Minnesota's Green Energy Plan Means 20% Rate Hike
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, November 3, 2009, 5:02 AM
A new “greener” energy program in Minnesota means residents will see an almost 20% rate increase on their electricity bill.
The Duluth News Tribune reported:
Minnesota Power is seeking an almost 20 percent increase in rates for its residential customers to cover investments made in cleaner, greener energy.
For the average residential customer, that amounts to $13 per month.
“We know this is unwelcome news at an unwelcome time,” said Pat Mullen, the company’s vice president of marketing and public affairs. “These are improvements that need to be made. It is creating an environment that we all value.”
News of the sought rate hike caused some shoppers at Miller Hill Mall on Monday to lament they’ve been hit by one increase and fee after another in a bad economy, from real estate taxes to new fees for street lighting and sewers.
“The average citizen in Duluth is not going to be able to afford an increase like that,” said Sue Siverson of Duluth. “To me it’s bad news. People can absorb a 2 or 3 percent increase, but 20 percent is substantial.”
In related news… Al Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government green energy policies he supports.
For the record… The US has the largest energy reserves on the planet but democratic policies prevent the country from developing these resources.
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Published February 7, 2012 at 8:46 pm - 119 Comments
ghHorse commented:
FPL is looking for a 30% rate increase …
Damn, that green energy is expensive. I wonder why the cost of ‘going green’ is never talked about.
Isn’t there some sort of law against enriching yourself while propagating a hoax?
squeaky commented:
“the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government green energy policies he supports….” and meanwhile from minnesota -
http://www.startribune.com/local/68667002.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUsT
T. Shaw commented:
I studied economics 40 years ago.
It bears little relation to real-life economic activity, especially growth and development.
If econ profs were really good at econ, they’d be spending their billions not teaching freshmen.
Here are econ basics on which pols need to concentrate, and get out of the way. The holy trinity of all econ growth and development are: LAND, LABOR, AND CAPITAL (the entrepreneur and financial provoders risking their money). Taxes and regulatiions are negatives in the equiation.
So, Joe Stool and all you other minimally brain damaged, sub-mongoloid cretin libtards, call me a racist, a teabagger, or a lobbyist for evil capitalism. Go on and dismantle the racist, unjust private sector. You will be held responsible.
Sal commented:
Okay- math’s not my strongest point, but wouldn’t an increase of 20% that averages $13 mean their rates are only about $65 a month to start?
A total increased average electric bill of $78 sounds remarkably small to me.
But what do I know? I live in Texas and we run the AC all the time.
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Ann commented:
I don’t understand; they haven’t even passed the cap and trade yet the rates are being increased.
I have received 2 letters in the past 6 months from Ameren UE in St Louis saying my rates are being raised because of the clean air act. Strange.
Thanks to the COOLEST temps in recorded history this year, I haven’t used my AC much at all.
Carbon Monoxide commented:
Your rates are going to go up. The electric utility industry is a $1 ½ trillion industry that needs to invest about $3/4 trillion in the next 15 years in infrastructure (not generation, that’s additional) just to keep the lights on. The amount of electricity a utility needs is not constant. In the summer, it peaks between 3 and 7 pm, coincidentally when it is the sunniest. This peak is twice what they need at, say, 5 am. You don’t know, exactly how much electricity you need for this period – there are too many variables. Utilities need to have access to “spinnable reserves” to be able to supply electricity to cover this critical time. They need access to electricity they can begin using with little notice. They pay through the nose for this peak electricity – sometimes 5 -10 times as much as non-peak times. Renewables provide a cheap (yes, I said cheap) alternative to having a fossil fuel plant sitting idle, waiting to generate electricity for these peak times. They use this energy to do two things: peak shaving and peak shifting. As the name implies, peak shaving provides the top 10-20% of the electric demand at the peak time. Peak shifting (this usually involves storage as well as generation) allows the utility to buy when the market is more reasonable and use the electricity at the peak times. You cannot just compare the cost of “green” energy to the cost of your non-peak rates. You need to compare the cost against the peak rates. My guess is that the 20% increase involves a lot more needed infrastructure upgrades that happen to be bundled with a “green” program to make the rate increase more palatable to regulators and consumers.
myna commented:
Al Gore become a billionaire while 4 million people lose their jobs and will lose another 4 millions jobs after his hoax get implemented.
Poor person who needs to survive commented:
I HATE AL GORE.
Jason A commented:
Scam.
Trish commented:
The people need to know about Al Gore, and how rich he keeps getting on his farce. Since MSM won’t tell them, the Republicans MUST! This scam is going to cost us jobs & lives, and more importantly it will bring ruin upon this nation.
seven commented:
Land labor and capital. That is the foundation under growth. What is missing from the $13 per montgh. You will pay for a new gathering grid out of your taxes. It will costs hundreds of billions to build a gathering system for the spread out windmills.
On the other hand. The further the generator is from the power consumer, ther is more energy loss. Energy lost in heat from wires is 10% for every 60 miles. a windmill 200 miles from your electric car provides only 15 % of electric output to the wheels in the form of forward thrust of your car. How would you like a water pipeline that lost 85% of water that was pumped from a source?
squeaky commented:
with all this talk about taxing the rich – just how much will al be on the hook for or will they
only be taxing the rich who aren’t rich enough to
bury their money. and then there’s that hybrid
car that he’s involved with that the average joe is helping to finance but will probably only get to see as it whizes by and splashes people in line for mass-transit – the little people
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html
rickinstl commented:
Listening to Ameren UE radio spots here in StL lately touting “green conservation” bs, I’ve wondered why they would run ads urging people to use less of their product. I guess this is my answer. They’re preparing the ground for large rate hikes which they expect us to believe are for “the environment”. Again, B.S.
I’m getting tired of govt pressure and over regulation forcing companies like UE to play these stupid PR games.
The other factor is Ameren’s willfull neglect of infrastructure over the last decade. Several years ago, power was knocked out to almost the whole StL area twice in about a year for extended periods, (weeks for some people). I believed then, and still believe, that the top
echelon of Ameren management should have been tossed in jail for criminal missuse of a publicly granted monopoly. Hiring Karen effin Foss to be their pr face doesn’t cut it.
Dittos Rush! commented:
Actually, I drive a Toyata Prius (50mpg). Not because I’m green, but because of my drving volume! It’s actually got a lot more pep than you’d think!
Dittos!
James
gary gulrud commented:
Pawlenty hasn’t opposed AGW in any significant regard. The ethanol farm subsidy has received his full support.
Betsy Ross commented:
Thanks alot Gov. Pawlenty for signing this legislation you moron. Forget about running for POTUS cuz you won’t win.
Carbon Monoxide commented:
What will happen in the next ten years is that electric consumers will be exposed to the market factors that cause rates to fluctuate — a very capitalistic idea. You will have what is called “time of use” rates. If you choose to run your diswasher or your air conditioner from 3-7 pm, you will pay SIGNIFICANTLY more for your power. This will pay for the gas and coal fired plants that have to be built that will be sitting there idle, waiting for peak demand during these hours. That is known as supply and demand. You demand more, you pay more.
95% of electrical outages are caused by falling limbs on wires. The vast majority of these are because home owners do not allow the utility company to trim the trees on their property. That lovely Bradford Pear you planted under the power line in front of your house 15 years ago has become a major threat to the power for your entire street. But, since this is a free country, you can say f**k my neighbors, I like me tree.
Carbon Monoxide commented:
Seven:
It is not that straight forward. You also need to consider reactive power, which limits the capacity of the transmission system:
In a simple alternating current (AC) circuit consisting of a source and a linear load, both the current and voltage are sinusoidal. If the load is purely resistive, the two quantities reverse their polarity at the same time, and the direction of energy flow does not reverse. In this case, only real power flows.
If the load is purely reactive, then the voltage and current are 90 degrees out of phase and there is no net energy flow. That is, the peaks of voltage are centered at the times when the current crosses zero, and is half positive and half negative. In this case, only reactive power flows – no net transfer of energy to the load occurs.
Practical loads have resistance, inductance, and capacitance, so both real and reactive power will flow to real loads. Power engineers measure power use as the sum of real and reactive power. Alternatively, they measure power factor, the ratio of real power to apparent power, where apparent power is the product of the root-mean-square voltage and current.
Engineers care about this because even though the current associated with reactive power does no work at the load, it heats wires. Conductors, transformers and generators must be sized to carry the total current, not just the current that does useful work.
CB_WI commented:
So, in other words when Gore and the rest of the Liberals scream about how Conservatives play on fear of a real threats; i.e. terrorists and other nations possibly attacking then we are fear/war mongers. But, Gore and the rest of them make millions and billions off of something(the FEAR of the globe warming up) that has plenty of evidence against it and very little for it and they are the thruth tellers. Everyone loves a double standard.
Solaratov commented:
Carbon Monoxide
November 3rd, 2009 | 8:57 am | #18
95% of electrical outages are caused by falling limbs on wires. The vast majority of these are because home owners do not allow the utility company to trim the trees on their property. That lovely Bradford Pear you planted under the power line in front of your house 15 years ago has become a major threat to the power for your entire street. But, since this is a free country, you can say f**k my neighbors, I like me tree.
Maybe you can say that where you are, but not in Missouri. And, the fact that right of way maintenance is a huge expenditure for all power companies, I’m led to believe that your statement is crap.
And stop being such a condescending prig and trying so hard to shill for the electric companies. You know as well as anyone that “going green” is going to be tremendously expensive and much more inefficient than our current methods of power production.
Why should we change to wind farms ans solar crap panels when we have the largest deposits of “clean” (hard) coal on Earth? And when we have the most advanced pollution control technology available? Why not build small nuclear reactors to provide all of the inexpensive, clean, non-polluting power that we need? (Even France is ahead of us on this.)
Go do your homework and then come back and tell us why we should spend over $2500/household/year, and sacrifice another 4,000,000 jobs (on top of the 4million obama has already cost us), and put up with higher taxes for less efficient electricity availability.
Once again, cap-and-trade is – like the “health reform” bill – not intended to help people in any way, shape, manner or form. It is a way to control the people and interfere in their lives to an unprecedented degree and enrich a few scam artists.
Ann commented:
Bottom line: Global Warming aka Climate Change is all about redistribution of wealth;
Population Control, micro managing peoples lives, taxes, creating a crisis to implement martial law.
All the companies and scientist involved in the green thing get huge grants from the government. (Yeah, you guessed it, our tax money). On top of that, gas tax, rising heating/cooling cost and tax on everything after the ripple effect.
Carbon Monoxide commented:
“And stop being such a condescending prig and trying so hard to shill for the electric companies. ” — I just want to fit in with the rest of you.
“Why should we change to wind farms ans solar crap panels when we have the largest deposits of “clean” (hard) coal on Earth?” — OK, if you think that upgrading the electric infrastructure, you should price out upgrading the rail infrastructure. The demand for energy is going to double in this country in the next 20 years. Let’s put the coal fired plant in YOUR neighborhood. Oh yeah, we’ll need a rail line and we’ll need to run those trains 24/7. Well, I live about 2.5 miles from such a line and I can tell you that they will wake you up every night. Sorry about the coal dust, too. Good luck putting one of these things up. It’ll make you REALLY popular with your neighbors.
“Why not build small nuclear reactors to provide all of the inexpensive, clean, non-polluting power that we need? (Even France is ahead of us on this.)” — Fine. Do you know how to do this? Where are all the nuclear engineers? I got news for you…it’ll take decades to develop the workforce do build and operate all the plants that we’ll need.
We’re going to lose 4,000,000 jobs by implementing renewable resources? You need to do YOUR homework. Who is going to lose their jobs? Utility workers? Nope. Coal miners? More of them are losing their jobs from the practice of blowing the tops off of mountains in WV.
“cap-and-trade”? — Who advocated that? I only advocate free market solutions.
Here is another free market idea: Can’t pay your electric bill? Get a better job.
Derak commented:
Clearly we can’t develop our own resources. They are collateral for the Chinese.
Carbon Monoxide commented:
From a Missouri power company’s web site:
Q. What are the most common causes of power outages?
A. The following can cause outages:
Storms (fallen tree limbs, lightning strikes, high winds, ice, etc.)
http://www.ameren.com/Outage/ADC_FAQs_PowerOutage.asp
WestWright commented:
Carbon Monoxide is an appropriate name for this priggish prick….CM get over yourself!
Carbon Monoxide commented:
Speaking truth the powerless.
Solaratov commented:
A. The follow\\\>>>> can<<<>>CAN<<<///…………………….
Solaratov commented:
Should have been:
Q. What are the most common causes of power outages?
A. The following>>>>can<<<>>>CAN<<<<……………………..
as in, *could*, sometime, at one time or another, might be the cause of………………..
any bets on which causes more outages, tree limbs or vehicles?
Old One commented:
Hey Minnesota fools how’s that hopenchange workin for ya. Minnesota’s clueless voters are getting their just desserts! Screw them! So glad my parent had the sense to get the hell out of that land of stupids 60 years ago.