| ▲ | exabrial 4 days ago |
| I'm beyond ok with this! Let backpressure into the market! It's the ultimate incentive for promoting energy efficiency. |
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| ▲ | WarOnPrivacy 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| > I'm beyond ok with this! Let backpressure into the market! The article brought up some downstream effects such as seniors choosing between paying for power or their meds. When we approve an outcome without addressing the consequences, we are effectively rubberstamping those consequences. I believe this doesn't serve us well. |
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| ▲ | SoftTalker 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | They could also move to a place where they don't need 24x7 air conditioning running 10 months a year. | | |
| ▲ | Broken_Hippo 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | If someone is having to choose between power and medication, how could they get the money to move to this place?? They won't. Most folks aren't really that mobile and being poor makes this more likely. I'll also note that I live in such a place. Heck, I don't have air conditioning at all. But if I don't have heat in the winter, I'll die. It's cold out. Not many place have the luxury of not needing heating nor cooling - and even when some folks can go without, not all buildings are fit for that purpose. 2 windows on one side of an apartment doesn't make for good ventilation. | | |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > how could they get the money to move to this place Maybe we give it to them? They're very likely on subsidized income anyway, it's a one time cost and drop in the bucket to move them to someplace more affordable. | | |
| ▲ | el_benhameen 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Have you ever met a senior? For most people, the world shrinks as they age: it’s harder to learn new routines, figure out how to do things, etc. just popping them out of a place where they have family, services, and routines into an entirely new place is a recipe for disaster. | | |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Well, let them swelter or go without their meds then? If they have so much family and support around, why are they struggling to pay for the AC? | | |
| ▲ | WarOnPrivacy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > If they have so much family and support around I think you're inventing stuff to say. The article said: "There's a lot of seniors down here that are living
check to check.
They can barely afford prescriptions such as myself,"
The people in poverty aren't the ones with the power here. The ones with the power are public officials, utility executives and voting shareholders. Their decisions drive how much more electricity costs than it needs to.Dozens of millions of Americans are poor because they're poor. People work hard with what they have and for some it works out well and for some it doesn't. That's reality. |
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| ▲ | WarOnPrivacy 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Maybe we give it to them? Established funding sources tend to have long lines of applicants. Past that, if it's public funds, the rising political force is fiercely opposed to this - mostly for ideological reasons that are disconnected from actual outcomes. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ZeroGravitas 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Americans generally pay more for heating than cooling so moving to warmer climates helps on that axis. There might be a sweet spot before you get to the warmest place in the country but it probably still involves air con. | |
| ▲ | derwiki 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not that my parents are in this situation, but they’ve lived in the same state for 80 years and the same house for 55. I don’t know if they’d be able to handle a move. | |
| ▲ | supertrope 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Like San Francisco which is so affordable. | |
| ▲ | BeFlatXIII 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | …and who pays the upfront moving costs? |
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| ▲ | exabrial 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | If that's the case, lets see a study on that! How often does this happen? |
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| ▲ | grepfru_it 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Our rates went up but now they are offering free nights. Cost of battery tech has dropped, so now I am powering my house with batteries during the day and charge them at night. The downside is vendors come and go, so the battery you buy today may not be the same offered tomorrow. |
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| ▲ | 3eb7988a1663 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Good news! The current administration also wants to put an end to the Energy Star program. |
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| ▲ | Iwan-Zotow 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Actually, good news. Basically, everything now is marked ES, no discrimination | | |
| ▲ | 3eb7988a1663 3 days ago | parent [-] | | The standards get more strict all the time. The reason everything has an Energy Star label is because consumers are going to prefer the appliance that meets it. From the Energy Star website, savings since 2020: - Electricity: 520 billion kilowatt-hours
- Energy costs: $42 billion
- GHG emissions: 400 million metric tons
But, I guess you-know. What a lousy government intervention. Centralizing a bit of extra up front engineering work to save $billions in wasted energy. Give me back all of those energy vampires that used to be so prevalent. Like standby modes that only turned off the power LED.https://www.energystar.gov/about/impacts | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Centralizing a bit of extra up front engineering work What engineering was centralised? Isn't it just a label? | | |
| ▲ | 3eb7988a1663 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Sloppy wording on my part. Just that the firms designing equipment could put in the effort to meet efficiency guidelines. To consumers, it is just a label on the product, but I am sure the official testing/validation requirements are some amount of work. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Ah okay. Yes - I agree that each individual firm had to do this work, and should get credit for the progress they've enabled. | | |
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| ▲ | Iwan-Zotow 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That was not the point. I read somewhere that more than 90% of all appliances sold had ES label. Differentiation power of label and program is gone. |
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| ▲ | baggy_trough 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I thought we were supposed to be replacing natural gas appliances with electric ones, but it's become ruinously expensive to do so. Not only are they more expensive to operate due to high electricity rates, the panel upgrades for higher power draw are outrageous. |
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| ▲ | danans 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > Not only are they more expensive to operate due to high electricity rates, Most electric appliances are much cheaper to operate, even in places with expensive electricity like MA and CA. This is especially true for appliances like heat pumps due to their >100% "efficiency", and if you are somewhere with cheap clean electricity (Pacific Northwest) they are a no-brainer. > the panel upgrades for higher power draw are outrageous. With smart splitters and some planning, panel upgrades can often be avoided: https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/articles/electrical-panel/... | | |
| ▲ | quesera 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I suspect that GP meant "service upgrades" are expensive (e.g. 100A to 200A from the street). Panel upgrades are just the most visible, but not individually expensive, part. | | |
| ▲ | danans 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > I suspect that GP meant "service upgrades" are expensive (e.g. 100A to 200A from the street). I understood that, but my point is that smart panel and smart circuit splitters upgrades can eliminate the need for a service drop upgrade. |
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| ▲ | inferiorhuman 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most electric appliances are much cheaper to operate, even in places with expensive electricity like MA and CA.
Nope. I'm in PG&E territory. Electricity is too expensive and natural gas is too cheap. Even compared to my not-high-efficiency gas powered furnace a heat pump is more expensive to run. At best electricity is about $0.40/kWh and natural gas is $2.45/therm. | | |
| ▲ | baggy_trough 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I suppose their solution will be to greatly increase the price of gas. | |
| ▲ | danans 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Nope. I'm in PG&E territory. Electricity is too expensive and natural gas is too cheap. Yes, the electricity rates in the IOU territories (PGE, SCE, SDGE) are horribly high. But in publicly owned LADWP or SMUD, the average rate is around $.22/kWh, depending on usage patterns. Not Pacific Northwest cheap, but definitely better than PGE. | | |
| ▲ | inferiorhuman a day ago | parent [-] | | Yes, muni power is significantly cheaper. Unfortunately it's in the minority. PG&E is the dominant player in most of California. In the Bay Area only Alameda and Santa Clara (cities) have muni power. PG&E's astroturfed (hi Greg Dewar!) and lobbied hard against it each time it comes up. |
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| ▲ | fzeroracer 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Are you familiar with the Flour War? I suggest reading up on the history of that and what happens when you try to let the invisible hand control things considered essential. |
