ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Again With The Gas...

I pay $0.093 but may go down here in the near future. I am on hydrowh. There are some communites up here that pay as $0.75 per kWh (remote diesel). Recently in the State Capital, a land slide took out their hyro powerline line out for a couple of months so they were on diesel during the repair. They were like pay $0.50. per kWh.

I'm excited about the new Lake Anna reactor, too! I hope they build reactors 4 & 5, at well. I have no issues at all with a reactor in my backyard, we need to be building many many more.
I've got two 10-year-old maps from MEPCO and BHE showing 34MW of hydro, 23MW of diesel-electric and one 60MW steam-electric plant in the area. I'd imagine the diesel plants are not for prime power, but more just to peak shave and ride through droughts. Diesel is expensive as hell for prime power, but very economical in a stand-by capacity.

You guys are lucky that you can put a defined price on your power. Out her in Cali, power is traded like a commodity. Price per KWH can vary several times a day. It's very complicated and confusing.

My dad works for SCE corporate and has tried to explain it to me, but it just seems like a mess of money sucking middle-men who make a killing at our expense - and quite an expense it is.

Out here, running your AC when it's 90deg at night = no dining out for that month. Comfort costs!

Is anyone getting a significant amount of their power from wind? How is that working out?

Maine has several sites now, more going for approval. One site announced by a former govenor is supposed to be set up 26 miles out to seas and supply all the power Maine needs. Not sure if they have the money to do so yet??
This is Mars Hill Maine

I know Delaware just approved an off-shore wind farm. That, and Peco/Exelon owns the rights to a wind farm out in Somerset County.

Speaking of wind power, a good bit of those wind turbines and towers probably come from right up the road from here, where Gamesa took over part of the former Fairless Works Steel Mill. They also cause a good bit of local road closures when they haul them out!

As long as we're talking about alternative energy, how about the other kinds? Solar, geo-thermal, hydro, even things like landfill-gas (methane.) They're putting up a ~450 solar panel down by the old steel mill to feed into the grid, and the nearby landfill makes a small amount of electricity for the grid as well.

Ian A.

I saw scattered wind towers in Ontario but they were all feathered. I did see a bunch southeast of Ft Erie that were going

http://esteroriverheights.com/electrical/new_england/wind_turbines_lake_erie.jpg

We have a landfill about twenty miles east of town that accepts municipal waste from NJ and PA, mostly solids left over from water treatment plants if you know what I mean. They harvest the "fragrance" and send it to a VERY efficient coal-burning power plant that is owned by GE down the road as a supplemental fuel source. The power plant generates electricity, then uses their excess steam to heat a greenhouse the size of 13 football fields that produces millions of pounds of produce year-round.

The plant's emissions are completely scrubbed down to solid particulates that are used to manufacture asphalt and running tracks. The coal is delivered directly into the facility by rail from Western areas of VA, West Virginia and Kentucky with no trucking required.

All of this happens within about a two-mile radius in King George County, VA. Talk about efficiency. I know this because these facilities are my customers.

I don't see any solar or wind generation being big here, but I know people from NC to PA using geothermal heat pumps who are paying a fraction of what fossil fuel customers are paying for heating/cooling.

I'm a nuclear fan myself, but we know how quickly that subject can sway.

I don't understand why they don't have more garbage to energy incinerators. We have one here that works real well. I only hope they are burning all the paper and plastic "recycle". It would sure make a lot more sense that trucking it 1300 miles to a plant that actually deals with recycling this stuff.

Not to beat a horse that is dead, but...
Does fourteen cents (.14) per gallon 'upcharge' for using a debit/credit card sound fair??