to pay for your carbon credit projects so you can sell them to the other utillities who will charge their customers for the credits they had to buy.
Australia’s Origin Energy has just started to promote its “Green Energy” campaign whereby, for $1 per week, consumers can reduce their impact on the planet. http://www.originenergy.com.au/1542/Green-energy
Perhaps they could take a leaf out of PG&E’s book.
So, PG&E used the $100K/mo to fund that cabin up at Tahoe where select and dedicated executives monitored the impact of greenhouse gases and sequestering bimbos,,,er, I mean limbos…er, I mean alternate heating methods at the extreme lower troposphere….. On weekends, of course.
Wouldn’t the ratepayers LOVE to the the independent audit report on this one????
Just another display of the abject hypocrisy employed by the warmista.
So it costs an incremental $3.30 a month for “carbon-neutral” energy? Ha! The £/$ exchange rate must have gone loco then, as in the UK it already costs everyone around £25 a month on top of our bills to fund policies and initiatives that do not even get close.
One wonders what gave them the notion that they would have 168,000 takers (accuracy to first three significant figures!). I suspect they used some bogus theoretical studies about “willingness to pay.” Anyone know?
I wonder if similar methodology has been used to model the voluntary penetration of solar, wind and other renewable technologies.
The bottom line in California appears to be the following: The majority of Californians will not VOLUNTARILY pay more for green energy, but the majority of Californians will VOTE for politicians who FORCE them to pay more for green energy. I’d equate the demonstrated California mentality to that of Warren Buffet, who refuses to write a check to the U.S. Treasury each year for more than his calculated federal income tax bill (after a covey of accountants and tax attorneys have squeezed that bill to an absolute minimum) while complaining that the federal government does not charge the rich enough in taxes.
Robert of Ottawa says:
November 12, 2011 at 3:13 pm
“Imagine, people will not voluntarily pay more for electricity. Now, we will see the Green Shirts employing force.”
Here in Germany, quite a lot do pay up. Greenpeace has a subsidiary “Greenpeace Energy” here that sells “100% renewable energy”, demanding amongst the highest prizes for electricity. The law here is that your local supplier must supply a basic tariff to you if you don’t have a contract with a different supplier. Greenpeace Energy is more expensive than these local suppliers yet finds customers. Of course, you get the same electricity like anyone else as you’re on the same grid; it’s more of an accounting exercise; and a lot of the renewable energy Greenpeace Energy sells to you is “recycled” Nuclear Power – meaning, you use cheap nighttime thermal base load from a French nuke to pump water up a hill, and during daytime you empty the reservoir, make electricity and resell it; it’s now hydropower and as PC as it gets.
I am not making this up. I am living amongst idiots.
So they only got 15% of their voter base……..
It’s that same 15% that shows up in every poll
The program was basically like other PGE constructs, a reverse auction to get the credits from the lowest bidder.
A real disincentive, and rigged, In my opinion.
A full auditing of the money collected through the climatesmart program is necessary to preclude the appearance of impropriety and fraud, and an audit of the assets procured by the money is needed to verify that things like forests were truly additional carbon sinking material and not pre-existing the program.
Apparently, the cap on guilt assuagement is about $3.30 a month.
Now that a range has been established, the traders can come in and start manipulating the “market”.
Don’t know about California, but in Chicago this is the point where I start to wonder just how many of more greedy/stupid people begin their path to jail.
Hey, Maw!! Where’s my waders? The BS is gettin’ pretty dang deep around here.
Dirty open secret : not all the offset money is spent, or any at all
With 5.1 million customers, and only 30,000 takers, this means only 0.5%, or one consumer in 200, felt they could afford to fore go a latte a month in the name of saving the planet. We’re doomed!!
Glad I was able to escape that insane state. The only place were adding regulations is called deregulation!
I think the customers should get their money back…
It time that a penality be paid by companies and governemnt (Solyndra) for this “green” agenda gone amuck !
According to the news article the PG&E sucked in $16 plus million dollars from all rate payers to admininster the collection of $10 million from the few self flagelating fools who volunteered to be fleeced. And THESE people want to run the planet?
Robert of Ottawa on November 12, 2011 at 3:13 pm said:
Imagine, people will not voluntarily pay more for electricity. Now, we will see the Green Shirts employing force.
———-
People will not voluntarily pay for anything. And if you don’t pay the energy company for the energy you use the energy company will be employing the full force of the law.
So your green fascists fantasy seems to be tame compared to the reality.
Indur M. Goklany says:
November 12, 2011 at 4:08 pm
One wonders what gave them the notion that they would have 168,000 takers (accuracy to first three significant figures!). I suspect they used some bogus theoretical studies about “willingness to pay.” Anyone know?
I wonder if similar methodology has been used to model the voluntary penetration of solar, wind and other renewable technologies.
————
It was models…..models all the way down.
I’m going to be watching to make sure my state targets jobs in CA for recruitment during CARB. It will be a good litmus test of efforts in each of the other states.
I find it interesting that an average customer ( with a monthly usage between 550 and 800 kwh) could of called them self carbon neutral for only $3.30 more a month on their bill. It looks like the folks in this program used to get the benefit of counting the large hydro and nuclear output from PG&E. Unfortunately, PG&E does NOT get to count these forms of carbon neutral generation towards their 33%RES target.
I wonder how much $ the average customer is going to be allocated for for the large utility scale PV projects PG&E has recently agreed to put in place to meet the 33% RES. It looks like NRG is going to be getting more then the average retail price customers currently pay for their electricity for just the generation part of the supply chain.
Firms gobble ‘green’ subsidies.”
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/12/4049143/firms-gobble-green-subsidies.html
A few quotes from the article-
“The government support – which includes loan guarantees, cash grants and contracts that require electricity customers to pay higher rates – largely eliminated the risk to the private investors and almost guaranteed them large profits for years to come.”
“The beneficiaries include financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, conglomerates like General Electric, utilities like Exelon and NRG – and even Google.
States such as California sweetened the pot by offering their own tax breaks and by approving long-term power-purchase contracts that require ratepayers to pay billions more for electricity for as long as two decades.”…
“NRG’s California Valley Solar Ranch project is a case study in the banquet of government subsidies available to the owners of a renewable-energy plant.”
“..capturing methane from cow manure.”
Ruminant methane comes mainly from burping. A bit from flatulence, but afaik nobody is going around with plastic bags wrapping up cowpats to capture methane. But if somebody would send me a grant to study the possibility….
GaryW says
The normal folks can keep on trying to make do with the reduced maintenance funds allowed by those same administrative law judges.
———–
We have a similar problem here. State owned power companies that had been privatised or state owned power companies run on free enterprise lines, got caught between a rock and a hard place in their ability to make a return in the face of administratively controlled rates.
So there was no ongoing maintenance over many years. Over the next few years the system is going to do catchup. This means big hikes in rates.
Considering my ignorance of this area I am probably oversimplifying things. There may or may not be additional things hidden in there for things like managing the grid for things like windpower.
I am going to wager though that the political numbnuts will be running around lying about how the whole 30% increase is due to carbon tax.
No matter what the reason it is not a good time to waste power.
Stephen Brown says
The company wanted 160,000 sign-ups but got only 29,623 at the end of their ‘campaign’ to coerce their customers into paying more for their power
——-
To point out the obvious: if coercion had been used then they would definitely have got 160000 signups.
So it can be concluded that the programme was voluntary not coercive.
Bad Manners says
Bad Manners on November 12, 2011 at 3:43 pm said:
Australia’s Origin Energy has just started to promote its “Green Energy” campaign whereby, for $1 per week, consumers can reduce their impact on the planet. http://www.originenergy.com.au/1542/Green-energy
Perhaps they could take a leaf out of PG&E’s book.
———-
Possibly, but the Origin scheme, if you actually read it, is selling green power, not offsets. So there is a big difference.
You should read the link Anthony provided about the negatives of carbon offsets and repeated here:
Californians would do well to contemplate the evolutionary fact that the only capital crime in Nature is stupidity. The death penalty, with no appeal.
Claude Harvey says
The bottom line in California appears to be the following: The majority of Californians will not VOLUNTARILY pay more for green energy, but the majority of Californians will VOTE for politicians who FORCE them to pay more for green energy.
————-
I believe its easy to understand and perfectly logical.
People are willing to contribute to the social good. But they are not willing to tolerate free loaders.
So if some social provision is compulsory and free loaders are penalized then people will be happy irrespective if they agree they disagree with the provision. It becomes a matter of fairness.
On the other hand people will not be happy, even if they agree with the provision, if the free loaders have the upper hand. Again its a matter of fairness.
So it’s easy to figure that voluntary programs like this are not going to work as long as there are free loaders.
This is the fundamental reason why communes and communism failed.
Global warming is causing more and more people to yawn.
Indur M. Goklany says:
November 12, 2011 at 4:08 pm
One wonders what gave them the notion that they would have 168,000 takers (accuracy to first three significant figures!). I suspect they used some bogus theoretical studies about “willingness to pay.” Anyone know?
_____________________________________
That is the number of democratic voters registered in their service area…. /sarc>
DJ says: November 12, 2011 at 3:49 pm
“Bimbos” is such a harsh term. Let’s use the French expression: “filles de joie”. The French are ever so much more cultured and nuanced than we are. After all, some 75% of their electrical power is nuclear. And, who else would dream of making a garden slug a delivery system for garlic and butter!
(In this economy, you have to admire a young lady who will capitalize on her assets.)
Besides, I’d expect that the PG&E rate payers would rather pay for the assignations than the horror of green power. It would be far, far cheaper and would not destroy their economy. I would like to gloat, but those damn fools in Austin have spent billions on wind power and all it ever got us is rolling blackouts.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
Mike Jowsey says:
November 12, 2011 at 5:11 pm
“..capturing methane from cow manure.”
Ruminant methane comes mainly from burping. A bit from flatulence, but afaik nobody is going around with plastic bags wrapping up cowpats to capture methane. But if somebody would send me a grant to study the possibility….
____________________________________
A guy in Leominster MA ran his pick-up truck on composting Chicken Manure. Does that count?
It should be a no brainer to run your waste treatment plant on the methane generated in your digester. You produce cleaner waste water at less cost. The change in equipment pays for itself if the operation is properly sized.
DirkH says
I am living amongst idiots.
———
Sounds like DirkH has been reading to many socialist tracts.
“All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen
My wife says that it would have worked if the participants been given a huge special solar powered, brightly lit green halo over their home. We are talking visible for hundreds of feet, if not more.
This would allow the greens to demonstrate their own “superiority” over everyone else in a properly ostentatious manner, which gets more to stoking their core value of self-adoration.
I think it would have worked.
How many trees were spared the (evil) logger’s axe, and how many cow pharts did they collect and where did they put them?
I like your wife! Is she as cute as she is perceptive and witty?
🙂
RS says:
November 12, 2011 at 6:08 pm
————————————
LOL
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 6:06 pm
“DirkH says
I am living amongst idiots.
———
Sounds like DirkH has been reading to many socialist tracts. ”
No I didn’t – if it looks like I lifted that sentence from Das Capital or something, I didn’t… Did Karl Marx use it? You must know, tell me.
LazyTeenager, do you expect me to read the biography tome you linked to? I don’t have the time. Don’t know who that Owen is. Is he famous for something? Your grandpa?
LazyTeenager said: “People will not voluntarily pay for anything.”
===================================
Of course they do, and do it all the time.
It’s called charity. I think I remember something about red states donating more to charity.
……but the operative word was “more”
“”Robert of Ottawa on November 12, 2011 at 3:13 pm said:
Imagine, people will not voluntarily pay more for electricity.””
We’re all for Saving the Planet. Just don’t ask us to pay anything to do it.
I buy my energy from Origin Energy here in Oz (noted by another above). It costs me a few dollars more to buy 25% renewable energy. For about $250 a year more, I can buy 100% renewable energy.
I do it because I believe in renewable energy. I know it costs more, but it will have to happen sometime, and I can afford it, so I buy the stuff. No biggie.
If every CAGW ‘worrier’ did the same, I happily predict the greenies would have to STFU, because CO2 emissions would go down in developed countries (although I assume they would still bleat about something). Note that in developing countries, they have a lot more to worry about that CO2. Thinks like clean water and food are strangely more important. If any CAGW ‘worrier’ does not buy renewable energy, I refuse to even listen to why they are worried, except perhaps for a laugh.
Our extremely misguided government is about to impose a ruinous tax on us, a ‘Carbon Tax’. I will now refuse to buy renewable energy, as my taxes are now paying far more than I was voluntarily, and much less of that is going toward renewable energy and research. I also plan to reduce my tax bill in any way possible, in defence of this unwanted and unwarranted burden on my income.
DirkH says
DirkH on November 12, 2011 at 6:57 pm said:
LazyTeenager, do you expect me to read the biography tome you linked to? I don’t have the time. Don’t know who that Owen is. Is he famous for something? Your grandpa?
———
The quote is rather famous.
Oh and also: Bazinga!!!!
Jer0me says:
November 12, 2011 at 7:22 pm
“I do it because I believe in renewable energy. I know it costs more, but it will have to happen sometime, and I can afford it, so I buy the stuff. No biggie.”
It’s not necessary. See Julian Simon’s “The Ultimate Resource”. If it has to happen sometime, price signals will make it happen anyway.
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
In reality, PG&E and the State have achieved their goals by other means so the program was no longer needed.
It’s much easier to manipulate the basic rate structure than it is to sign up “volunteers” for the ClinmateSmart program.
By charging punitive rates for energy usage above an artificial “baseline” they can tack a whole lot more than $3 onto the typical monthly utility bill. More like $30 without the inconvenience of voluntary registration.
In short, they found a much more cost effective method to screw their customers.
Gotta love this quote, one of the best denials of reality I’ve ever seen:
“It was a demonstration program, and it’s successfully concluding after meeting its goals,” Romans said. “Certainly we would have loved for more customers to have participated.” said company spokeswoman Katie Romans.
————–
Nobody said what their “goals” were.
Maybe all they required to call the program successful was to:
Determine what percentage of customers would be will to accept a new tax.
Wow, fifteen percent….
TA DA…the program was successful, please send more subsidies and grant money.
Thank you.
First you had NIMBY
Not in my back yard….
Now you have NIMBP
Not in my back pocket…
The irony is so strong here. California is the land of green liberals…who of course don’t want their pet programs being paid for out of their own pockets.
=8-)
JerOme says
Our extremely misguided government is about to impose a ruinous tax on us, a ‘Carbon Tax’. I will now refuse to buy renewable energy, as my taxes are now paying far more than I was voluntarily, and much less of that is going toward renewable energy and research.
——–
This just in:
http://m.theage.com.au/environment/energy-smart/at-9-a-family-its-not-all-doom-and-gloom-20111112-1nd3v.html
It seems if you earn enough the carbon tax is going to cost you AUS$9 a week. Relatively speaking not a great deal.
Jer0me;
Talk about buying a pig in a poke! I’d want a really tight on-going audit of that process. Since there are no dedicated lines from ‘green’ energy sources to your home, you’re basically investing in an accounting fiddle.
Good luck with that!
To check the pulse of society, one usually takes polls or runs focus groups.
On rare occasions, some think outside the square. For instance, recently the coppers in the UK wanted to catch up with wanted criminals who had evaded capture.
So I contend that this excercise by PG&E was successful as they claim. Though they are not being open about the goals of the programme’
The goal was to see how many of PG&E customers were morons. 31,000 apparently.
Romans said: “It was a demonstration program, and it’s successfully concluding after meeting its goals,”
The primary goal being to see how many idiots there were in the PG&E service area.
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Some of us have principals. The amount is irrelevant. I don’t wish to be forced to pay one extra cent of tax for a scam…NOT ONE CENT.
Not only that, this carbon tax is a trojan horse. There now is no end to the numbers of different taxes that can be imposed on us for all sorts of fantasy schemes dreamt up by minority pressure groups.
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 4:52 pm
People will not voluntarily pay for anything. And if you don’t pay the energy company for the energy you use the energy company will be employing the full force of the law.
===================================
Actually no – they just turn off your power.
Normally the claim is that you can save money and save the environment too. Those programs don’t usually do very well, because if people really wanted to save money that much, they would do so without being told. This plan was to save the environment by spending more, don’t expect that to work at all.
How much will the average American taxpayer end up paying because of the half billion dollars given to the green company Solyndra just before it failed? Only a few dollars per taxpayer? Think again. All that money was borrowed and tacked onto the national debt. Since only interest is ever paid on the debt and never any principle, Americans will be paying interest forever (or until the country goes bankrupt.) PG&E customers aren’t the only ones getting fleeced.
Is anyone keeping a tally of all the failed “carbon” measures? Offsets, sequestration, and so forth?
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 4:52 pm
The basis of your argument is completely flawed: You said “People will not voluntarily pay for anything” when what you should have correctly said is “People will not voluntarily pay for nothing“, and they shouldn’t! Because if a company has the power to force people to pay for something they don’t get, that’s highway robbery.
On the other hand, you’re correct that if you don’t pay the energy company for the energy you use, you’ll be just as bad and as big a thief as the company that forces you, like PG&E, to pay for nothing!
Time to use the full force of our votes to stop the insanity–and if we’re lucky, thinkers in California just may some day reach critical mass and throw their brain-dead politicians out of office. Of course, they may all end up homeless living under some bridge somewhere, too; if they don’t figure it out soon, that’s where they’ll end up.
[SNIP: If you need to be anonymous, choose another handle. You can also ditch the URL – visitors from that site rarely express the opinions you are voicing and makes your presence look like a false-flag operation. -REP]
Hey, after all the things said about the wacky Californians, it looks like most PG&E customers voted with their feet on this one. Interesting outcome . . .
” There’s a sucker born every minute”
” A fool and his/her money are easily parted”
@ (many)
I know it is not necessary to buy renewable energy. I like it, so I am happy to be an early adopter and pay extra to be so.
For those that think it is just a scam, someone has to buy the electricity produced. These guys do (am sure there is a subsidy or two in there too), and sell it to those who want to buy it. I’m not sure where the scam is, or even could be, unless they demonstrably do not but renewable energy, which I doubt.
That tax price quoted is a lot more than I pay now. It is also forced on me, and will almost certainly NOT be buying renewable energy. I resent both of these facts, so stop paying voluntarily in protest.
I’ll say again, if those eco-‘worriers’ paid up voluntarily like I was prepared to do, and have done for many years, the problem would disappear. It is obvious their goal has nothing whatsoever to do with CO2, even for the truly concerned.
Selling carbon credits is the same as the indulgences sold by the Catholic Church to help forgive sins. Martin Luther objected. The rest is history.
We need a Martin Luther to get rid of this millstone round our necks that is this climate change taxation in all its many guises.
Gotta love this quote, one of the best denials of reality I’ve ever seen:
“It was a demonstration program, and it’s successfully concluding after meeting its goals,” Romans said. “Certainly we would have loved for more customers to have participated.” said company spokeswoman Katie Romans.
Not only a denial of reality, but extremely clumsy English as well.
LazyTeenager: “People will not voluntarily pay for anything.”
Ofcourse they are. People are willing to pay for the things they value. Where they have a sense of reasonable consideration for their outlay.
For example, we happily pay for new cars when we can afford to. More than that, people don’t just buy the cheapest car on the market, but pay 2, 3, or many times more than the cheapest price for the models they want. That’s what happens when people value what’s on offer.
And as Latitude says, people will even make contributions to charities with no obvious consideration in return. Same applies – they do do when they value the things their chosen charities do.
The problem with selling climate change is that nobody values the offering. Not even the small change of the price of a posh cup of coffee.
You could try standing on the street corner with a collection tin, shout “5 years to save the world from climate change, please give generously” and tell us how you get on. (Send your collection to some green energy project.
So if you are serious about saving the world, it might be more productive to get up off your lazy backside and start doing something about it. At a very minimum, the time you spend on that could save a few sour grapes comments.
RS says:
November 12, 2011 at 6:08 pm
“My wife says that it would have worked if the participants been given a huge special solar powered, brightly lit green halo over their home. We are talking visible for hundreds of feet, if not more.”
Good idea!!!
Hey, why not set each and every one of them up with “A solar powered, brightly lit green halo” over their heads ????
Do they earn interests? Or are you students?
What’s your principal principle?
😉
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Claude Harvey says
The bottom line in California appears to be the following: The majority of Californians will not VOLUNTARILY pay more for green energy, but the majority of Californians will VOTE for politicians who FORCE them to pay more for green energy.
————-
I believe its easy to understand and perfectly logical.
People are willing to contribute to the social good. But they are not willing to tolerate free loaders.
If they were truly unwilling to tolerate freeloaders, then subsidizing these “green” companies by paying more to help them maximize profits would quickly become anathema.
Jwerome said…Our extremely misguided government is about to impose a ruinous tax on us, a ‘Carbon Tax’. I will now refuse to buy renewable energy, as my taxes are now paying far more than I was voluntarily, and much less of that is going toward renewable energy and research. I also plan to reduce my tax bill in any way possible, in defence of this unwanted and unwarranted burden on my income.
===============
two weeks back i swapped to a g/teed NO renewable power co after 4 years with Red Energy
same reasons, if I am getting hit with the Liars carbon taxes, I sure am NOT going to support any renewable extra hikes etc.
hope she and the bobbit both crash and burn real soon.
Jer0me says:
November 13, 2011 at 12:57 am
“I’m not sure where the scam is, or even could be, unless they demonstrably do not but renewable energy, which I doubt.”
As I said, the energy generated through pumped hydro is sold as green renewable energy even when nuclear or fossil fuel power was used to pump the water uphill.
Second – by feeding the current crop of solar and wind producers you help them build up their lobbying organisations. There is no other industry in Germany that has better and more lobbying organisations than the subsidy-fed solar and wind energy industry.
They know exactly what they’re doing – they know their product cannot compete yet and their only chance for survival is to ramp up the fearmongering and the green hysteria to force governments to continue subsidizing them.
You are supporting these efforts.
Oh come one, can they really be this dumb?
From their FAQ pictured above:
With the help of over 30,000 PG&E residential and 700 business customers…
From the Metrics section:
30,000
Business and residential customers who joined the program.
30,000 + 700 = 30,000?
The best they could do on that statistic was one significant digit?
Another Metric:
226,000
The equivalent number of passenger cars off the road for a year.
The program ran almost 4 years, so that’s really about 57,000/yr.
Heck, they’ve gotten far more cars off of California roads than that, simply by driving away so many businesses and workers to more business-friendly states!
From what I can find, it appears PG&E has about 5,300,000 residential customers. So this program was supported by about 1/2 of 1% of their customers. I believe in most industries, a customer participation rate of 0.005% would be viewed as a total failure and lead to questions about whether the managers involved should be let go.
Paraphrased…
“The scheme met its core goals, which included education abour emissions……” yadi, yadi, ya.
In other words, the core goal was yet more AGW propaganda – paid for by the very people you want to indoctrinate !! Nice work if you can get it….
.
DirkH: “energy generated through pumped hydro is sold as green renewable energy even when nuclear or fossil fuel power was used to pump the water uphill.”
In practice, pumped storage is committed to the real-world task of balancing overall physical supply and demand. System balancing takes nothing to do with matching renewable energy to “green tariff” customers.
This is a purely administrative matter for those who wish to pay for feelgoodery (as prof Carter would call it).
The EU has a scheme called REGO (renewable energy guarantee of origin) to prevent double-counting of energy sold as being from renewable sources.
REGOs are derived from energy produced from designated sources. Timing of generated output is not taken into account – so REGOs do not care about how the overall system is balanced.
REGOs have no market value – there is insufficient end-customer interest.
Sure, businesses will take “green” contracts to make themselves look good, but they are not willing to pay for it. So the REGOs can be dished out for free because there is no other use for them.
Just more admin costs loaded onto the energy bills of people who could well do without it.
The failure of this self-imposed carbon tax just goes to prove how sensible the anticarbon environmentalists can be — to combat global warming, a carbon tax is good for us, but Please Out of Otherpeoples’ Pockets. This is a common syndrome otherwise known as POOP.
These results of seem to jive quite well with the results of polls.
When asked in polls, a many people will always indicate that the enviromnment is very important and worth protecting, as they believe that this answer is required. I remember reading a poll in Newsweek years ago (I’ve never been able to find a copy of it though); where supposedly 95% of the people polled said that NO price was too high to pay to protect the environment (an example of Response Bias where the answers given by respondents do not reflect their true beliefs). I’ve always wondered what would happen if after agreeing to that statement, the pollster would ask the respondent to sign a contract allowing 50% of their paycheck to be deducted to save the environment. 40%? 30%? even 5%? Any amount of putting their money where their poll answer was?
It’s always the unasked followup questions that would help determine the amount of response bias in polls that intrigue me.
I just want to know how the half million dollars raised was allocated. How much GHE gases were reduced, and what the projected global warming decrease is! Or is this another ” A fool and his money, are soon parted” story. GK
I worked for Powergen / E.ON for several years.
During that time, customers always *claimed* they wanted (and would pay a premium for) greener tariffs.
Customers are liars who will answer one thing on a survey and do the opposite in reality.
The important factors to customers are (in order): price, price, price, price and price.
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 7:35 pm
“The quote is rather famous.
Oh and also: Bazinga!!!!”
L.T., I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you?
Unfortunately California is ruled by environmental extremists residing in the Governor’s office, the legislature and massively present in it’s huge number of bureaucratic agencies which promulgate thousands of laws and rules which cripple business. These blind fools have already destroyed the states economy and they still have plans to push even more of their economically damaging nonsense in the future. The states utilities simply bend to the will of these idiots because these are the folks that set the rates that provide the revenue taken from customers to meet the huge costs for these bizarre environmental programs. You have to remember that these are the same people that put together the schemes that brought the great California energy crisis to the forefront just ten years ago in the name of creating energy competition in the state. I’m afraid that all is lost in this state as our leaders continue to be blind to the reality of the economic destruction they have unleashed.
Please send some reinforcements over here to help out on comments !
http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/13/lord-moncktons-personal-challenge-to-al-gore/#disqus_thread
Would be greatly appreciated :o)
LazyTeenager says:
November 12, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Have you ever seen a tax that, after it’s implemented, went down?
Neither have I.
mrsean2k says on November 13, 2011 at 9:02 am
Was it clear to the customers that the surveys were anonymous? People will usually say the socially acceptable thing if they think they can be associated with their answers.
mKurbo,
I read the link.
It is terrible and unworthy of my time to reply there.Too much babbling and snarling at each other to bother with.
I pass.
I don’t know why people say that getting 29,623 subscribers to voluntarily spend an additional $3/month for green energy is a failure. Isn’t this about the same number of people who tuned in (for free!) to watch even 1 hour of Al Gore’s 24 hours of climate reality?
On an annual basis, that number of subscribers will contribute $1,173,071 to mitigate human-induced climate change. That amount should suffice to keep Al Gore in private jets and luxurious homes so he can carry on the important job of telling us how we have to conserve energy to save the planet.
Correction to earlier comment: the annual total is correct, but this is based on an average $3.30 per month “green energy” surcharge, not $3/month as contained in the original text. Hate to have people think I can’t do simple math ….
It appears feeding the Green Dragon won’t happen by spreading goodness. They will need coercion to get compliance.
The Sacramento Public Utilities District allows it’s customers to pay additional funds to say their energy in green. https://www.smud.org/en/residential/environment/greenergy/
“Opt-in to SMUD’s Greenergy® for a cleaner environment
For just $6 (100 percent option) or $3 (50 percent option) a month, SMUD will meet all or half of your electricity needs with power made from renewable resources like wind, water, sun and biomass.
In addition, SMUD will match 40 percent of your Greenergy contributions to develop new, local renewable energy sources. To date, Greenergy customers have built:
Wind
3 Turbines at the SMUD Solano Wind Farm.
Water
Rebuilt Slab Creek — one of the dams on the Upper American River.
Solar
Solar panels at Arden Fair Mall.
Biomass
Generator One at the Kiefer Land Fill.
Since 1997, more than 50,000 SMUD households have joined Greenergy. That’s like planting more than 300,000 acres of trees or taking nearly 275,000 gas engine cars off the road.**”
Richard Sharpe,
Was it clear to the customers that the surveys were anonymous?
I got surveyed by one of those ‘green groups’. The person conducting the survey actually said ‘Really? are you sure? let me repeat the question?’ when I told them I wasn’t willing to pay extra.
I didn’t think I was being pressured by the surveyor…the tone of the voice was seemed like surprise on the part of the surveyor.
If I could ‘truly’ get 100% green power for an extra $3/month I would pay it. But the reality is that they would just sell me the green power and sell the aluminum smelter down the street coal power.
CARB – an Enron scheme to cheat the ratepayers.
Is there a PG& E customer on this readers list who paid for such an offset? (I guess not!) It would be very nice to request details about the money spent and projects achieved and just see if this is accountable or if the money was wasted! For the last few years, $100k per months should have been quite a good investment – whatever the item(s) may have been.
In Pennsylvania we simply are allowed to choose a designated electricity generation supplier.
http://www.pplelectric.com/choice/information/
If you want to select a “greener” source of your electricity, just do so. If you don’t select then the distributing company, the local monopoly you deal with, buys your electricity on your behalf. The selection program got named “PA PowerSwitch” by the PA Public Utility Commission.
http://www.papowerswitch.com/
PPL’s electricity rates are dropping. For the Sept 1 to Nov 30 3-month period, the “Price to Compare (cents per KWh)” which is what PPL charges when they do the buying, is 8.411 residential, 10.184 small business. For the next period, Dec 1 to Feb 29, it’s estimated at 8.355 residential, 9.240 small business.
If I would consider switching, I can just call up a list of the different supplier rates with links to company info, suitable for personally vetting “greenness.”
http://www.papowerswitch.com/shop-for-electricity/shop-for-your-home/by-distributor/ppl/rs/
Similar to the above-mentioned PG&E “ClimateSmart” program, there are also a few “Renewable Energy Add-On Options” on that list that presumably support “new renewable energy.” However, as an example, with the PPL EnergyPlus program that starts at $4/month:
If I would go that way, I’d rather buy from a supplier that’s actually using renewable sources now. Then I have a reasonable assumption I’m dealing with a business that is trying to make a profit to stay in business, which should separate a lot of the renewable chaff from what actually works.
I just don’t get why being Carbon Neutral makes you so angry? If people want to pay for that then why shouldn’t they be able to? You can plant a tree for a dollar while shopping at IKEA. Does that piss you off too? I agree that PG&E is a scam. I have heard from a city worker that the energy companies add .01 per dollar to your bill when they run short on cash.
Mark M says:
“…..
Since 1997, more than 50,000 SMUD households have joined Greenergy. That’s like planting more than 300,000 acres of trees or taking nearly 275,000 gas engine cars off the road.**””
Well Mark, the CO2 from 275000 cars (if left on the road) would actually grow far more green and trees then removing it. Humm,,,???
One needs to understand the politics that utilities in California face, as GaryW pointed out.
During the 2001 state electricity crisis, Southern California Edison (SCE) played ball with the state. PG&E stuck to business. With deregulation, SCE made out fine but PG&E went into bankruptcy even though the state could have easily prevented that event. Seems like the state was out to break PG&E.
The former management was booted out and a new batch brought in. The new guys know full well who the master is and when the state says “Jump!” – they say “How high?”
PG&E has a long history as a pioneer in the electric business and provides great service to its customers. I was proud to work for them for 11 years. Yet, come any shortfall, be it mechanical failure, heat wave, or bad winter storm, and the liberal establishment makes PG&E out as a huge Evil Empire.
But when the lights go out
They got some 30,000 people to sign up for voluntarily raising their utility bills?
Can I have that mailing list? I have some stuff I’d like to sell.