Ohio Utility Ships Customers Energy-Efficient Bulbs, Plus a Huge Bill

Dan 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Wordpress

Every hear of the free market? It’s a novel concept.

The government is mandating how much energy an energy company can produce for it’s customers. Of course that is going to mean higher prices whether its a goofy bulb story or shortages or anything else. It’s not very complicated but liberals love to make it complicated.

All you need to understand here is this. Energy is BAD. Earth is GOOD. Stop using energy so mother Gaia can be saved. That means all you peons in your homes need to get with the program and you have no choice in the matter. It’s “for your own good”. ... See all content Hide content

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Mike Devlino (mike1980) 's status on Tuesday, 27-Oct-09 23:58:21 UTC - Identi.ca 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

[...] http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/10/ohio-utility-forces-energy-efficient-lightbulbs-on-customers-at-... [...]

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MyGreenHome 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Twitter

What turns people away from being "Green"? Stories like this http://ow.ly/wWYQ

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edmcguirk 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Not really:

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

Not really more toxic than a dozen other things you don't know you are exposed to all the time. But once lawyers get involved...

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brennanwbjb 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Twitter

doesn’t think shipping a $3.50 light bulb and charging $21 for it was a bright idea: http://www.wbjb.org/l/9p

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Nick Aster 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

This has nothing to do with “liberals”. The point here is that Ohio and presumably this utility did a sloppy job of what could have otherwise been a good program. Decoupling would be a much better system, the way it’s done in California. In that system, utilities can give out CFLs for free, then modestly raise rates to cover the cost and save money because they don’t have to build new power plants, so it’s a real win win. ... See all content Hide content

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ru155 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Ok, so according to the news story the program was in effect for about 3 days before all the complaint calls came in and shut the program down.

So, there are tons of problems with this. The idea of decoupling via light bulb purchases is putting the screw to the consumer: it's mandatory that you use less energy (and even if you are proactive about saving it) the utility will now charge you more for that energy to maintain profit margins. This leaves no incentive for consumers to "go green." Instead consumers are now left fearful of the ever increasing price set arbitrarily by the utility based on their internal charting of planned profits w/o energy efficient technology.

We are left with legislation that sounds like it's good "cut energy usage by 22% by 2025" but basically screws over you and me in the process because politicians make a deal to let utilities continue charging us for unused energy - or raise the rates to meet that difference! And people are convinced a cap-and-trade system won't hurt consumers? Another note is the arbitrary way in which state boards (like my home state of California) and federal policies talk about mandatory cuts to energy consumption. They don't care about the economic effects on those of us who don't make 6-figure incomes really chaps my ass. They don't care about the actual feasability of implementing such policies, rather they set arbitrary goals to make themselves look like they've saved the world. ... See all content Hide content

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ru155 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Dude, not true. Don't pigeon hole yourself into how they want you to think about energy. Energy usage isn't the problem - it's how that energy production is had (i.e. CO2 via coal or gasoline).

Energy efficiency isn't a problem for consumers to adapt to. If you make more efficient lighting (although i really don't like the mercury factor in breakable bulbs) or washer/dryer, hybrid vehicles , etc there is a real economic incentive for folks to buy those products as they can see in decreased energy bills. You don't see many Hummers around, do you?

Jack it up for more plants? How about if we cut off Sierra Club and it's like from tying up the construction of nuclear plants in the courts? That sounds like a more reasonable solution than setting energy reductions w/o consumer protections or technology that is ready today. Too often boards assume technology advancements are on a straight upward trend, but this is naive. Take the hand blowdryer, the thing was totally energy inefficient (but better than papertowels - or so Sierra says), but you had to do it 2-3 times to actually get your hands dry. 40 years later Dyson actually builds a machine that works & uses 83% less energy than the standard dryer AND it actually works (see my hands). That's technology innovation at it's best. Find inefficency and give the people a better product to replace it with.

The point is, advancing technologies are allowing us to go smaller and more efficently. Mandating decrease in energy consumption only threatens energy producers that want to keep their profits high and they will do whatever they can to prevent or adapt to that (i.e. rate increases). Screw those people that want to maintain the status quo of the Vested Interests. ... See all content Hide content

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binaryorganic 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Inaccurate. You can’t say in your headline that the company “sent” the bulbs, and then in the story say that it’s been “postponed.”

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uberVU - social comments 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by triplepundit: Ohio Utility Ship Customers Energy-Efficient Bulbs, Plus a Huge Bill http://bit.ly/pxn2y

#3p…

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zoomaKabu 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

"the state’s new energy law, which requires investor-owned electric utilities to reduce consumption by 22.2 percent by 2025."

What the hell? The "state" should also "require" that it can't rain during sporting events and that Santa Claus is real.

I'll buy my own light bulbs, thank you. Their customers need to dump those CFLs on the front steps of the power company and or the state house. It is time for people to step up refuse to be treated like children. ... See all content Hide content

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binaryorganic 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Buried as Inaccurate. You can't say in your headline that the company "sent" the bulbs, and then in the story say that it's been "postponed."

But even though this article is garbage, and even though the plan is on hold, it's crazy to realize that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio first approved the plan and only put it on hold after complaints. And it's still supposed to go through at some point. They've just got to sort out the details.

The ugliest part of this is that First Energy says they are just recouping the revenues they're losing by implementing a plan to reduce consumers energy usage. That's how they justify the large costs. And Ohio law ALLOWS them to do this. It's actually part of the deal. ... See all content Hide content

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bigjsl 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Twitter

Dodgy USA power co charging customers for energy savings. Forget the government, directly screw the consumers. http://bit.ly/37WANz #fb

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shawnfromnh 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

I'd say it's time for a class action lawsuit. A utility has NO right to push this onto their customers. If they are the only energy provider for that area which is highly possible then the state needs to hold investigations and hold the boards and upper executives of these companies personally responsible and fined personally and not paid for by the company and shareholders. There are also aspects of this that sound like there might be cause for criminal charges. Either would absolutely send a message out to business on how you are allowed to treat customers and how you are NOT to even consider treating customers.

I'd bring the bulbs and whatever else personally right to the utility company and ask for the manager and have him personally take all charges off my bill with threat of lawsuit if they refused since they know they have no leg to stand on. ... See all content Hide content

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iheartbakon 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Isn't there some kind of law if you receive unsolicited goods by mail that your are not legally obligated to pay?

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Ajajadude 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Since when did a contract protect anyone from any sort of legal or civil action?

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nickaster 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

Decoupling (done in California) makes this kind of thing possible without sending people a crazy bill. This is doubly unfortunate as it's a rip off, but also makes people associate rip offs with green ideas. Not cool!

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PeachesTheCow 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Digg

That's utterly not true - decoupling does raise rates, but your lower consumption offsets it. Also, with decoupling you are under no obligation to pay anything more unless you use it.

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energysection 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Twitter

Ohio Utility Ship Customers Energy-Efficient Bulbs, Plus a Huge Bill: Call it greening run amok. Or, more likel.. http://bit.ly/SIibG

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