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:
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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.