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The Forum > Article Comments > Corruption and mismanagement see much of the US without power > Comments

Corruption and mismanagement see much of the US without power : Comments

By Jen Alic, published 20/7/2012

The entire US electricity system could collapse by 2020 without an immediate investment of $673 billion.

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"Where there is competition" is one of the biggest load of ecomonic hoodoo voodoo ever.

It is a blatant lie to say that competition leads to lower prices and improved efficeincy and reliability.

Just look around you, we Australian's are paying through the nose from everything from our banks, mobile phones, power prices, petrol, food, clothing and housing.

Our country is one of the least densely populated, and yet we have some of the highest house prices in the world.
Posted by JamesH, Friday, 20 July 2012 11:15:24 AM
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Whatever you might believe about the US system, Australia is now avoiding the problems that beset that country.. The reason why our power bills have been increasing of late is extensive investment in our distribution network. Its being overhauled as we write.

The reason for that is the on-going partial de-regulation of the system, and the need to cope with the problem of peak demand - in summer when everyone turns on their air conditioners. Although the mix of private-public involvement has had some odd results, at least we seem to be avoiding the US problems.

All that said the system would be better if we could ditch renewables as mostly a waste of time, even from the point of view of saving carbon. Some of the US problems may well be due to renewables.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Friday, 20 July 2012 11:41:46 AM
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When one is discussing the different carbon output of various comparable hydrocarbons, one first needs to understand how much total carbon is locked up in covalent bonds.
Coal for example is almost pure carbon. We would do far less environmental harm by cooking coal, burning the resultant methane, and then burying the coke in permanent carbon sequestering dumps.
Or ground down to produce activated carbon filters, or combined as carbon black, that mitigates against ultraviolet degradation, in recycled plastic etc.
Sure we can enhance the burn with oxygen injection or supercharging?
What we can do with coal will likely work with methane gas, which if combined with liquid oxygen, will produce mostly water vapour and little else of any environmental consequence.
We can actually enhance the burning of coal with super heated steam, which will automatically degrade into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen, with enough heat.
Moreover, we can absorb all the carbon that exits smoke stacks, with closed cycle algae production.
We can add insitu precipitation, to eliminate the heavy metals that sometimes accompanies coal-fired power production, which can then be eventually collected and recycled as often expensive base metals.
Some algae, but particularly the hardier varieties suitable for the described closed cycle system, are up to 60% easily recoverable oil.
Meaning, power station operators can add another lucrative revenue stream to their business model, all while turning their operations, into carbon neutral ones.
It is said that our coal-fired power stations produce around 50% of all our carbon? Imagine, turning all that carbon into transport fuel, would firstly immediately halve our national total carbon output, and provide entirely endlessly sustainable, totally independent, total fuel supplies!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 20 July 2012 11:53:21 AM
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What we see in California is the worst of BIG government. All companies need income for production, maintenance, renewal, expansion and a reasonable profit (return on investment. However, in California, the state regulates the electricity prices, and is loathe to vote for sufficient rates to pay for generation, maintenance, replacement and upgrades to meet population growth. Even the slim profit it make is almost entire based on tax rebates. The result is that Pepco has to make cuts to continue running. This often comes out of maintenance and cutting of upgrades. No one else is stupid enough to invest in this market where returns are lower than can be obtained anywhere else.

The result is predictable.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 21 July 2012 6:14:55 AM
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if Cohenite is an American I'm guessing he is a Tea party kind of guy. He has most likely got shares in coal as well.
There are two basic reasons why power prices are going up, both here and most other places.
First is private companies like to make as much profit as the can therefore they will only invest when they have to. They will always look for a government handout whenever possible to increase profit at lower out lay.

The second is that most power is generated by burning coal and coal prices have gone up quite a bit in the last decade. That has nothing to do with the carbon tax but simple demand/ supply stuff the free market guys love but don't really.

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-australian&months=240

$20us to nearly $200 at one point is going to have an effect.

Bring on the flat Earthers oops I mean anti-sciences oops I mean anti-rational thinking oops I mean people who don't allow their ignorance to stop them from having strong beliefs. No let's just settle on denialist.
Posted by cornonacob, Sunday, 22 July 2012 9:47:24 AM
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Cohenite; When you calculated the area for solar farm did you multiply
it by more than two to allow for sunset to sunrise ?

Rhrosty; actually the GFC was caused by the peaking of oil production in 2006.
The price went up from about $30 to to $147 in 2008 over two years and
ate up the US's GDP and left people with the choice of eating or
paying the mortgage.
That caused all those derivatives to fall as they were a house of cards.

More exactly crude oil production stopped increasing in 2006 and has
started a unsmooth plateau since then awaiting the start of depletion.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 23 July 2012 3:10:04 PM
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