The vast majority of it is publicy controlled…Non profit probably means that things will get done for the reasons that suit engineers rather than consumers. When engineers ran the system it was far less reliable than it is under the market.

The economic theory that motivated the deregulation and privatization of the US electricity industry is seriously flawed in three crucial ways. First, the Marshallian theory of the firm is based on two mathematical errors which, when amended, reverse the accepted welfare rankings of competitive and monopoly industry structures: on the grounds of corrected neoclassical theory, monopoly should be preferred to competition. Second, while proponents of deregulation expected market-clearing equilibrium prices to apply, it is well known that the equilibrium of a system of spot market prices is unstable.

Yeah, that’s the same theory that we used to privatize and deregulate as well and otherwise referred to as Reaganism, Rogernomics and Thatcherism.

As for gas? Estimated peak is sometime between 2020 and 2030.

As long as this power is generated by non-emitting renewables there’s really no downside to using more and more power.

Considering that we’ll be down to basic sunlight I don’t think there’s going to be more and more power available sometime in the near future. The problem with basic sunlight is summed up here.

I get not wanting households to be exposed to the full pain of the spot market, but I also believe in ripple control to turn off hot water cylinders when power use is at its peak, and night store heaters which use middle-of-the-night cheap hydro. I accept (grudgingly) that price signals work, and that high spot prices are a good indicator of the most environmentally damaging power.

I’d be happiest with some kind of moderated mechanism (like traditional ripple control pricing) where I could get a flat discounted rate for power to some appliances on the condition that they’ll be off for a couple of hours a day when they’d otherwise be powered by burning fossil fuels. That sounds safe.

The problem is that we appear to have a slipperly slope, what say I’m willing to take a huge discount for some appliances to only have power when it can’t be driving fossil fuel demand (so the spot price is very very low)? As a comfortably middle class person who wants that option for some discretionary kitchen appliances (I’m ok with hydro for a fruit juicer, but I’ll use elbow grease rather than burning gas or diesel) that sounds safe. But what about the poor family with sick children or older family members who put their heating onto that plan?

I dunno, I think I have made myself less sure while typing

In the future I think that we’re going to need a heck of a lot more power. As fossil fuel production peaks and then declines we will have to be running our cars off electricity, and eventually gas will become prohibitively expensive so all gas stoves and heaters will probably switch to electricity. As long as this power is generated by non-emitting renewables there’s really no downside to using more and more power.

Big deal. I want security of costs – not being forced to “innovate” by cooking my dinner at 4am, or do without heating in winter. because the latter is apparently what the Mercury Energy TOU trial shows happens when you stick people on these things.

I like the idea of monitoring and managing everything which a smart meter makes possible; I want the better information smart metes make possible. But I don’t want to be exposed to the spot market, and there’s no reason why I should have to be. And if greedy power companies think it would be “more efficient” if I was, they can bite me.