more alcohol
So on Tuesday I addressed the Bethel City council. I urged them to officially support SB 85, the measure to cut the importation limits in half for damp communities. I explained how this would mean people would be “limited” to only 10 drinks per day every day, or 70 drinks on the weekends if you prefer to binge. Here is the math:
Current Limits on hard alcohol are 10.5L or 14 fifths, 24 L/32 fifths of wine, and 12 gallons/127 cans of beer. Using the guidelines from these guys, 1 serving of alcohol is 1.25 oz of 80-proof liquor, 4 oz of wine, or 1 can (12 oz) of beer. A fifth is 25.6 oz, so 14 fifths of hard alcohol is roughly 358 oz or so of hard liquor, which divided by 1.25 oz comes to around 286 servings. Per month. Add on to that your 32 fifths of wine, which = 819 oz, divided by 4 oz = about 205 servings. Per month. Add on to that 127 cans of beer, and you have a total of…618 servings? Per month. So basically 20 drinks per day, or 140 on the weekend binge. Using that same link, you can see that 10 drinks is enough to get anyone drunk, or even fatally poison a smaller person (once your BAC is that high you’re at huge risk). So obviously, 20 drinks every day is beyond excessive.
SB 85 would cut it all in half, limiting you to an average of 10 legal drinks per day, or just over 300 per month. I told the council the only reason you should oppose this measure is if you really think you need that 11th, 15th, and 20th drink. Every day. Or that 71st, 120th, 140th drink on the weekend binge. I also reminded them of the March 10 meeting when a representative from the ABC spoke with them about the possible implications of the bill. The council wanted to know about possible tax revenue if they go wet (there is currently an initiative to go wet circulating in Bethel, apparently in response to this onerous, egregious intrusion on our personal liberties). We learned that the amount of additional tax revenue would come to roughly…diddly squat. The revenue would be limited to what could be raised through a sales tax. I believe the exception to this would be if the city were to use the “alcohol delivery site” model where one building controls the flow of alcohol for the whole region (the city could help run it and have a special tax on it), but the pro-alcohol side didn’t go for that in a recent election.
I went on to mention the proven trend in Alaska that when a community moves from dry to damp or damp to wet, crime shoots up (this is common knowledge here). I also pointed out that since every village in the entire area is dry, going wet and/or opposing this measure is really offensive to the region. Bethel has very low voter turnout, and the election is swung by those who do come out, which is a lot of people from outside who don’t grasp the impact of bootlegged alcohol on the dry villages. But if they try and go wet I don’t think it would pass. That’s when people pour into the polls to vote who don’t normally show up, and they vote it down. Anyway, I summed it up by saying that if you oppose this measure, you’re saying you need that 11th to 20th drink per day, and if you want to go wet, you’re saying 20 every day isn’t enough for you, and the city won’t get hardly any additional revenue, but lots more arrests and prosecutions required, not to mention the heartache and violence from house to house. To me it’s a slam dunk. A no-brainer. I ended by saying I have no problem with people drinking responsibly, that I follow Jesus, who seemed to drink on a regular basis, but I think we should respect the villages’ stated desire to make alcohol as expensive and hard to come by as possible. The truth is that this measure only impinges on 3 things: bootleggers, people who don’t want to have to fax in their order twice as often to the Anchorage liquor stores, and people’s sense of independence – government stay the heck out of our lives, which is a proud and powerful Alaska tradition. But as I mentioned to the council, occasionally government has a good idea, and this is one of them.
So I was done. And then they tell me that they already officially voted at a previous meeting to oppose the measure. And the senate stopped taking public input on the issue, though the house still has it in committee. Which is why I should have written this 2 months ago, when I wrote most of it in my head. I’m a busy guy, it’s after 1 am and I have to work tomorrow morning but I figured now or never, and maybe just maybe some good could come out of this. Oh, by the way, I emailed several council members and asked them what their rationale was for opposing it. I’ve only gotten one reply so far, which said that they opposed it because it is a “hot button issue” and councilmembers will lose their positions if they are on the wrong side. Hmmm. I don’t know what the vote was (7-0?). Sad.
***Update – I forgot to address some stuff from the paper. Our Juneau representative wrote in the Delta Discovery (scroll down to 2/11/09) that he had multiple problems with the bill and that it was a “drastic reduction.” He also said he fears it will push damp communities to go wet (which makes no sense – as I stated above – 10 drinks every day isn’t enough for you?), and cause the price of bootlegged alcohol to rise “exponentially.” If it went up exponentially, then after a little while Bill Gates couldn’t buy a drink. But I know what he meant. And I think if a fifth of vodka goes from $100+ where it is now to $200 or whatever, what is wrong with that? Great! The more it costs, the less people can buy it, and the less likely that kids will get as much to try. Studies show that when cigarettes are taxed, kids are less likely to spend the money to get them (through someone else). Wouldn’t the same thing apply here? I know I’m on a big soapbox here, but every reason I can think of for opposing SB85 is a bad one. Selfishness, greed, lack of compassion, disrespect toward tribal sovereignty, etc.
Peter Twitchell also wrote about the issue in the same paper, scroll down to 2/12/09. In general I like both of these guys and what they write and contribute to the delta. I won’t rake Peter over the coals here, not now anyway. Of course SB85 won’t magically fix anything. Nothing will. But that isn’t an excuse to do nothing! To quibble over this bill that has zero affect on a responsible drinker, while communities are drowning in the pain and misery of alcoholism (and quite often literally drowning, or killing themselves, or beating up their families, or…), gets me riled up enough that I would do something dumb like stay up to 2 am to write this post.
postage increase
Now is that a snappy title or what?!? This is the sort of hard-hitting, action-packed investigative journalism that you come here for. Shocking revelations! Buckle your seatbelt, brace yourself, and throw in your own cliche, here we go. The ol’ USPS, bringer of most everything to our part of the world, is raising the price of a first class stamp all the way up to 44 cents, on May 11. That is the only thing most folks around the country will really notice. Us bushies however will see the cost of mailing our groceries home skyrocket. And of course also the cost of buying locally will go up since everything local was mailed in by someone and we absorb the cost. Let me qualify the term ’skyrocket.’ Here are some examples:
Weight Old Price New Price
30 $11.81 $15.37
40 $12.65 $17.70
50 $13.41 $19.26
60 $14.09 $20.83
70 $14.70 $22.39
So about now you’re thinking “OK, so you spend a few more bucks.” Duuuuuuuuuuude. You know how many boxes we mail in to ourselves? Think of all the “stuff” in your life. Food. Toilet paper. Furniture. Anything we can fit in a small enough box and that can be broken down to 70# or less units gets mailed. Our school’s “student store” brings in about 60 heavy boxes a month, so a cost increase overnight of around $400/month. When my wife and I shop in anchorage for the next 5 months of groceries and supplies, we regularly mail around 30-something boxes. So at around an extra $6 per box, it adds up. The sky isn’t falling, but our purchase power is.
alcohol postscript
An added note, the following is an email exchange between myself and the head of the state alcohol beverage control board on the subject, back when I wrote that piece on alcohol. I’m only putting a snippet of it in here. I tried to leave it as a comment on the last post, but wordpress was being moody.
From: Peter Schneidler [mailto:schneidler@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 2:00 PM
To: DPS ABC WEB
Subject: questions for the ABC
I heard you on KYUK radio from when you had a representative speak before the Bethel City Council about the new law that creates a database to track what people order into damp communities. They were blasting you and generally behaving like selfish 7 year olds, as usual. I wanted to express my support of you all and your ongoing effort to support those villages that have decided on their own to try and regulate or stamp out alcohol from their community. Thank you for what you do, please keep it up, and bust those bootleggers who bring so much pain and trouble to the villages!!!! Peter Schneidler Kasigluk, AK
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I appreciate your support regarding my performance before the Bethel City Council. I understand where the City Council is coming from; their constituents are Bethel residents, many of whom feel put upon by all of the hassles and intrusions government imposes on them. The focus of the Commission on Rural Justice and Law Enforcement and the new state legislation is on trying to protect the villages that are trying to help themselves by adopting local options to control access to alcohol. This involves coming up with a regional approach which involves addressing a major “hole in the dike”, the written order process of getting alcohol through Bethel . The whole effort to deal with alcohol abuse in rural Alaska is frustrating. I believe in personal responsibility, but the problem is so great we are placed in the position of protecting people from themselves. We also must, of course, protect the children who are the innocent victims of alcohol abuse and the next in line to suffer the cycle of misery brought on by this social epidemic of addiction. Along the way the people who obtain and use alcohol responsibly are forced to jump through hoops that they feel are unfair. What is the alternative? I hope this information helps and thank you for your interest in your village and dedication as an educator. – Doug Griffin, Director, ABC Board
alcohol in bush Alaska
Or “An open letter to Bethel drinkers.” Booze are obviously a big problem in this part of the world, as they are in many other first nations communities. Below is something I wrote back in the fall of ‘07 and somehow never posted until now. It came up for me again because of the news that the governor is trying to push through a bill that would reduce the monthly amounts each resident can legally import into a damp community. I know Gov Palin is a lightning rod these days, but I’m behind her all the way on this issue. If you disagree with me (and I know many do), leave a meaningful comment. Dialogue, not “you ——.”
Thoughts on alcohol, rights, and responsibility
10/1/07
The state of Alaska has “local option laws” that allow communities to decide if they want to allow alcohol to be sold locally (wet), only imported with monthly limits (damp), or not imported/possessed at all (dry). Most (or maybe all?) villages in the YK Delta area where I live voted to go dry. Bethel, the only major city in the area and hub community for all 56 delta villages, is damp.
Alaska law allows people in “damp” communities to import up to:
10.5* liters of Distilled Spirits (vodka, gin, whisky, etc, max would be 14 fifths (750 ml bottle) per month); and
24 liters of wine (usually 750 ml or 1.5 L, max would be 32 fifths per month); and
12 gallons of malt beverages (beer, wine coolers, zima, etc, sold in 12, 16, 20, 40 oz, and gallons & kegs. Max would be about 127 12-oz cans.)
So that is a max of 14 fifths of hard alcohol, 32 fifths of wine, and 127 cans of beer, every month. What the heck are we thinking? So I could have a fifth of wine, a half of a fifth of hard booze, and 4 cans of beer every day, and still have some left over at the end of every month! And this is per person, not household, so my wife and other adults in my home could all do the same. RIDICULOUS!!!
The pivotal issue of course is that drinking is viewed as a right. The argument is “It’s not my problem if that guy can’t handle it or if that other guy is selling it illegally, I have a right to drink and I haven’t done anything wrong.” Ahhhh yes, your rights. I was listening to Bethel radio station KYUK broadcasting the city council meeting where the council members were blasting a representative from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (Doug Griffin) because of the new law that sets up a database to track people’s monthly imports so they don’t go over the “limit” by ordering the max from multiple vendors each month. One guy complained that they were cutting this and cutting that, basically saying the limits were coming down too low (although the limits to my knowledge haven’t changed one iota). Another said the law will likely be overturned by litigation because it is too intrusive. Never mind that this poor sap was just charged with enforcing the law, and didn’t create it himself.
As I listened to their arguments, I got upset (I mean, more than the usual anger I feel when I listen to those meetings—the Bethel City Council generally behaves like children in need of spankings). Why? The alcohol is destroying lives out here right and left, and all you can see is your RIGHTS. Yes, it’s your legal right. I don’t deny that. But why is it so hard to surrender that right to make such an enormous difference in other people’s lives? I can only think of two reasons. Logically, you must be either (1) so addicted or (2) so selfish that you don’t care what the consequences to your neighbors are. Am I making you mad now? GOOD! Join the club! Feel free to respond and let me know how I’m wrong! You can make all kinds of arguments and attempts at justification and talk about how you can’t control other’s actions, they’d get it from somewhere anyway, they need to be responsible for what they do, etc etc but at the core of it, you are supporting something that allows terrible things to happen out here, over and over. Period. The stats (from other village case studies) say if Bethel went dry, or even just got an alcohol delivery site, the crime and heartache would go down, and you are resisting. How do you justify that? You’re resisting even being limited to the absurd amounts listed above! Remember in the movie Braveheart how that king “Longshanks” had the right to take daughters of Scotland away with him for sex, and then discard them? Having a legal “right” does not make you RIGHT.
Imagine I moved to a foreign land where the majority of the populace struggled with obesity, compulsively binging and putting themselves at huge risk of heart attack (or wait, that’s the U.S.). In passing it should be noted that these people used to only eat healthily until ancestors from my race introduced chocolate to them, which they have a hard time resisting. Suppose I insisted on my right, and everyone else’s right who lives there, to order 200 snickers, 500 twix, and 1,200 bags of M&M’s from my homeland every month. I’m a skinny guy, its not my problem they can’t handle it, they’re weak, etc etc. So I fight any attempt to lower those limits, even though tons of people are eating themselves to death on candy, and slimebags next door are selling the stuff to them at every opportunity for a 1000% profit. How can you come to any conclusion but that person is selfish, even if they are within their rights? And/or they’re addicted themselves. So that was a clumsy analogy – you know what I mean.
I’m all for personal responsibility. We all make choices, and we have to live with the consequences of those actions. I’m also not very into legislating morality. People need to do the right thing out of the strength of their character, not because they’re being forced to. And there are lots of people in this area making lots of crappy choices with respect to alcohol (and other stuff, which is why we lead the world in horrendous statistics). I don’t deny it.
However, since moving here and seeing nothing from alcohol but pain and suffering, it’s moved me to consider more drastic measures. There are statistics from nearly every village that goes from wet to damp, or damp to dry, that show a reduction in drinking and all of the crime that goes with it. There are no stats for “heartache” but you can bet that goes down with the crime. Similarly, when a village goes from dry to damp, or damp to wet, the trouble shoots up. This is not open to debate, it’s the Truth.
If your desire to cling to your “right” to import ludicrous amounts of booze every month is so much stronger than your compassion at the state of your fellow man (even if they have made many crappy choices), then you have a serious problem. The villages have spoken, and they want to be alcohol free, but it keeps pouring into the damp towns, and from there to the dry villages.
Your neighbors have a drinking problem. Your problem is worse. You’ve chosen a beverage over people – your neighbors and maybe even your own family. I invite you to change your way of thinking.
Emmonak, Nunam Iqua, hard times, and publicity
In case you haven’t heard, its been a hard winter here in Western Alaska. I don’t have time to delve deeply into this issue, but wanted to at least mention it and put up the relevant links involved because it is getting some national attention. I feel personally unresolved on the whole thing. Obviously my sympathies are generally with my neighbors, who we love, and who are the reason we live here. So I resent a lot of the mindless oversimplified criticism they receive all the time, and especially during times of crises like this. However, to me it seems like the other side is oversimplifying things too, painting everyone as helpless victims. A little bit of the “natives are pure, innocent children who must be left untouched” vibe seems to come into play in their tone at times too. This is all (obviously) quite volative, explosive stuff. And like I say I’m somewhere in the middle and haven’t personally processed or figured out where I stand on a lot of it. I need to pray. But at this point I’m darn sure that the issue is complex. Far moreso than the neophytes posting on these various message boards believe. Issues of cultures colliding, differing values, and other big stuff that is really unknowable from the outside. Now all that said, I think it is fantastic that people want to send cold/hungry eskimos help in the way of food and money, pretty much without any questions and sight unseen. That is amazing! And its cool that some of them are using the super-duper flat-rate priority boxes from the USPS to do it. That is a huuuuge $$ saver shipping to AK. OK, I have work to do and have been reading some of these links for hours now and HAVE to stop. Here is all the hullabaloo:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-rural-alaska25-2009jan25,0,2236427.story?page=1
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http://www.themudflats.net/2009/01/25/shopping-day-in-nunam-iqua-alaska/
I have to say that this website mostly annoys me because he is such an unabashed Palin-hater. She could sell all her posessions and give them to a leper colony in India and he would find a way to see evil in it. I feel the dude, and 90% of the commenters, have lost perspective. Between that and the woeful ignorance that comes from those from outside who try and speak with authority on alaska issues, I don’t even try and counter them on that site. Pearls before swine. I’m not a Palin fanboy, but remember my formative years in Alaska politics were under Frank Murkowski and the astoundingly arrogant and corrupt GOP establishment in Alaska. And they ALL hate Palin with a passion, and she kicked their butts and helped get most of them out of places of power. For this she has some measure of undying goodwill in my book. And no, I didn’t vote for her, in the primary or the general election. But these guys just go too far in demonizing her.
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http://anonymousbloggers.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/hello-world/
This one is devoted to the issue, the blog serves no other purpose, and it is run by a nice travel agent from Florida (who has actually even visited my blog, making her 1 of a very select few…)
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Then there is a facebook page, of course, already with hundreds of members:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45538795204#/group.php?gid=45538795204
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And finally the most popular site of the bunch, by far, is the amusing and offensive octogenarian writing found at:
http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/
specifically, this post is where they mention it: http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/apparently-ann-coulters-feet-are-as-big-as-an-emus/
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Obviously, the latter site’s occupants are huge Palin fans as well. Ha ha ha. I don’t mind dissent. What annoys me is that a lot of these people seem to be expressing concern for my neighbors only out of a desire to shame and criticize Palin, who they perceive as slow to respond to the issue. Just like Hugo Chavez giving oil to our villages to shame George Bush’s lack of care for first nations people. We willingly take the help because we need it (using “we” in the broad sense. My family doesn’t qualify, nor does it need it), but at the same time its not exactly a pure love gift, is it, when politics are the driving force for many of the givers. Actually, by setting herself up as a national punching bag for the left, Palin has provided for us, just not in the normal way…heh heh. Palin haters are giving until it hurts! : – )
I know my tone here is of a Palin defender. But its only because of the irrational diatribe filling the ‘net on those other sites, its like I have to swing the other way a little bit. Its my site. Deal with it. Sure, rural Alaskans have it tough. Yes, there is a double standard. But it has largely been this way since….forever. This is indeed an unusually tough winter, but its not unheard of, and its the same stuff as always, just a little worse this time. The story told by the woman from Nunam Iqua about what she has to do to go shopping, that would have been largely the same story last year or 1o years ago.
The response I always have for those who say we should all just move out of the bush because of the lack of services is “What do you think Anchorage was like 60 years ago? Or any big city – they all started out as a frontier town at one point. Does that mean they should never have gotten indoor plumbing? By that logic the pilgrims should have gone back to England and never stayed here.” Stupid. There are colonists and people who choose to live on the frontiers of civilization, and they accept that it will be hard. However, it is only natural for them to want to improve their situation, and appeal to the centers of power and finance for help in that regard. This was the case when this place was “Russian America” and they besieged the czars for funding and help colonizing the territory and it remains true today. I suppose some Russians in Moscow begrudged the royal coffers going to help the territory and probably used the same line (“if you don’t like it you should just move back to civilization”). So I suppose the criticism is inevitable, but I believe its short-sighted and selfish.
Not to say that every citizen in Western Alaska is a shrewd money manager or makes all the right choices. Of course not. OK, I’m stopping. Time to get some real work done. The kind I get paid for, I mean.
Grizzly Volleyball
Our high school mixed-6 (boys and girls) volleyball team is playing at state this week. We’re obviously excited and so proud of them. Our school has never sent any team to state, to my knowledge. Although Akula (the new side of Kasigluk) has sent teams before, at least in basketball. Anyway, its fantastic. They were the shortest team they saw all season but it didn’t stop them. And I’m probably more proud of them all being eligible than I am of their victories, silly as that might seem to them. They worked their butts off doing extra reading and whatever it took to catch up and stay eligible. The good news? Staying caught up is a lot easier than digging out of the hole! You can track their progress here (for a little while anyway – scroll down). Thanks BSSD!
We’re #3! We’re #3!
You think Illinois is bad? Hah! It has NUTHIN on Alaska or especially North Dakota, that legendarily sordid den of iniquity. USA Today put out a seriously flawed study that proves Illinois hasn’t caught us yet. And as soon as Weyrauch and maybe Don Young and a couple more after that are added to the list we’ll be #1. As Napoleon would say: “Yessssss.” Here is the view from Ketchikan.
recycling in the bush – is it worth it?
Another new change is some recycling is happening right now. There are a couple of people in our village who work on recycling, collecting used batteries, pop cans, bottles, etc. It must be grant funded. They drive over to our school from Akula by boat or snowgo (1.5 miles each way), sort out the tons of nasty candy wrappers, spit cans, and other trash that gets placed in the recycling container, put the recyclables in huge plastic alpar bags, drive them back over to akula, later drive them to the runway and put them on a Hageland Aviation plane, which takes it 25 miles to Northern Air Cargo in Bethel, which flies it 400+ miles to Anchorage, where it is picked up by a Smurfit-Stone recycling company truck (the people who run the recycling center behind napa auto parts on Dowling). I think it gets crushed and semi-processed there, and then a lot of it gets barged over 1,000 miles to Seattle or somewhere for further processing. Now, all of these planes and barges are carrying the stuff for free or at a steep discount because it is all “back haul,” going the direction in which the vehicle is usually empty (NAC planes fly from ANC to BET stuffed full, and fly back nearly empty, so prices to send freight from BET-ANC is cheap), and because it is a “good cause” and because it is usually light (bags of pop cans are light). Finally, we actually get a check from the Anchorage recycling people for $.35 per pound of cans we sent in.
SO. My question is, can it possibly be worth it to go through all of those steps? What is the benefit from a single recycled aluminum can or plastic juice bottle? In terms of CO2 emissions and global warming, can this process be mathematically justified? I doubt it, but I really don’t know. I do know that shipping is expensive out here, and each pop can is going through a lot of shipping. Now, I’m all for recycling. I want it to continue in our village just to raise the awareness level, as more of a social consciousness exercise than for the practical feasability. And I like the idea of less trash in the landfill and on the ground outside the school (see my old entry on the styrofoam lunch trays we use). In fact, I’ve been pushing for our student store to start accepting used cans in exchange for a 5 cent credit at the student store (which would only really cost us like 2 or 3 cents per can). The staff member running the store is concerned that we would be inundated with cans from people all over, cans not sold from our store. I kind of doubt it, but even if so, great we’re recycling even more! It’s ok, we’ll just agree to disagree on that one. : – ) Of course the best recycling is just reusing something locally. Like in Anchorage they use the crushed glass in some local factory. Anyway, I just had to bring up that whole recycling issue.
cell phones in the bush
The times they are a channnnngin’. Did you know we have cell phone service now??!!?? Crazy! I heard that my village was signing up more people than any other village on the delta. People are signing up in droves, almost all of them getting the $54.99 unlimited plan and not cancelling their regular land line. No idea where all that $$ is coming from. I think its a little nuts because the $30.00 plan would probably do it just fine. Oh well. I’d like to sign up and cancel our land line (horrrrible service, but won’t go into that now), but I’m holding out for now, hoping for a pay as you go thing. The current plans don’t work for us because of the $.15 per minute to call outside of alaska. But its perfect for my neighbors. Although now that I look at it…nationwide 500 minutes for $40 isn’t too bad…hmm… The idea of a cell phone for possible use while out in a boat or snowgo between Kasigluk and Atmau or Napakiak or whatever is verrrry appealing. It is not intended to work between villages, but because the tundra around KUK is flat as a pancake it does work for several miles, so I’ve heard. Pretty cool.
net metering
OK, this is going to be a doozy, and it’s been a long time in coming. If you don’t care a whit about net metering, hit “page down” 25 times now (seriously). I’ve participated at times in a discussion with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) regarding possible new rules regarding net metering in Alaska. The following is an exchange that I had with Bob Reagan, an executive from Municipal Light and Power (ML&P), an Anchorage electric utility. Seeing the varying viewpoints on this single issue was really striking, to me. I’ve meant to post this forever. I meant to continue the discussion with this guy, but my summer graduate internship (all of June and July) followed by over 2 months of homelessness (well not really, but thats another story) got in the way.
I’m pasting our emails in here, but it can be very confusing. Black is my original email, which Mr Reagan replied to in pink, which I replied to in brown, and then he replied to in bold pink. So as you read, you’re getting it out of chronological order, sort of backwards and forwards, if you know what I mean. Leave comments with any questions if I’ve just totally confused you.
Mr. Schneidler – I also think this kind of dialogue is a good thing, but I am replying to you alone on this round just because I think the rest of the mailing list may be getting tired of it and think we are getting down into the weeds. Feel free to distribute as you see fit. I will use bold pink. I hope it doesn’t look like shouting, but we are running out of good colors.
From: Peter Schneidler [mailto:schneidler@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 12:34 PM
To: Reagan, Robert (Bob) R.;
Subject: Re: Net Metering – RCA Workshop Comments
Thanks Mr Reagan for your comments. I honestly appreciate the discussion and the search for truth. I’ll make my responses in brown – I hope they are legible. Black, blue, pink, and red have already been used. : – )
Quoting from something I wrote near the bottom, clearly we’re agreeing to disagree here. I see cheaper, cleaner power. You see more expensive power that steals small but ’significant’ amounts from my neighbors and does harm and gets in the way of large utility-scale projects. But again I appreciate the dialogue as it is rare from people who apparently sit on opposite sides of an issue. You have correctly characterized this.
-Peter Schneidler
—– Original Message —-
From: ” Reagan, Robert (Bob) R.”
To: Peter Schneidler <schneidler@yahoo.com>;
Sent: Tuesday, May 6, 2008 6:28:30 PM
Subject: RE: Net Metering – RCA Workshop Comments
This is a reply to Mr. Schneidler’s reply. I am using what looks like pink, on my screen. I will excise all parts of Mr. Schneidler’s document that I am not responding to.
From: Peter Schneidler [mailto:schneidler@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 5:18 PM
To: Reagan, Robert (Bob) R.;
Subject: Re: Net Metering – RCA Workshop Comments
This is a response to Mr Reagan’s email and a copy of the comments I sent Mr Gibson earlier. Warning: it’s really long. : – )
Thank you Mister Reagan for your clarification. That was my understanding as well, that the utilities, particularly MEA and ML&P were in flat opposition to net metering. Regarding your closing statement:
“before diving into specific details, we should decide what we are trying to accomplish, and whether that objective justifies subsidies. This issue gets danced around a little bit during these discussions, but I believe that Chugach believes, and ML&P certainly does, that the question should be answered rigorously before the discussion goes any further.”
Off the top of my head, aren’t we trying to get cheaper, cleaner energy? Having private citizens pay for the power generation equipment instead of public dollars is about as cheap as you can get. And because of the long life of the equipment they even end up being a good investment for the purchaser. And they’re much cleaner than the technologies they are displacing. I’m no expert, but sun and wind seem pretty clean to me. So doesn’t net metering match what we want?
This illustrates my point. If we want cheaper energy, net metering will clearly be counter productive. If it has any effect at all, it will cause cheaper energy to be displaced by more expensive energy. Therefore, if cheaper energy is the only motivation, the clear course of action is to avoid net metering.
Can you explain your logic here? I’m not trying to be combative, I’m truly not following you. If I pay for my own renewable power-generating equipment, the public is getting energy from that equipment without paying any of the up-front cost needed to acquire it. Delving into the math, suppose I spend $13,000 on a skystream 1.8 kw wind turbine purchase and installation that averages 400 kwh per month for 30 years. That comes out to 144,000 kwh over what is supposed to be its maintenance-free lifetime. $13,000/144000 kwh = about 9 cents per kWh. Right now, the fuel cost for my village is 14 cents per kWh. Since I’m paying for it, and since it produces power at 65% of avoided cost, how is it not cheaper? Can you be more specific?
On the cheaper issue: A utility doesn’t have any money that it doesn’t take from its rate payers. Therefore, if the utility’s costs go up, it will charge more for its services (basically, power). Net metering requires the utility to purchase energy from a rate payer that it otherwise would either produce itself, or purchase on the market (for those of us with access to a market), at a price that is necessarily higher than the cost the utility would otherwise incur. (I say “necessarily higher” because the utility includes both cost of power and cost of the distribution function in the retail price. The sum of power cost and distribution cost is always higher than the power cost. In addition to that, the utility’s power cost is not just the cost of operating generation, it is the cost of owning excess generation in case it’s needed, and its the cost of running excess generation, in case it’s needed suddenly. These are both costs that a net metering customer does not incur in its own generation.) Another way of looking at this is that the utility charges its retail rate for firm electric power, delivered to the customer’s home (residential customer), at exactly the time that the customer wants it, in exactly the quantity that the customer wants. The net metering customer, in contrast, delivers whatever power is convenient for the customer to produce, whenever the customer wants to produce it, at exactly the point that is convenient for the customer. This is clearly a less valuable commodity than the one that the utility is providing, yet the net metering customer gets exactly the same price. The exact amount will vary with circumstances, but there is always a subsidy.
Shifting the discussion to your numerical example, I won’t be exhaustive, but I will try to point out some defects in your analysis. First, and most important, you are not requiring the utility to pay your cost for the power, you are requiring it to pay the retail rate for residential service, which I have pointed out includes a lot of services other than (in addition to) randomly generated kWh. You are requiring the utility to pay you about 20¢/kWh. Since (including PCE) the utility could otherwise acquire the same power at much lower cost, you are driving the utility’s costs and rates up. Now, if wind turbines are actually cost effective, we have to assume that AVEC is smart enough to install them itself, in order to minimize costs. If AVEC is not minimizing costs, that is a different issue, which should be dealt with by the members.
One more note is that your analysis ignores the time value of money. The 144000 kWh of claimed electric energy is produced over a 30 year period, and if your discount rate is around 10% (very few individuals have a discount rate much below that) it costs you $1,300 in discount each year to own the unit, in addition to depreciation on the unit. (I.e. you must either borrow money, or use money that you would otherwise use to make other investments or pay off debt. Even though interest rates are often below 10%, there are other costs of borrowing, and risks you incur, which bring your average cost of capital well above your interest cost.)
On the other hand, if we want cleaner energy, and are willing to pay more for it, net metering for renewables might be a way to encourage it. Then, the question becomes: is net metering an efficient way to encourage renewable (i.e. clean) energy. ML&P argues that it is not, while net metering proponents appear to believe that it is, but at least we could argue about actual, defined purposes, instead of simply assuming an agreement between effects and purposes that does not really exist. It really would improve the quality of discourse if (assuming that anybody thinks otherwise) we established that a desire for cheaper energy is not a justification for net metering. Then we can focus on issues where there might be more question.
I totally agree with your thought process here. Obviously not your conclusions, but its a good start for discussion. I agree that we should establish IF a desire for cheaper energy is a justification for net metering or not. I would think this would be a pretty simple matter of doing some sample scenarios from say 10 areas around the state, in each case using like 4 or 5 different levels of renewable generation. This would give us hard numbers to refer to. I also agree with your prior question, “is net metering an efficient way to encourage renewable (ie clean) energy.” I agree that it would be helpful when forming policy to have an answer answer for both of those.
I do not think it’s necessary at this point to estimate quantities, as I believe that the theoretical issues are dispositive. The reasons that I do not think that net metering is a cost effective means of promoting renewable energy are that (1) the subsidies it causes will encourage people to make uneconomic investments, which does nobody good except (maybe) the investor receiving the subsidy, and (2) it excludes all possible sources of renewable energy except customer owned sources. A carbon tax, on the other hand, would give everyone an incentive, and if we get the level of the tax right, we will get the right overall response, including response from consumers. By the way, some people think that the tax would be a cost (I am not accusing you of this error, since we have not discussed it) but it is not. It is a transfer, and it could displace other taxes and be revenue neutral, or it could fund additional government services, depending on which we think is more important.
I was poking around on the regulatory policy standards of the State of Alaska and found 3 purposes explained there:
(1) conservation of energy supplied by electric and gas utilities;
(2) the optimization of the efficiency of use of facilities and resources by electric and gas utilities; and
(3) the establishment of equitable rates to electric and gas consumers.
I think it’s hard to deny that net metering would result in more clean, renewable cogeneration, resulting in a conservation of energy in the form of diesel or gas or whatever.
It is easy to deny that net metering will result in more cogeneration. More to the point, it is easy to deny that net metering will be an effective (and, equally importantly, cost effective) means of increasing clean or renewable generation. Certainly, if the discussion proceeds from uncritical assumptions like this, it will be very difficult to reach valid conclusions.
I’m confused again. If you make a so-so investment more attractive, is it not reasonable that it will then be purchased more often? In the case of the wind turbine and my local power costs and wind resource I’m always referring to, net metering would reduce the payback period from an estimated 19 years to about 13 years. Please give me more data as to why you can easily deny that net metering will result in more cogeneration.
I was being a little flip on cogeneration. In the utility world, cogeneration refers to a technical process where waste energy from one process (typically the electric generation process) is used as input to a different (non generation) process, like building heat, or some industrial process. I guess a utility customer actually might install a very small cogeneration plant, and use the waste heat to heat a home or something, but you never hear of it. What would be more typical would be a 10 MW to 100 MW combined cycle turbogenerator with a waste heat recovery boiler mounted on its exhaust, downstream of the heat recovery boiler, to produce hot water or low grade steam that is used to heat something, like a laundry or greenhouse.
On your more fundamental point, I agree that net metering might result in more renewable generation, I just do not believe that it is an efficient way to do it. My basic problem is that as a program, it assumes a relationship between distributed generation and renewable generation that I don’t think exists. I am not opposed to distributed generation that is also renewable, I am just opposed to particularly favoring distributed generation that is also renewable. It is likely, in my mind (admittedly not certain), that every dollar spent on renewable distributed generation would be better spent on large scale renewable generation.
Secondly, utilizing the available wind and other renewable resources is clearly an efficient optimization of the available resources.
This may well be true, but why should we assume that the only way to use available wind and other resources is through net metering. I don’t make this assumption. Actually, AVEC is putting up wind turbines all over the place these days and I think that is fantastic. It seems more likely that the best way to develop wind power is through utility scale developments, and that is certainly true of other renewable resources such as geothermal and hydro. I’m sure you’re right – a giant wind turbine is generally far more efficient that a little one. I just think we should encourage BOTH individual and utility-scale renewable projects. As may have been clear from my response above, I agree with the idea of encouraging both distributed and utility scale projects, but being a market oriented economist, I think that the way to do that is to offer the same incentive to all renewable generation, and let the two types of project compete for the market. Actually, I would go farther (again, as mentioned above) and offer a disincentive for non-renewable generation, in the form of a carbon tax, rather than an incentive for renewable generation.
Relying solely on outrageously priced diesel in places with constant, brutal winds seems to not live up to #2.
Again, that may be true, but it is not, in itself, an argument for net metering. You’re right. Its just one part of my larger argument.
The third point is the one the utilities are clinging to.
I object to the phrase “clinging to”. I really must stress that other than looking out for the rate payers’ welfare, the utilities have no real reason to be concerned about net metering. If the RCA directs us to take money from our non net metering rate payers and give it to our net metering rate payers, we can do it.
OK, I apologize. I guess I’ve been skeptical that such a passionate, united front would be only due to the utilities desire to protect rate payers from a few extra cents per year. But I’ll take you at your word. I’m sorry for that word choice. I knew I’d probably make some wrong assumptions.
But the amount of rate disparity that might result from net metering has proven to be so small that this is a false argument, in my view.
This has been true, so far, only because the renewable distributed generation technologies are so expensive that few people are willing to install them even with the massive subsidies that result from net metering. If their price ever gets low enough that a 300% subsidy is enough to make them profitable, they will start to have a very serious effect on rates.
Not if we cap the amount of cogeneration that can participate in net metering at some small percentage of total utility output. If you read the study I linked to below, that is their precise conclusion, that the key to price control is a low cap. Secondly, in my case net metering would not be a 300% subsidy, it would take me from 14 cents/kWh to 20 cents/kWh, a ’subsidy’ of under 43%. This subsidy would help cover my up-front equipment costs, which is what much of the ’subsidy’ the utilities charge is for as well. First, I should admit that I have been using numbers like 300% subsidy because those numbers are roughly what happens in Anchorage . You are correct that they do not apply to AVEC, and they are also less true for Fairbanks than they are for Anchorage also (because there is no low cost natural gas in Fairbanks ). So I yield to your numbers for your utility. However, to me, this just means that AVEC, or at least some parts of it, is under real threat from net metering (because renewable energy is closer to being cost effective, but there is still a subsidy. What makes it dangerous is if net metered customers could actually profit by installing their own systems, because then a lot of them might want to do it.
Your suggestion that the risk can be mitigated with a cap on the amount is true, but it seems to me like an admission that a harmful subsidy is involved, so we have to limit the harm to a manageable level. This is where my argument that a small harm is worse than no harm comes in. On the other hand, if we can develop an environment where the renewable generation does not harm the utility (by which I mean its customers), then it doesn’t have to be limited, and we can have enough of it to make a real difference. After all, if we limit net metering to, say, 1% of load, the most we are going to save on fuel is 1%, which isn’t going to do much for the environment.
With respect to your argument that the 43% subsidy you would get under net metering would cover your up front equipment costs, you should know that it is not the same as what the utilities are using the same money for. The utilities are using it for all of the equipment that you do not have, like a distribution system, redundant generation, control costs, and spinning reserve. ML&P’s retail rates would only be about 4¢/kWh if all we had to do is generate electricity at a constant level, and the customers came to pick it up at the power plant.
This link takes you to a short (5 or 6 pages) study done by the Maryland Energy Administration (presumably a bias-free branch of state government?) Who knows? Well, I just meant that it was written by someone in government, not by, say…greenpeace.
on what happened in Maryland when they first implemented net metering and the impact it had. Most germane to this discussion is the part about how much it impacted the rate structure for the average customer (hint: diddly-squat).
Again, that doesn’t prove anything until some renewable distributed technology gets within a couple of hundred percent of the cost of utility generation. Again, I admit that for you, the percentage would not be that high, but to me, that just increases the risk for AVEC
Either I don’t understand your objection or you didn’t understand the study. I’ll admit that I haven’t even read it They used a utility worst-case scenario in their models, making hypothetical projections that 100% of the possible net metering cogeneration (up to the cap What is the cap?) would be used. So the real-world cost of the technology is irrelevant. Their projection assumes that everyone would immediately want to rush out and set up their own solar system, and if they did and went all the way to the legal maximum, how would that affect the other rate payers? I just have to return to the theoretical point that if utilities have to pay for power 7¢/kWh (in the case of an urban utility) more than it would otherwise cost, the extra cost has to be extracted from the rate payers, one way or another. How much money it is depends on how much net metered generation there is. However, if it isn’t much money, then it isn’t much generation, and if it isn’t much generation, it isn’t doing much good.
The nation socially & politically is becoming more and more sympathetic to net metering due to energy shortages/prices and increases in environmental consciousness or concern about global warming. Here in Alaska there isn’t maybe as much general concern about the environment, but there is a fuel crisis that everyone is talking about.
Again, a desire to shift our reliance to less costly or harmful generation technologies is not a reason to favor net metering. There are much, MUCH better ways to achieve that goal. I guess my point is we should pursue all avenues toward that goal. I differ only slightly. We should consider all avenues, then choose the best one, or the best mix. If distributed generation turns out to be part of the best mix, great, but it should be chosen based on the economics (with appropriate consideration of the external costs, such as CO2 production.)
Anyway, my point with that is the utilities would be wise to strike a compromise in their favor now and get it cemented in place.
Again, note that it will not be the utilities that will be harmed by net metering. It will be their rate payers.
Instead they are taking a hard line to gain a temporary victory, but I think they’ll eventually regret it when they’re forced to swallow something that is a greater imposition a few years down the road. Of course that is only hypothetical, but risk management is a part of running any business. If you look at the attachment I sent that includes a listing of states and their net metering policies as well as a national net metering map, it seems clear which way the momentum is moving on this issue. The fact that utility representatives in the Anchorage RCA meeting came out and said point blank “This is not a negotiation” shows that they feel they are dealing from a position of strength on this issue.
I have no idea whether we are dealing from a position of strength. That is beside the point. The point is that you do not decide what the truth is by voting on it or compromising on it. Truth is discovered. Of course, if we do not care about the truth (i.e. the possibility of harming people with ill conceived policies does not bother us), then we are free to compromise. Maybe we will end up compromising because we cannot discover the truth, but I think that we will be better off if we at least make some effort first.
I’m all for the truth! Actually that’s why I’d stink as a politician, I have a hard time compromising my values, which to some degree is essential in politics. I agree we should endeavor to have as many facts, and as much truth, as possible. But remember that people can have more than one perspective on some truths. But I totally agree with the heart of what you say here. Agreed, and we may be similar in that regard. Many of my utility colleagues blanch when I start talking about “truth”, but I think that it is only through looking for the truth that we make progress.
I’m just a teacher in the bush, but it seems obvious to me that they’re wrong about that. I think net metering is coming one way or the other, and better for them to have a say in its design.
As a rate payer, you should want us to have a say in the design. You should also want to understand what we are telling you about the economic effects of the concept. I will repeat that if “profit” were our motivation in trying to make these points, we wouldn’t bother, because we really will get the money we need either way. It is just a question of what happens to (to use your phrase) Joe Consumer.
Hope I haven’t gotten anyone too upset. I’m sure I’ve made some wrong assumptions about how the utilities think or how electricity works for that matter, and to the extent that is the case, I apologize. This is NOT my field of expertise, I feel like Joe Consumer just trying to put in my $.02.
Thanks for listening.
-Peter Schneidler
Kasigluk , AK
PS – I sent in my comments to the 5 original questions a few days ago directly to Mr Gibson. Here they are if you’re still reading this.
- • Should this agency encourage the development of distributed renewable generation in Alaska through net metering or some other medium? If so, what realistic benefits could be achieved through net metering?
Yes. It’s hard to say on the benefits. I’m sure the benefits will be small at first, very small. But the bottom line is we have an energy crisis in most of the state, and we have people who want to pay their own money to develop clean energy and help grow grid capacity. Over time with advancing technologies and the long life of some of the equipment put in place, there will be a benefit. Just because something is small, if its right, you should still do it. (I have made the opposite point several times. Just because something is small, if it is wrong, you should still not do it.) To say that the need is too great and this solution is too small so we shouldn’t do it, thats a dumb argument in my book.(I don’t think anybody has made that argument. My argument is that net metering will actually be harmful) Someone in the meeting (the MEA guy?) said something along the lines of if lots of people do net metering it will mess up the grid by introducing too much power that fluctuates too much, and if hardly anyone does it then why bother? The MEA guy was Jim Walker. He may have said that, or I might have, but my approach would be a little different. A generation system has to be actively controlled, so that voltage and frequency are maintained at the nominal levels, and so that the individual generators work together, rather than competing with each other. So, if there are a lot of uncontrolled generators on the system, it increases the control burden on the generators that are part of the control system, which increases the cost. This is just one of those services that I claim net metering customers would receive but not pay for. At some point (I would guess 20% or so of connected generation, but I am not a professional in that field) it would become impossible to control the system, but to me, it is more of a cost issue. Yes, the state should support utility-grade public renewable power generation projects. Yes, we should conserve, especially in the railbelt. But if people want to pay for it and its clean and up to standards, why stand in their way? We agree on this, but isn’t that what the SNAP program is all about? Yes it is, but lets also open up the way for more people to pay for their own cogenerating equipment, particularly in areas where few people might participate in a SNAP program. You already know this, but my objection is that net metering also forces other rate payers, who may not agree, to contribute, and in some cases, might force them to pay the entire cost, or even more than the entire cost (which is where the cap would absolutely be hit, and where you might start getting customers excluded by the cap fighting for the right to participate).
- • Should any distributed generation incentive like net metering be limited to electricity generated from renewable resources?
Yes. To me the idea of net metering accomplishes 2 things. 1 is a practical matter of balancing out the highs and lows of an inconsistent power source like the sun or wind. By spreading it out over a month, 2 months, or a year, it is much more practical for the consumer. (but only because the utility performs the costly service of balancing out the highs and lows, at no cost to the particular consumer receiving the service, but at significant cost to other consumers) True. A diesel generator is not like that. It is very consistent, and doesn’t need that period of time to smooth out the peaks and valleys of electrical generation. #2, net metering is generally regarded as an incentive for clean power production, as a nod to those concerned about global warming.(however it is regarded, it is not an effective means of encouraging clean power production) I expressed my confusion about this already above. I don’t care that much about this one way or the other, but that’s my opinion.
- • Should a regulation be implemented to require electrical utilities to offer a program similar to Golden Valley Electric Association, Inc.’s (GVEA) Sustainable Natural Alternative Power (SNAP) Program?
probably not. Seems like its a required program you’re pushing on the utilities, its like all of the bureaucracy of true net metering without the real benefits. And the areas that most need it are areas of great poverty, where people don’t have much $$ to give to that stuff. If we’re going to compel the utilities to do something, lets have it be the real thing.
It is ironic that your concern for areas of great poverty where people do not have much money to waste would lead you to advocate that they we compelled to spend significant amounts of it on distributed generation that is unlikely to be as cost effective as utility scale generation, renewable or otherwise. What is significant? 50 cents a year? 25 cents? A dollar? In the next paragraph you agree that the total rate distribution would be something significantly less than 1% (assuming a 1% cap on renewable cogeneration). This gets back to my earlier point about the helpfulness of some real-world examples that would give us the $$ figures we’re actually talking about. Maybe we could agree on a neutral 3rd party to draw it up? I think that there are so many variables that real world examples that have wide applicability are hard to develop, but I think your understanding of the numbers is in a reasonable range. My real objection is that I think net metering causes investments that are not economic, and I don’t think that customers should be forced to support such investments at any level. Obviously, utilities sometimes make mistaken investments, but sometimes they get punished for such mistakes by the RCA refusing to allow them to recover “imprudent” investments in their rates.
- Is there an overall generation capacity threshold at which net metering would have a negligible effect on a utility’s rate design?
Obviously. We could limit it to .00000000001% of total capacity and the rate’s wouldn’t move an inch. (agreed) There I go being literal again. But I think there is a totally acceptable middle ground. How about a total renewable production cap of 1% of peak demand? Would this not result in a maximum theoretical rate redistribution of 1%?(true, but if net metering is, as we contend, harmful, why would we want any harm at all?) And this only if renewables are maxed out for that utility, something totally unlikely to happen for many years. And actually it would still be less than a 1% rate redistibution because as it stands now you already have to pay the avoided cost, so its the difference between the avoided cost and the retail rate, for a max of 1% of your power. This is a SMALL amount. (all of these points are granted, but a small harm is still worse than no harm) We tax for things as a society that we think are worthwhile. Like schools, roads, clean air, you name it. I get a bit of a kick out of listening to the utility bigwigs bemoaning the injustice of it all. (Actually, ML&P has no problem with taxes, and is on record favoring carbon taxes, which are clearly the most effective (and cost effective) program for reducing carbon emissions.) Interesting. I didn’t know that. It is a position that some people (including many utility people) find radical, but I think that it is the only governmental response that has any hope of having an adequate effect, and I also argue that for any given reduction in carbon emissions, it is by far the lowest cost.
Net Metering Scenario:
Let’s suppose I use an average of 500 kWh per month, and generate an average of 400 kWh per month. With net metering I would pay for 100 kWh. Kasigluk’s retail rate is .46/kWh, less the PCE adjustment of $.26 = $.20/kWh, so 100* $.20 = $20 is what I would pay them.
Current Federal avoided-cost scenario:
I get a check from AVEC (utility) for 400 * $.14 (their fuel cost per kWh) = $56. Then I turn around and pay AVEC for 500 * $.20 = $100, so 100-56 = $44 is what I would pay them.
The difference between these two scenarios is net metering puts $24 in my pocket instead of AVEC.(which means that AVEC must take the $24 out of the pockets of its other members) Yes, see below. Also, my 1.8 kw system would represent about 1/3 of the total possible renewable generation for my village (if we put the max at 1% as I mentioned earlier), so there is no way this could get out of hand, financially, for AVEC. That $24, if spread over the ratepayers of Kasigluk and Nunapitchuck (we’re connected via electrical intertie) would be something like two cents per person per month. In exchange for less diesel being barged in and belched out into the air. And it could hardly go higher, that’s the key, is capping it at a fairly low % of utility peak loads. So I guess its a question of values, what is important, and what is fair. I don’t think that scenario sounds like a grave injustice to the average person, especially not in more liberal Anchorage which can carry a vote in Alaska single-handedly, much like King & Pierce counties in WA state. The utilities can be stubborn now and hold the line. All they’ll accomplish is a delay and bad PR.(all of this misses the point that net metering will always do more harm than good, at any level. If it doesn’t do much harm, it is guaranteed to do even less good. The victims will not be the utilities, they will be the rate payers.) Always? You sound like your mind is irrevocably made up. This is one of those areas where I don’t think it’s a matter of deciding anything. I think it is an inescapable economic outcome, whether we like it or not.
The real questions, as became obvious in the meeting, is what to do with excess electrical generation? Is it paid for? At what rate? Is it averaged against consumption? If so, for what time period? State after state now has laws that pay the customer the retail rate, and they allow excess to carry over for 12 months, and even then some states mandate that the utility then must pay for any extra at that time. Surely there is room for compromise and risk-avoidance here. We can put caps on the amount of power utilities would have to buy, or on the amount they’d have to pay as a % of avoided or retail, there are a lot of variables we can play with to find something everyone can live with even if noone loves it. (compromise is always possible, but there is no way to compromise the fact that small harm is worse than no harm.) Clearly we’re agreeing to disagree here. I see cheaper, cleaner power. You see more expensive power that steals small but ’significant’ amounts from my neighbors and does harm and gets in the way of large utility-scale projects. Agreed
By the way, I have a wife and a daughter and my taxable income in ‘07 was under 30k. The name-calling type of arguments employed by the MEA and ML&P guy that this would be a toy for the rich and noone else are condescending and annoying. The skystream 3.7 would cost nearly half of my taxable income. If I want to do the right thing, and I care enough about it to sacrifice, does that make me a bad guy? (if you want to do the right thing, and you think that the right thing is to install a skystream 3.7, why do you think that your neighbor should be forced to pay for it?) Nice one! I appreciate a good zinger. I guess I think my neighbor (and even myself if I don’t put a turbine up which is likely) can be reasonably compelled because the price is so small. If my neighbor pays $100 in a electricity bill, and 2 cents are from me, we’re talking about 1/5,000th of his bill being from me. I would agree with you if I thought the benefit justified the cost, but for reasons that I hope I have explained above, I don’t. I also hope you understand that I agree that we need a major and fairly rapid shift away from fuel burning for all forms of energy, so it’s not a question of green or not green, it’s a question of what policy gives us the most results for the least cost. This is also where I might be forced to accept the idea of subsidies, even though I think they are a poor second best solution (second to carbon tax) because nobody seems willing to consider the tax. I’m not trying to boast here, I only bring it up because they did, trying to make it an issue of income or classism. Meera Kohler did too in her AVEC newsletter of Feb 08, 5th paragraph.
Its now 3:30 am, and because of a final I wasn’t able to complete until 1:30 I haven’t been able to give this the attention it deserves and that I wanted to give it. This will have to do. I hope you’ll read all this and put my views in what you write up. I understand there are hugely conflicting viewpoints on this and your document will not mirror mine! I hope we get to see what you’re going to submit, then all parties can either “sign” it or disavow it and submit their own thing. I think we have a right to that process. Thanks for taking on this job Mr Gibson.
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SO, after all that, what do you think? Was this guy just being obstructionist or is he making sense? It’s almost like a republican/democrat philosophy difference thing, to me. When is it ok for the group to be ‘taxed’ for a benefit that is open to everyone but will only be undertaken by some who want to buy in hugely up front? And if the answer is “never” my reply is “even if the tax is like 10 cents per year?” and you could have the benefit too if you took the initiative? Funny how much the exchange veered toward big themes like Truth, right & wrong, etc. Hard to believe that this dude could argue with so much passion about it based on principle. Aren’t there a lot more things wrong with the world than this so-called potential “subsidization?”
Finally, let me put up an exchange between the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) and Mr Reagan. This exchange was piggybacked onto one of my earlier exchanges with Mr Reagan and it is also informative of the differing views. While I wrote as “Joe Consumer,” Mr Keyes of the IREC writes as more of a knowledgeable advocate for net metering. Keyes wrote in BLUE and Reagan replied in RED.
I am replying in black (interleaved) to Mr. Keyes, with whom I agree in part and disagree in part.
All,
I considered adding green comments to the string below, but its already quite a jumble. Instead, here is the basic position of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council:
Net metering of renewable generation is essentially the same as conservation with respect to rate impacts and environmental impacts. The only substantive difference is that conservation never causes energy to feed back to the electric grid. In both cases, a customer is consuming less power from the grid and fixed utility costs are being spread over fewer kWh sales, having a very, very small impact on rates (possibly offset by reduced utility peaks). In both cases, fairness would dictate that the customer should not have to pay as much as he did before, because he’s using less than he did before. I agree that both customers reducing demand through “conservation” (which I put in quotes only because to me conservation is not a new activity. It is simply the traditional practice of consumers trying to avoid wasting the product they are buying) should pay less than they did before. It is not true, however, that net metering is the same as conservation with respect to rate impacts. The primary difference is in demand characteristics. A conserving customer can only reduce energy consumption when he/she (hereinafter “it”) is using energy. Therefore, there is unlikely to be an increase in variability, which is what drives cost/kWh. In addition, conservation measures tend to be very reliable from moment to moment. They generally do not rely on a machine continuing to function, or the sun continuing to shine, or the wind continuing to blow. Conservation, therefore, while it may cause a short term increase in cost to serve due to lower sales, tends in the long run not to increase cost to serve, because the utility does not have to build or operate capacity (generation and transmission/distribution) to pick up the load when the customer’s generation stops generating. This difference can be quite important. Consider a net metering customer that generates, on average, the same amount of energy as it consumes. That customer would pay nothing other than the nominal customer charge ($6.56/month, in ML&P’s case) but would receive benefits and impose costs vastly greater than that.
For both renewable generation and conservation, the wisdom of the customer’s actions are beside the point. I would agree with this if the customer is not seeking a large subsidy. Net metering customers are getting a big subsidy, and it is not beside the point if one customer has to pay for another customer’s unwise actions. If my neighbor sets his thermostat at 50 in the winter and wears a parka around the house, I’m not going to follow his lead, but I won’t begrudge him his right to a lower utility bill. Nor would I. Likewise, if he wants to spend $25,000 for solar panels that reduce his consumption by a few hundred dollars per year in Alaska , I may think that’s not an economic choice, but I won’t expect him to pay for the consumption that he meets with his own system. I wouldn’t either. I would, however, expect him to pay for the services he expects from the utility. Also, just as a utility would not attempt to stop a large commercial customer from conserving an average of 100 kW, there is no reason to prohibit that customer from installing a 500 kW wind turbine that averages 100 kW of generation. There, we differ. A utility would applaud a commercial or any other customer for conserving an average of 100 kW. If it installs a 500 kW wind turbine that averages 100 kW, the utility will be happy to buy the output for what it is worth. But the utility should not buy the output for 7¢/kWh more than it is worth because it would have to take that $63,000 per year from its other customers.
The argument that the customer should pay for the service of feeding back to the grid is based on the fact that the customer is enjoying a benefit, but there is no related cost for the utility. That statement is absurd. In order for the customer to feed back into the system (or take service from it), the utility must build a system. The system will have capacity costs that are driven by the maximum loads that the customer is likely to place on the system, and it will have control costs that may actually exceed what they would have been without the net metered generation. Customers pay the utility for these costs through their bills for service. If customers force the utility to incur these costs but reduce the metered service in a way that reduces the utility’s recoveries by more than it reduces the utility’s costs, those customers are no longer paying for their share of the costs that were incurred on their behalf. This is a cost that will be borne by the other customers. The excess power is reducing the demand on his distribution circuit, which doesn’t hurt anything and is helpful when coincident with peaks. It is conceivable that some net metered generation would have output profiles that were helpful to the utility, in which case the output is more valuable than if the profile is not helpful to the utility. However, this is not California , and it is hard to think of which renewable resource could be expected to exhibit that characteristic in Alaska . In any case, ML&P repeats that it is willing, and even happy to purchase renewable generation for what it is worth, whatever that turns out to be. We simply do not assume that it is worth as much as retail electric service. If it were, there would be no need for electric utilities.
Finally, a key point that hasn’t been discussed is that distributed generation could become the most economic choice in the near future, leading many customers to self-generate. This is, indeed, possible, although not likely. If it does become true, there is no reason why utilities would not welcome it. They still will not want to pay more than the distributed generation is worth, and that is still going to be some form of wholesale price. It simply cannot equal the retail price in a world where utilities still serve any function. Several of the largest solar module manufacturers are very publicly claiming that their installed costs will be half of current levels in four years. At the same time, it is quite possible that natural gas prices will continue to rise. The next few years are the time for utilities to familiarize themselves with interconnection of distributed generators and develop metering and billing protocols. Something I may have missed in this discussion is the connection between distributed generation (especially net metered distributed generation) and renewable generation. When solar power becomes cost effective (surely it will happen in the desert southwest long before it happens above 60 degrees latitude), why would utilities and large scale independent power producers not develop it at large scale, and why should it be assumed that installation of micro-scaled uncontrollable systems by customers will be the economically most efficient way to develop it? It will be much easier for utilities to do this now, when there are only a handful of early adopters interconnecting. In any case, I think the utilities are at least willing to develop efficient ways to purchase the output of distributed generators, but the purchase should be at a reasonable price.
Thanks for your time, and like others, I applaud the civil discourse here. I suggested at the workshop that IREC’s model rules could be used for a template, so a word copy is provided here for Mr. Gibson’s use, if he would like to use it.
Regards
Jason B. Keyes
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5100
Seattle, WA 98104-7036
direct: 206——-
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Phew! Told you this would be a doozy.
