Its nice to have so many gurus as friends. Steven says: Dear humble, The argument for assessing fees for grid connected private generators is that the utility still has to maintain the lines. If revenue goes to zero because of self-generation during the day balancing out consumption from the grid at night, there wont be any money to maintain the lines. In AZ, the utilities were pushing for a $50/month connection fee. The AZ public utilities commission gave them $5/month, which seems a lot more reasonable. [I pay $9.36 and CMPs suits are working day and night in Augusta to raise it.] Back in the day, I was not directly involved in any of this. In 1977, I was a design engineer for Data General, working on aspects of the Eclipse and Nova computers. In 1978, we moved to California, where I was a staff scientist at UC Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBL). My initial assignment was instrumenting locomotives, to measure efficiency and operating characteristics. Basically, I did instrumentation. Some of my colleagues were, however, much more involved in alternative energy work. As it turns out, I did a little in this area as well, working with the physicist Paul Condon on a heat flux sensor that measured heat entering or escaping a room. Although much of the innovative energy work got the chop when Reagan arrived in 1980, there are at least two important results that survived the political purge. The first is DOE-2, a massive computer simulation of building energy inflows and outflows that is now the standard for evaluating the energy efficiency of buildings. I believe that California, and possibly other jurisdictions, mandate the use of DOE-2 to evaluate new construction. That is, DOE-2 is a building code requirement. The second surviving result is the electronic ballast, a little gizmo that makes compact fluorescent lamps possible. Before the electronic ballast, fluorescent lamps required special fixtures and professional installation. Now, CFLs that just screw into the old incandescent socket are commonly available everywhere for not much money. Both DOE-2 and electronic ballasts are the direct result of the vision of one guy, Art Rosenfeld, and the energy efficiency group working under his direction. I dont think that right wingers are afraid that government sponsored research is a waste of money that doesnt work. I think theyre afraid that it does, upsetting economic hierarchies presided over by their friends. Gotta protect your rich buddies somehow. Regards, S
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 10:52:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015