Power - unlimited power

[JPC-Greg]

Has everyone seen increases to their home electric lately?

I first saw my bill shoot up a few months back at home, and then again sharply for June. Now in our expansion plans for more space and renewing existing space datacenters are also passing down some increased power rates.

Im curious how the industry, every industry, that consumes lots of power will deal with the costs. In some popular hosting forums you can already see some of the larger players have started raising costs of servers pretty drastically, $30 mo in some cases so far and thats just a start.

[the_ancient]

Has everyone seen increases to their home electric lately?

I first saw my bill shoot up a few months back at home, and then again sharply for June. Now in our expansion plans for more space and renewing existing space datacenters are also passing down some increased power rates.

Im curious how the industry, every industry, that consumes lots of power will deal with the costs. In some popular hosting forums you can already see some of the larger players have started raising costs of servers pretty drastically, $30 mo in some cases so far and thats just a start.

it is only going to get worse, far far far far far worse...

with the current political environment of "do nothing" and/or "tax the companies" things can only get worse.

Like with oil, you have ever increasing demand on a supply that has not gone up in YEARS because the nature nazi's will not allow us to build or expand power generation unless it is pie in the sky wind/solar

Dont get me wrong I think we should do those things, but we need Nuclear, Coal, and Nat Gas, and any other power generation plant. Just like we need to drill everywhere we can, and liqify as much oil shale as we can WHILE we are looking for a replacement.

Come back to this post in 1 year, if we are all still here....

Every Energy Item will be at minmum 2X what it is today...... Mark my words

[Vin DSL]

Has everyone seen increases to their home electric lately?

I'm afraid to look!

No joke...

[Spathiphyllum]

Anyone considering solar panels yet? Yeah, start-up costs are always a bear and the aesthetics aren't always optimal, but we're probably nearing a price point where interest for homeowner use will start to increase. Were I building a new house, I think I'd take the plunge.

I've always been a fan of solar energy in concept but it never has taken off. It seems that for homeowner use to mitigate an overall energy bill, solar is ideal. Anyone have stock tips for solar cell technology?

[Ron]

Our electric rates haven't surged yet, which is important to me because I heat my home with electricity. It used to be that my heating bills made people gasp. Not so much right now.

Now I see home heating oil is projected to be $5 a gallon next winter. I can only imagine how many homes will have burst pipes and/or dead occupants.

[the_ancient]

Anyone considering solar panels yet? Yeah, start-up costs are always a bear and the aesthetics aren't always optimal, but we're probably nearing a price point where interest for homeowner use will start to increase. Were I building a new house, I think I'd take the plunge.

I've always been a fan of solar energy in concept but it never has taken off. It seems that for homeowner use to mitigate an overall energy bill, solar is ideal. Anyone have stock tips for solar cell technology?

Until it becomes more efficient it will not be used Wide Spread, according the BP Solar it would cost about $20,000-27,000 to get a 2-3 kW system for my home.... That is alot of change

[Pawel Kowalski]

Instead of dumping billions of dollars in to our national labs to study nuclear weapons maybe we could take that money and study energy production instead? Nah, that would make far too much sense.

[jason]

Most of my power comes from nuclear sources, a bit comes from hydro, and the price has stayed fairly consistent, at least for now.

--Jason

[the_ancient]

Instead of dumping billions of dollars in to our national labs to study nuclear weapons maybe we could take that money and study energy production instead? Nah, that would make far too much sense.

Why do you always look for the GOVERNMENT to solve the problem???

the GOVERNMENT CREATED THIS MESS. All we need is for the government to get the hell out of the way and stop meddling in the free market

[the_ancient]

This is a Interesting Concept
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

[Pawel Kowalski]

Why do you always look for the GOVERNMENT to solve the problem???

the GOVERNMENT CREATED THIS MESS. All we need is for the government to get the hell out of the way and stop meddling in the free market

Why do you always assume things about me?

I made a single point that you seemed to jump to a lot of conclusions over without actually addressing that single point.

So I'll repeat it. We are currently dumping billions of dollars in to nuclear weapon research. Why? Do we really need more nuclear weapons at this point? So instead of pissing the money away that way lets invest it in to something worth while instead. It won't cost the government an additional penny nor will it increase the government size. So I have no idea why you would argue against this.

[Pawel Kowalski]

This is a Interesting Concept
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

At first glance that looks very interesting.

[the_ancient]

Why do you always assume things about me?

I made a single point that you seemed to jump to a lot of conclusions over without actually addressing that single point.

So I'll repeat it. We are currently dumping billions of dollars in to nuclear weapon research. Why? Do we really need more nuclear weapons at this point? So instead of pissing the money away that way lets invest it in to something worth while instead. It won't cost the government an additional penny nor will it increase the government size. So I have no idea why you would argue against this.

Because the government need to be CUTTING SPENDING not moving money around, if we need the nuke program, the money should just fall off the budget not be spent elsewhere

[Pawel Kowalski]

Because the government need to be CUTTING SPENDING not moving money around, if we need the nuke program, the money should just fall off the budget not be spent elsewhere

There is no way in hell the government will cut this funding, ever. Far too many local economies depend on that money and cutting it off would be political suicide. So again, if you must spend the money spend it doing something worth while.

[Ron]

I did tell you about "my" solar plan, and Scientific American's coverage of it?

"My" Solar Electricity plan (From August, 2006)

Scientific American's coverage of "My" Solar Electricity plan (From December, 2007)

SA had an article in January about using the southwest as the source of electricity for the entire nation.

Claims for a mere $470Billion it can all be built out including 5,000 miles of some new type of DC transmission lines. I didn't get a chance to read the details, I was in a Dr.s office.


I think they're crazy! Such a massive undertaking would be fraught with peril of large projects.

They should start just producing the electricity for the southwest including LA, let other technologies and approaches be developed along the way.

My approach of eventually using that energy to convert whatever to biodiesel, or for scrubbing Carbon from the air, or generating hydrogen and/or drinking water from seawater (after piping it in from the ocean) or all of the above are all probably more cost effective than the DC backbone approach.

But it was funny to see a lot of my thoughts in SA!!!! Maybe they read my post! LOL