Why JFET amp instead of Non-inv Op amp? Do they both not have high Imp?

Tis by VT standards too. Our electricity is $.13/kwh or more. We heat with gas, but that goes up with oil too (it's all fixed by contract from Canuckistan, based on oil prices).

Hello Jim,

Wow! That's a lot of kWh. Do you guys use the AC a lot already?

The energy charge is a little over 4c per kWh regardless of whether you use off-peak or on-peak. Where is their incentive to make people stay off-peak? The little delta via the delivery charge?

That would have been north of $500 around here. With our dreaded baseline limit probably closer to $1000.

Drool. Maybe I should move to Arizona...

Regards, Joerg

Hello Jim,

For California standards that is dirt cheap...

Regards, Joerg

Hello Jim,

Except anything they want to do, that is. Such as cruising around in a V8, riding their dirt bikes and so on.

NIMBY is even more prevalent. That's why the gas consumption has doubled but no new refineries were ever built.

Regards, Joerg

There's something about changing electric suppliers which is conceptually bothersome, which is: can it have any negative consequences? The idea of having a public monopoly grid, and people buying power through the grid from private companies, just like we drive from one place to another on public roads, seems fine. But I've never heard (perhaps it's just ignorance) of any place that actually has the ability to monitor power drawn by customers in real time, and, if their chosen supplier fails to deliver, cut off their power, yet keep delivering power to neighboring houses who chose other suppliers. Without that sort of infrastructure, you can choose some unreliable supplier, yet get reliable power from other suppliers whom you haven't paid. Or you can choose a supplier who, although his equipment is reliable, doesn't have the capacity to meet the afternoon air conditioning load of all his customers. Never mind... they won't suffer; other suppliers will pick up the load... until everybody starts thinking that way. This seems like a perfect recipe for a race to the bottom: competition on prices, without regard to quality. That it hasn't gone bad yet doesn't mean it won't; people quite likely are reluctant to start the race to the bottom, yet it'd be a mistake to trust the goodwill of all of them, forever.

I've heard of large industrial customers having to turn off their power at times of high load, as per prior agreement with their suppliers, but never residential customers. Yet that seems, in theory, to be the only way to make supplier choice a truly meaningful activity.

Perhaps one of you would care to leave off the red-state-vs-blue-state sniping for long enough to consider this and tell me why I'm ignorant or misguided.

Last time I was at Subway Cave, up between Lassen and Shasta, there were notices all over the place saying to stay the hell away from chipmunks because their fleas were carrying bubonic plague.Didn't see any that trip, maybe USFS, or BLM, or whoever, had got rid of them.

What happened in California was not really privitization or deregulation, although that is what it has been called. It was a half-baked half-measure. IMO, either not doing it at all, or doing it all the way, would have been better than what actually happened. Anyone who argues "one absolute side or the other" in that particular debacle is inevitably wrong.

Energy suppliers get paid when they supply energy, so their incentive is to supply energy, not go down. I don't see a need for every customer to be monitored real-time. If a supplier does need to shut down for maintenance, they'll have to buy from others -- something they are probably not in favor of -- so I don't see the problem.

They generally DON'T have to turn off their loads, but they pay through the nose at on-peak rates.

This method is necessary in Arizona sometimes to handle high summer residential A/C loads.

Maybe you're in a Blue STATE ?:-)

I apologize right now. I just can't resist when people set themselves up so nicely.

But that's precisely the way the electrical grid system works... very much like the banking system... borrow for a few hours from another supplier.

...Jim Thompson

I don't know all the details in California snafu, but, as I understand it, the regulators screwed up by not allowing rate adjustments to allow for investment in facility replacement, upgrading and expansion.

So the system went through a multi-collapse, equipment failures plus inability to meet demand.

...Jim Thompson

Actually, it was a simple game of greed and avarice. The politicos were 'persuaded' to deregulate the utilities, but then they didn't want to have prices rise, so they made certain 'provisions' to supposedly protect consumers. Even as they were implementing this (and it took a while. I had a friend working with the software side, and it was definitely a mess...) the Enrons and others were seeing the potential for profits. There were all these rules, see, and if you looked at how things worked, it was easy to 'game' the system, and raise prices.

Couple this with the usual NIMBY element that actively opposed building new power plants, and was busy lobbying to get rid of the ones that were already here, and you had a great situation where supply was barely meeting demand. Then, when the gamesters would put a plant into 'maintainance' until the prices rose, and then 'Oh wait, this plant IS available, now that the price has doubled' and other fun things, the system was in big trouble.

And, because the gamesters had been instrumental in writing the rules, it was all legal...

Charlie

I don't know all the details either and given the conflicting reports I've read I'm not sure anyone does. ;-) Anyway, I think it's closer to say that they deregulated much of the (municipal utilities were exempt, IIRC) the wholesale industry but not the retail prices, leading to an unstable system.

I don't remember any significant infrastructure collapse, rather suppliers being forced to buy power on the spot market and only being able to charge a fixed price. There was no incentive for the consumer to conserve.

And didn't they orchestrate some "rolling" blackouts to make sure the sheep fell right into line ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

I read in sci.electronics.design that Keith Williams wrote (in ) about 'Why JFET amp instead of Non-inv Op amp? Do they both not have high Imp?', on Tue, 26 Apr 2005:

That's what I heard, too. I don't think even an economist could screw up so totally. I suspect some tree-hugging interference.

Nope, the sheep were already sheared. The power companies didn't have the power to deliver, and paid for it. They were forced to pay whatever it took to deliver, but couldn't recover those costs from the consumer. Again the munis got a pass. AIUI, it was more like the 70's wage and price controls than a sheep shearing.

Sheep are dumb, but CA politicians can only dream of doing mixing genes with them.

This link gives the views of people like Dick Cheney, Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Gray Davis, and others on the root causes of the california energy thing.

Reminds me that we have an Arizona-first law in place here.

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

I doubt it. Most of the southwestern states have excess capacity in winter, so we sell electricity to the northern states.

Likewise, in the summer, we often buy from the grid.

...Jim Thompson

I believe Texas goes that one better. They're on their own grid.