Why Electric Bills Increase While Fuel Gets Cheaper

[tskeeter]

finance.yahoo.com/news/why-electricity-bill-keeps-going-183100262.html

According to the Financial Times, EPA regulation and green energy mandates drive a 35% increasse in the cost of your electricity.  Additional regulation driven increases are anticipated.

[phil5185]

Coal 39%
Natural Gas 27%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 6%

Carbon based fuels, coal & gas, make up 66% of our electricity generation. Nuclear power is a significant power source,  the others are mostly insignificant. Hydro is clean but it is maxed at 7% based on public opinion ('no more dams'). 
The renewables, wind & solar, are only marginally feasible - and way more expensive than coal & gas.  So it will be very slow and very expensive to replace that 39% coal with renewables.
As for replacing coal with 'clean coal' - again, very expensive and marginally effective.
And building 4X more nuclear plants, while clean, is very expensive. And has public opinion issues.

So any & all solutions to cleaner electricity come with a heavy financial cost - and we need to do it and pay the bill.

[billisonboard]

Agenda driven results?  ...according to a study conducted by Energy Ventures Analysis ... (from the link in the OP)

The study concludes that U.S. power markets would see a shift in electricity generation from coal to natural gas, causing upward pressure on natural gas demand and prices. ... The study was commissioned by Peabody Energy.  evainc.com/2014/11/epa-carbon-plan-power-plant-regulations-will-cause-energy-prices-soar/

Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) is the world's largest private-sector coal company ... www.peabodyenergy.com/

[Deleted]

Hydro is clean but it is maxed at 7% based on public opinion ('no more dams').

Would it be possible or at all feasible to have many hydro power stations.  Something along the lines of damming up a ditch and using that power to generate electricity for a neighborhood.  It takes a very small amount of water dropping a short distance to make power.

[zibazinski]

Taxes and fees are almost half of my PGE bill.

[jkapp]

Things like this are playing out in many areas of the country as well, with more to come, I'm sure:

lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/04/nv-energy-does-good-so-it-wants-raise/

NV Energy customers may get zapped for conserving

The state’s electric company wants to raise power bills by as much as 5 percent for Southern Nevadans as compensation for the loss of electricity sales because customers are more power-efficient.

---We had the same thing in our area of Wisconsin a few years back...just more unintended consequences.

[Peace Of Mind]

That's a lot of words for "Greedy Bastards".   

[schildi]

Mar 17, 2015 16:47:06 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Coal 39%
Natural Gas 27%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 6%

Carbon based fuels, coal & gas, make up 66% of our electricity generation. Nuclear power is a significant power source,  the others are mostly insignificant. Hydro is clean but it is maxed at 7% based on public opinion ('no more dams'). 
The renewables, wind & solar, are only marginally feasible - and way more expensive than coal & gas.  So it will be very slow and very expensive to replace that 39% coal with renewables.
As for replacing coal with 'clean coal' - again, very expensive and marginally effective.
And building 4X more nuclear plants, while clean, is very expensive. And has public opinion issues.

So any & all solutions to cleaner electricity come with a heavy financial cost - and we need to do it and pay the bill.

Nuclear is clean?
Well, sure, maybe when you find a place to store the waste ....

[tractor]

I work in the electric utility industry. One of the other significant costs is associated with rebuilding/replacing aging infrastructure. Many of our lines are greater than 50 years old, how much has our electric use increased over that time? We are now trying to build to meet demand for the next 50 years, our costs for transmission run $400-500,000 per mile. As the older coal plants come off-line, the rates will continue to go up. Expect significant rate increases in the next 5-10 years.

[tskeeter]

Mar 17, 2015 16:58:42 GMT -5 @hickle said:

Hydro is clean but it is maxed at 7% based on public opinion ('no more dams').

Would it be possible or at all feasible to have many hydro power stations.  Something along the lines of damming up a ditch and using that power to generate electricity for a neighborhood.  It takes a very small amount of water dropping a short distance to make power.

I MN, where I grew up, it used to be very common for towns located on small rivers to have a local power plant.  Often the drop at the dam was only about three feet.  Today, most of those power plants are shut down or demolished and the dams removed from the river.  I'd expect that fewer, large, usually coal fired, power plants were more cost effective.  I think that today, the permitting process to replace the dams that used to exist along with public resistance to damming rivers would make returning to large numbers of small hydro generating sites impractical.

Another consideration against hydro power is that current clean energy regulations do not promote hydro power.  According to my brother, an EE who works in power generation and distribution, clean energy regulations focus on promoting "new" technology.  Since hydro power has been heavily used for many decades, it doesn't count when it comes to promoting use and development of clean, renewable energy sources.   

[phil5185]

Nuclear is clean?
Well, sure, maybe when you find a place to store the waste ....

The better answer is to learn to recycle any waste - France is pretty close to that point, most of France'  power is nuclear.

Another consideration against hydro power is that current clean energy regulations do not promote hydro power. According to my brother, an EE who works in power generation and distribution, clean energy regulations focus on promoting "new" technology. Since hydro power has been heavily used for many decades, it doesn't count when it comes to promoting use and development of clean, renewable energy sources.

This is one of the problems - most of our Govt Subsidy dollars are being directed at subsidizing Solar & Wind. That is our own fault, the public demands/votes for more Solar/Wind, that means that the representatives that they elect must support Wind/Solar - at the expense of finding new solutions to recycling nuclear waste, working on new nuclear plant designs (most of our 108 plants are 40 yrs old), and siting/building new nuclear plants to replace the coal-fired plants.

[cael]

timely thread - I'm (trying to get started) writing a research paper for my energy/environmental economics class on costs of converting old closed coal plants to natural gas vs. a renewable source like biomass fuel, if anyone has any additional links with good information I'd love to see them. Clearly the renewables are more costly in the shorter term but in the interest of moving towards renewables for the much longer term when fossil fuels will inevitably deplete ... lots to consider.

[billisonboard]

Mar 18, 2015 10:41:36 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Mar 17, 2015 16:58:42 GMT -5 @hickle said:

Would it be possible or at all feasible to have many hydro power stations.  Something along the lines of damming up a ditch and using that power to generate electricity for a neighborhood.  It takes a very small amount of water dropping a short distance to make power.

I MN, where I grew up, it used to be very common for towns located on small rivers to have a local power plant.  Often the drop at the dam was only about three feet.  Today, most of those power plants are shut down or demolished and the dams removed from the river.  I'd expect that fewer, large, usually coal fired, power plants were more cost effective.  I think that today, the permitting process to replace the dams that used to exist along with public resistance to damming rivers would make returning to large numbers of small hydro generating sites impractical.

...

In the Pacific Northwest, I know that salmon are always a factor in conversations concerning dams.

[happyhoix]

Mar 18, 2015 8:38:16 GMT -5 tractor said:

I work in the electric utility industry. One of the other significant costs is associated with rebuilding/replacing aging infrastructure. Many of our lines are greater than 50 years old, how much has our electric use increased over that time? We are now trying to build to meet demand for the next 50 years, our costs for transmission run $400-500,000 per mile. As the older coal plants come off-line, the rates will continue to go up. Expect significant rate increases in the next 5-10 years.

This can be a big part of the cost. We have a local coot who writes weekly tirades in our newspaper about the power company tacking on a chunk to our power bills for upgrading and repairing power lines and power plants. He apparently only wants to pay for the power he uses and feels like he is being forced to pay a kind of electrical tax without having any say so in how the money gets used.

[Tiny]

The problem with natural gas and coal is that cost varies from year to year. No one seems to remember when natural gas skyrocketed about 5 years ago... It was up to $1.60 a therm (it may have gone higher) after being in the .90 and under range for years and years and years. people were screaming over their $800 gas bills (when in the past it might have been a $250 bill).

I don't think using natural gas or coal is a good way to keep the cost of electricity from skyrocketing. Cause if there's a shortage of natural gas or coal - the cost of electricity is gonna skyrocket.

Even the people with super efficient houses and appliances will be pulling out the pitch forks and toaches and screaming and gnashing their teeth when that happens.

[Sam_2.0]

Keeping a diversified portfolio of generation resources is very wise, IMO. Wind & solar just aren't sustainable in all locations. Solar does OK here in the summer, but hardly anything in the winter. It was over-sold and once the rebates dried up so did the interest in installing new systems (the break-even went from 3-5 years to 10+ years. I guess people aren't willing to invest in that?). Like Tiny said, natural gas is fickle with the price. We have a couple methane/trash recycling plants and they just aren't worth the cost to build. That technology could use some improvement.

[NastyWoman]

Mar 17, 2015 20:42:58 GMT -5 jkapp said:

Things like this are playing out in many areas of the country as well, with more to come, I'm sure:

lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/04/nv-energy-does-good-so-it-wants-raise/

NV Energy customers may get zapped for conserving

The state’s electric company wants to raise power bills by as much as 5 percent for Southern Nevadans as compensation for the loss of electricity sales because customers are more power-efficient.

---We had the same thing in our area of Wisconsin a few years back...just more unintended consequences.

Still a lot better than what they plan to do with the water bill here in NorCal. Because of water shortage (real) we have semi-mandatory reductions put on us since last year. Now because people did reduce water use, they did not get enough $$$ from the customers, so they planned a 32% price hike.  Now the planned increase reduced to a more "reasonable"  19.8%!!!

[phil5185]

The state’s electric company wants to raise power bills by as much as 5 percent for Southern Nevadans as compensation for the loss of electricity sales because customers are more power-efficient.

Ditto, that happened in Arizona during the 1974 Energy Crisis - 55 mph national limit, set house thermostats way down in winter, 10 gal limit at gas stations, long lines. The people complied and set their thermostats way down, then the Power Co raised rates accordingly to keep revenue constant. As you can see, we still remember!!

economics class on costs of converting old closed coal plants to natural gas vs. a renewable source like biomass fuel, if anyone has any additional links with good information I'd love to see them. Clearly the renewables are more costly in the shorter term but in the interest of moving towards renewables for the much longer term when fossil fuels will inevitably deplete ... lots to consider.

How about nuclear reactors? They don't use fossil fuels, they run day & nite, windy or calm - they sit quietly unnoticed behind a mountain, been providing 20% of the nations power for about 40 yrs. Yet the govt won't license and site new ones, won't fund modern technology to upgrade 40-yr-old plants. Won't fund advances in re-cycling the U235.

[Sam_2.0]

Mar 18, 2015 15:44:23 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Mar 17, 2015 20:42:58 GMT -5 jkapp said:

Things like this are playing out in many areas of the country as well, with more to come, I'm sure:

lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/04/nv-energy-does-good-so-it-wants-raise/

NV Energy customers may get zapped for conserving

The state’s electric company wants to raise power bills by as much as 5 percent for Southern Nevadans as compensation for the loss of electricity sales because customers are more power-efficient.

---We had the same thing in our area of Wisconsin a few years back...just more unintended consequences.

Still a lot better than what they plan to do with the water bill here in NorCal. Because of water shortage (real) we have semi-mandatory reductions put on us since last year. Now because people did reduce water use, they did not get enough $$$ from the customers, so they planned a 32% price hike.  Now the planned increase reduced to a more "reasonable"  19.8%!!!

Our rate structures are different, but here they have put profit for the utility into the "Customer Charge" - at a set percentage made by the PUC. We cannot earn more than that or it has to be returned, although we can earn less. But this way its set and not dependent on fuel usage. Residential customers all pay the same flat fee every month whether they use 1 kWh or 4,000. Then energy charges have riders that adjust based on what its costing us to generate or buy. Pretty fair method, IMO (as a customer here too).

[muttleynfelix]

Mar 18, 2015 10:41:36 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Mar 17, 2015 16:58:42 GMT -5 @hickle said:

Would it be possible or at all feasible to have many hydro power stations.  Something along the lines of damming up a ditch and using that power to generate electricity for a neighborhood.  It takes a very small amount of water dropping a short distance to make power.

I MN, where I grew up, it used to be very common for towns located on small rivers to have a local power plant.  Often the drop at the dam was only about three feet.  Today, most of those power plants are shut down or demolished and the dams removed from the river.  I'd expect that fewer, large, usually coal fired, power plants were more cost effective.  I think that today, the permitting process to replace the dams that used to exist along with public resistance to damming rivers would make returning to large numbers of small hydro generating sites impractical.

Another consideration against hydro power is that current clean energy regulations do not promote hydro power.  According to my brother, an EE who works in power generation and distribution, clean energy regulations focus on promoting "new" technology.  Since hydro power has been heavily used for many decades, it doesn't count when it comes to promoting use and development of clean, renewable energy sources.   

Damming up a stream or river would run into significant mitigation costs. You could have to provide up to 5 times the wetlands you destroy. You then limit biodiversity on the stream. Under current EPA regs, it would be hard to accomplish.

[Malarky]

We were warned that our electric rates were going up around 33%.


Mine has gone up 50%.     

And is "green energy" really green?

What happens to wind turbines when they wear out?  Will they be like satellite dishes that get left behind when someone moves on?  Nevermind, just stick another one next to it, don't mind the waste and eyesore.  

How long do solar panels last?  How are they disposed of/recycled at the end of their useful life?  

Personally, I like the idea of hydro power where it's feasible.  There's little waste/pollution from capturing the energy from water that was going to run downhill anyway.  

[phil5185]

How long do solar panels last?

Until the next big hail-storm.

[Sam_2.0]

Mar 18, 2015 20:20:33 GMT -5 Malarky said:

We were warned that our electric rates were going up around 33%.


Mine has gone up 50%.     

And is "green energy" really green?

What happens to wind turbines when they wear out?  Will they be like satellite dishes that get left behind when someone moves on?  Nevermind, just stick another one next to it, don't mind the waste and eyesore.  

How long do solar panels last?  How are they disposed of/recycled at the end of their useful life?  

Personally, I like the idea of hydro power where it's feasible.  There's little waste/pollution from capturing the energy from water that was going to run downhill anyway.  

Never mind the fact that wind turbines are chopping up endangered birds. They have to get a special pass to get away with killing the birds. And they mainly run at dawn/dusk, which are off-peak hours and not the most beneficial for overall load.

[schildi]

Mar 18, 2015 11:11:57 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Nuclear is clean?
Well, sure, maybe when you find a place to store the waste ....

The better answer is to learn to recycle any waste - France is pretty close to that point, most of France'  power is nuclear.

I don't think France has a very good solution for their nuclear waste, or have they? I would like to know.

[tskeeter]

Mar 18, 2015 23:22:12 GMT -5 schildi said:

Mar 18, 2015 11:11:57 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

The better answer is to learn to recycle any waste - France is pretty close to that point, most of France'  power is nuclear.

I don't think France has a very good solution for their nuclear waste, or have they? I would like to know.

According to the retired Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist, who lives across the street, the French have what is probably the best nuclear strategy in the world.  We use our nuclear material one time and then store it for centuries.  The French reprocess their nuclear material.  By the time the French are done with nuclear material, they have consumed about 94% available energy in the material.  The US, I believe, consumes less than 10%.  The real up side for the French is that when they can no longer reprocess their nuclear material, the half life of the remaining material is measured in a few decades instead of centuries.  That means that the French do not have a massive hazardous material storage problem like the US does.  For the French, exhausted nuclear material is no longer a hazard within a single person's lifetime.  US "exhausted" nuclear material remains a hazard for many centuries.

It should be noted that the French nuclear power generation program is so successful and cost effective that France sells it's excess power to many of it's neighbors, making France the power supplier to a large portion of Europe.   

[Bob Ross]

Mar 17, 2015 16:47:06 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Coal 39%
Natural Gas 27%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 6%

Carbon based fuels, coal & gas, make up 66% of our electricity generation. Nuclear power is a significant power source,  the others are mostly insignificant. Hydro is clean but it is maxed at 7% based on public opinion ('no more dams'). 
The renewables, wind & solar, are only marginally feasible - and way more expensive than coal & gas.  So it will be very slow and very expensive to replace that 39% coal with renewables.
As for replacing coal with 'clean coal' - again, very expensive and marginally effective.
And building 4X more nuclear plants, while clean, is very expensive. And has public opinion issues.

So any & all solutions to cleaner electricity come with a heavy financial cost - and we need to do it and pay the bill.

Surely a few of those % points can be replaced by ymam hot air?

It may not be clean, but it's certainly renewable.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Mar 18, 2015 11:29:53 GMT -5 cael said:

timely thread - I'm (trying to get started) writing a research paper for my energy/environmental economics class on costs of converting old closed coal plants to natural gas vs. a renewable source like biomass fuel, if anyone has any additional links with good information I'd love to see them. Clearly the renewables are more costly in the shorter term but in the interest of moving towards renewables for the much longer term when fossil fuels will inevitably deplete ... lots to consider.

I can't help but to think that the engineering and building to retrofit a coal plant to natural gas or renewable sources would cost more than designing a plant from scratch.

What is involved in just upgrading a refinery with the same purpose, costs millions and that is with minor modifications.

[cael]

There's a coal plant in my area that was shut down last year, and is going to be demolished and rebuilt as a gas plant within a few years, I'm interested in looking at the costs of that (financially as well as externalities to the surrounding communities). I think they're rebuilding from scratch... the company that bought the plant and is rebuilding is also paying the millions and millions of dollars for environmental remediation of the site, which the city would've had to pay for if they had decided to not rebuild anything on the site (the city also would've lost a huge source of tax revenue if they gave up having a plant on the site). The older plants become subject to new source review (I think that's the term) if they proposed enough renovations, and the work required by that review I think generally isn't worth the cost, so closing and rebuilding is probably more worth it in most situations.

A plant in VA owned by the company that owned the plant near me was converted a year or two ago to biomass fuel (I think a combination actually, biomass/coal), I am curious the costs of that vs. rebuilding this natural gas plant from scratch. It's been tough though to find exact numbers though or any studies that have been done on that... I have found several studies from Europe regarding biomass fueled electricity production but not much from the US, except press releases and government published info. I think maybe it isn't such a big thing in this country (yet) as it is in Europe?

Phil mentioned nuclear, which obviously could have its benefits but this country is just super opposed to nuclear energy...