GuildCom

Yes, I could have put most of this in here over the dry spell over the weekend instead of dropping it in this monstrous text-bomb, but I don’t want to.

A conversation with Jason (aka Borre, for those of you in the know):

Generally speaking, most photovoltaic solar systems take about 20 years to pay for themselves. The down side is that they lose efficiency over time and only last about 30 years. Things like solar hot water heaters are a lot cheaper and pay for themselves sooner and can last longer.

-Jason/Borre

My response:

Yeah. Believe it or not, we’ve been dealing with exactly that problem here at work. One of our customers installed a system like that costing tens of thousands of dollars a few years ago and has been saving about 50 bucks a month on his electric bill.

We recently found out that we’re contractually obligated to purchase all our power from Golden Spread Electric Cooperative, which means that we can’t purchase power from him, even though we’re actually required to purchase his excess power by law. Also, we are also legally required to have backup power for this poor rube in the event that it’s cloudy, or, say, night time.

Which means, in short, that Golden Spread has to spend just as much money on generation and transmission hardware as if he had never actually installed his solar system to begin with even though they are now no longer getting the money he would normally be paying them to provide that power (fifty bucks a month).

The solution? We’re required, again via our contract with GSEC, to pay 40 dollars a month for the privilege of providing power to this individual. US, the company, not the consumer. Now, this might be understandable, I suppose; we’re saving a little money on our power charges (again because he’s not using them) but GSEC has to be able to provide power in the event that the consumer’s solar system fails, so someone has to pay for the maintenance of that system. At the same time, we’re meant to encourage the development and implementation of alternative power sources, so simply charging the customer 40 bucks directly would be a silly idea because then even over the course of the system’s 20 year life span, he would never recoup his investment.

Of course, we’re free to charge an additional fee, should we so choose, to help with the fee we pay GSEC each month.

Other cooperatives in the area have suggested a 19.95 “Variable Service” or “Emergency/Backup Service” fee. My boss, in his infinite wisdom, decided that our “Emergency Service Fee” would be…

…40 bucks a month.

I love working for this company.

-The Reverend Bishop

Also, please find reproduced here one of the greatest passages of literature ever birthed in English:

Don’t say another Goddamn word. Up until now, I’ve been polite. If you say anything else — word one — I will kill myself. And when my tainted spirit finds its destination, I will topple the master of that dark place. From my black throne, I will lash together a machine of bone and blood, and fueled by my hatred for you this fear engine will bore a hole between this world and that one.

When it begins, you will hear the sound of children screaming – as though from a great distance. A smoking orb of nothing will grow above your bed, and from it will emerge a thousand starving crows. As I slip through the widening maw in my new form, you will catch only a glimpse of my radiance before you are incinerated. Then, as tears of bubbling pitch stream down my face, my dark work will begin.

I will open one of my six mouths, and I will sing the song that ends the earth.

Penny Arcade

I’m not entirely certain I support the use of commas universally throughout this piece, but I am quite certain it is excellent. Moreso in context.

One of my biggest beefs with the coming “hydrogen economy” (other than the fact that some ASSHOLE decided that fuel cells were a good idea to begin with) has always been the fact that such an “economy” threatens the demise of an internal combustion engine.

It seems that BMW has been working on a solution to that. Their Hydrogen 7 is actually a hydrogen-powered car whose only source of motive power is a V12 internal combustion motor that can also burn plain old gasoline. The concept isn’t without its downsides (like the fact that the car wouldn’t emit the stench of half-burnt fossil fuel like a real car), but hopefully this means we won’t have to give up the good ol’ asphalt-shredding, nylon-rending V8 any time soon — the engine that is really the only thing I find entertaining about modern performance cars.

This does raise a question in my mind, however: should I take this to imply that an engine that burns hydrogen must be made with smaller cylinders than an engine burning gasoline? Or is BMW just giving into that most European of inclinations and using more smaller things when fewer larger things work just as well?

http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367

Juicy article. Choice quotes below:

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

Wow. I didn’t know he had a mansion! Gotta get me one of those.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

He spends $30,000 on energy (natural gas and electricity) bills every year.