Ourselves. For forcing our governments to have foolishly subsidized electricity prices for so many years b/c we just wouldn't tolerate paying the true price of electricity (even to this very day).biog said:
That's right. Take a look in the mirror.
New Smart Hydro Meters
- Thread starter tboy
- Start date
That's right. Take a look in the mirror.
Nope and nope. 0/2tboy said:
It was Harris who tried to deregulate, then watched prices immediately skyrocket and cause an outpouring of condemnation from the general public that forced him to put price caps back on. As a result, new firms wouldn't invest with the price caps in place b/c it would cut into their profits and no new power generation came on line. Now we have Ontario Hydro split into a dozen or so smaller agencies, including the big 3 power suppliers (who are all competing with each other for labour, thereby driving up their/our labour costs).
McGuinty came in after the whole mess was created and did nothing for a couple years while the dust settled. He promised to close the coal plants but then learned that doing so would result in rolling blackouts b/c the lack of new supply (remember Harris?) couldn't meet demand. Thus the push for energy conservation and the most recent push for nuclear power. What people don't realize is that McGuinty living up to his promise means rolling blackouts. Uhh, no thanks.
McGuinty has (wisely) been slowly increasing the electricity rates to bring it closer to what it should be. We're still paying something like half as much as we should be. Every penny of subsidization is a penny tacked onto Hydro's debt. And when I say Hydro, I mean OUR debt.
Mike Harris royally, and I mean ROYALLY, fucked up Ontario's energy sector. Talk to anyone who knows about the sector and they'll tell you. Part of the reason he left when he did was b/c the chickens were coming home to roost and the NDP and Libs were going to plaster the media with his fucks up in the energy sector.
Splitting up Ontario Hydro would have been a smart move if he'd fully deregulated like he had planned. But he started, then stopped, then backtracked, yet left Hydro in pieces. As a result, we have an inefficient mess of companies keeping the lights on. All Harris did was cost the taxpayers of Ontario hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
But Progressive Conservatives won't talk about that when they put Harris up on his pedastal.
I would love to see a chart of the price charged in Ontario for electricity over the years, versus the market price, and whether it really is subsidized, or taxed, or what. Because the majority of the cost is fixed cost, there are so many accounting games they can play to support whatever position they want to take.
The Ministry of Energy and Ontario Power Generation websites would be good places to start your research. The facts are all out there.
You won't see Bruce Power's numbers b/c they're a private enterprise, but the only reason they're in business at all is b/c the government gives them a higher rate on electricity than they do to Ontario Power Generation (a pseudo-public company).
So not only are the taxpayers of Ontario being subsidized, but a frikken private company was given a sweatheart deal just so it would look like we have private enterprise in the electrical sector. How fucked up is that?!? (Thanks Harris, you da man!)
If there was a significant profit to be made in the electrical sector, companies would have been lining up to build new sources of power. But they didn't b/c they couldn't make the kinds of profits they wanted to justify spending billions on capital-intensive projects.
(It may seem like I'm being hard on Mike Harris, but it really is astonishing how much credit he gets when he so royally fucked up the electrical sector. It really is his crowning achievement/albatross when it comes to his time in office. So few people realize the damage he caused, yet so many laud his accomplishments. All those tax breaks you got will more than be eaten up by the damage that he caused. And hell, I voted for the guy when he first got elected! Dumb move on my part...)
You won't see Bruce Power's numbers b/c they're a private enterprise, but the only reason they're in business at all is b/c the government gives them a higher rate on electricity than they do to Ontario Power Generation (a pseudo-public company).
So not only are the taxpayers of Ontario being subsidized, but a frikken private company was given a sweatheart deal just so it would look like we have private enterprise in the electrical sector. How fucked up is that?!? (Thanks Harris, you da man!)
If there was a significant profit to be made in the electrical sector, companies would have been lining up to build new sources of power. But they didn't b/c they couldn't make the kinds of profits they wanted to justify spending billions on capital-intensive projects.
(It may seem like I'm being hard on Mike Harris, but it really is astonishing how much credit he gets when he so royally fucked up the electrical sector. It really is his crowning achievement/albatross when it comes to his time in office. So few people realize the damage he caused, yet so many laud his accomplishments. All those tax breaks you got will more than be eaten up by the damage that he caused. And hell, I voted for the guy when he first got elected! Dumb move on my part...)
Laundry in off-peak hours........
The best thing to do is simply accept the fact Canadians have a love affair with big energy consumption and build more Nukes. Yes, I know that is a contrarian point of view, but believe me, you cannot run air conditioners, car plants and steel factories with windmills.........
It's not that people "can't", it boils down to "if they will". To see peoples' indifference to energy conservation in my condo for example, one only has to go to the underground garage. It is full of gas-guzzling SUVs and high performance sportscars. And no, frankly, I don't think a lot of people will stay at home on a Saturday or Sunday night to do laundry.Keebler Elf said:So let's do nothing?
It's not all that hard at all to do your laundry in off-peak hours. Really, you're trying to tell us you can't do your laundry after 8 pm or on weekends? C'mon...
The best thing to do is simply accept the fact Canadians have a love affair with big energy consumption and build more Nukes. Yes, I know that is a contrarian point of view, but believe me, you cannot run air conditioners, car plants and steel factories with windmills.........
toughb said:
Yes
Intermatic T104-70 (24 hour timer, good for 40A).. it would have to be installed by a qualified professional
http://www.intermatic.com/Default.asp?action=prod&pid=377&sid=85&cid=51&did=5
This is a 24 hour timer.. you may want a 7 day timer so that you could have different times on the weekends
There are others.. made by Aube, Grasslin, Paragon, Precision, or Tork
What I'd like to see is an improved version of the LG washer/dryer combo unit (where the washer and dryer are all one unit)....unfortunately the dryer function takes 3 hrs to dry a load and then it's not completely dry at the end of the cycle (this is from 2 people I know who have the units).
You're lucky, just keep your fingers crossed because I've talked to some of my neighbours and all of their's too have almost doubled in price.......Robio said:
As for the LG dry times. The loads are actually small compared to what you'd normally put into a dryer. For eg: I was working on a neighbour place and her dryer went on (scared the shit out of me as I was working right next to it) and it only contained a couple of t shirts and a pair of jeans....and it took 3 hours to dry. And the other neighbour told me the same thing: she has to remove half the wash load unless she doesn't want it dry in 6 hours.....(and she showed me in the manual where it said that dry times would be longer oddly enough *shrugs*)
I would think that a significant factor would be the risk that you might build it, and then have a populist government seize it, or set your rates arbitrarily low. Power is such an emotional issue, if I was investing, I would put a huge risk premium on it.Keebler Elf said:
In terms of Harris screwing it up, is it really that much different than it would be? If a private company is being subsidized, when a public operator would have made the power for less, then that is worse. But all of the changes of breaking it into pieces, and breaking out the bills, seem more like a shell game than a real change. It seems that it is largely still the same people making power the same way, with the tax-payer paying for it all and taking all the risk, just like it was before. Or am I missing something?
l69norm said:
The timer would just provide power to the appliance at certain times, not start it
My lifestyle in summary...I'm a night person. You won't realize the full saving of timeshift until Smartmeter.tboy said:
There're dimmers that will work with CFL, cost a bit more than standard dimmers thou.Cassini said:
Any standard dimmer will work with a dimmable CFL... not all CFL's are dimmablegoodtime said:
If you have 4 pin (electronic ballast) plugin CFL's, then you would need a "special" dimmer
Thanks, I'm looking for the 5 watt compact CFLs. One should check the packaging as whether CFL be use with standard dimmer. The cheap CFL from Ikea do not.
