News and Commentary on Space
Some of my co-conspirators at People’s Press Collective have been having a little fun with the “global warming insurance” video…
“It’s not like you’re gonna give up your whole paycheck, it’s just a few bucks a month [that you're gonna give up]“.
Dude…it’s not your money to take.
[hat tip: WhoSaidYouSaid]
Complete Colorado points to an article in the Daily Camera on Xcel’s efforts to install “smart grid” technology in (where else?) Boulder.
I definitely don’t like the idea of the power company (or envirokook do-gooders in the local government) having the authority to turn down my air conditioning or water heater whenever they find it “necessary”, but there are elements to the “smart grid” technology that I do find interesting, and possibly appealing.
Xcel has spent the last year installing more than 100 miles’ worth of fiber-optic cable in Boulder. That cable now carries vital information about the grid’s performance to Xcel. The company is also asking 10,000 volunteers to install “smart meters” in their homes that will allow them to get nearly real-time information about their electricity use.
The new grid technology could let customers give Xcel the authority to turn down the power to their air conditioners or other energy-hog appliances to help save power during peak-use periods. It could also let customers power-up their appliances when the data shows that more energy is being produced by alternative sources like solar and wind power…
Xcel will also soon be asking regulators for the right to charge consumers for electricity based on demand, rather than a flat price. If their efforts succeed, customers will be able to decide, for example, to turn on the dryer later at night, when electricity is cheaper. {emphasis mine}
That makes a lot of sense, in principle at least. (More info on the smart meters here.) If the new meters could actually provide realtime usage and pricing information via household display, it’s easy to see how one can save a few bucks simply by choosing to delay certain energy-hungry activities for a short while. And if the meters could show real-time price trends over several days or several weeks, consumers could establish new money-saving (and, yes, energy-conserving) habits based on this information.
Note that this sort of demand scheduling is not new – the company I worked for in college scheduled the startup of its heavy machinery for early in the morning, before the daily power demand picked up, in order to qualify for reduced rates from the power company. What’s new is the ability to plan such things on the fly, based on real-time information.
But of course, this being Boulder, someone has to drag class envy into it. Giving consumers more information on which to base voluntary money-saving choices isn’t good enough: poor consumers need to be given money to adopt the glamorous, expensive, and dubiously-effective green-preening luxuries energy technologies that the wascally wealthy can buy with their pocket change:
Boulder City Councilwoman Angelique Espinoza, one of those in the audience, said the energy-saving opportunities Floyd described sound exciting. But, she said, she wants to know what efforts will be made to help people without money buy their own solar panels, smart-meters, or plug-in hybrid vehicles.
“What it sounds like is that the person who has the most money to invest to control their consumption saves the most money,” she said. “But that’s not the person who needs to save the most money.”
Floyd said he doesn’t necessarily agree with that assessment. Much of the energy-saving technology is cheap, he said — and it makes sense to try to distribute it as widely as possibly.
“We want it to be equally beneficial, or even more beneficial, to people who are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.
That’s our Boulder.
Meet Namaste Solar Electric, aka “The Twentieth Century Solar Panel Company”:
“We did have a lot of skeptical, raised eyebrows at the beginning,” Jones said of his company, which installs solar power systems in Colorado.
“We even have had business schools bring teams of MBA students to come to do a case study,” he said. [but of course: it helps to study failures in order to avoid them in the future - ed.]
Outsiders were baffled by some of these company plans:
- Environmental concerns would be a driving force in every aspect of the company.
- Six weeks of paid time off.
- A concept called FOH — frank, open and honest — to help eliminate gossip and grudges.
- Employees, no matter what their job description, have the same pay scale.
- One percent of yearly revenues goes to solar systems donated to community groups.
- All major decisions would be made by consensus of all company employees.
That is so close to the work environment that spurred John Galt to “stop the motor of the world” in Atlas Shrugged that it reads like a parody.
“It was…something that happened at that first meeting at the Twentieth Century factory. Maybe that was the start of it, maybe not. I don’t know…The meeting was held on a spring night, twelve years ago. The six thousand of us were
Namaste is in the process of remodeling a 15,000-square-foot warehouse for its offices.
And it is doing it to the highest of green building standards, the LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. That involves everything from the use of natural light to the recycling of building materials to the access to the building by public transportation.
And yes, all the building’s electricity will be provided by a solar system Namaste installs. Most of the panels will be on the roof, but there will also be a solar awning.
One wonders if there will be impressive etched glass doors in the executive washroom, and an exclusively-soybean menu in the company cafeteria.
[via Michelle Malkin]
ADDENDUM: Looks like the snivelers at Media Matters don’t much care for the company being called “socialist” by Glenn Beck. If they think that socialism is such a dirty word, maybe they should stop running interference for people who support it.
Also, David Corn – in between schoolgirl gushings about the unparallelled stupendicality of the Obamessiah – provides a little more info about the “alternativity” of Namaste’s business model.
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A young girl sets out to prove herself by resolving a long-forgotten mystery. But when she gets close to the truth, what she thought was a harmless adventure becomes a threat to the future of the independent commercial settlements on Mars.