penny a watt

PENNY A WATT

Okay, honestly I was trying to be cute and write “dollar a kilowatt” differently, and screwed up the math.  But then I remembered a popular story that included “The $10 Store” ( from what used to be a  Dollar Store ), and that amused me so I stuck with the title.  Not that a kilowatt of electricity should ever get close to $10.  If it does, we are seeing hyperinflation and a week later it will be $100 a kilowatt.  But $1 a kilowatt?  Very likely very soon.  I’ve been warning of this for years, since The Alaskan Incident.

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No, I can’t recall which year.  I want to say something like seven to fifteen years ago.  There was a problem delivering fuel to a generating plant and almost overnight electric shot up to fifty cents a kilowatt and residents were scrambling to try to figure out work-arounds amidst that financial rapine.  Sort of like Enron in California only much worse.  California power pricing and supply is so bad, all the douche canoe’s that fled that craphole ( for new readers, I was born and raised in California.  I’ve earned the right to trash talk it ) wouldn’t even vote that nonsense into law here.

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And you know how Yuppie Scum Californians simply love to move to every other state and bring all their stupid laws with them.  Anyway, the time to drastically cut your power bill and figure out alternatives is NOT after prices have gone up.  Everyone else is doing the same so supplies go up in price and conmen start working the crowd for rubes.  You figure it out and implement it now, perhaps even putting half the savings into a Future Price Hike Fund.  Now, this is separate from insulating.  This is independent of heating/cooling.

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Insulating a house is one of the smartest things you can do, if you do it prior to pricing spikes and panic.  But there are alternates to electric heating.  Here I’m concerned with your daily electrical use, the amount that won’t change even if you aren’t running the heater or cooler.  I would be investing in insulation regardless.  You do it good enough, your heating can be almost nothing besides solar gain ( I’m thinking of Earth Tubes as your cheapest, best bet, rather than upgrading a furnace or AC, before or after insulating further ).

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You can even use Earth Tubes in the city, using a coiling-within-itself placement of the sewer pipe you use as the tubing.  I might even do that instead of further insulation.  You could even run the system on solar panels.  Best would be both insulation and Tubes, but with one you must keep buying increasingly costly grid power and with the other you just need to eventually buy insulation but you still get “free” hot and cold air, even if it leaves the house too quick.  A word from someone who screwed up the Tube installation-compromise on the burial depth, NOT the diameter of the pipe.

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A neighbor recently did all of their cooling in the summer for a regular size mobile home with just a fifty foot long Earth Tube, ten foot down.  These things WORK!  I tried to install a one hundred foot long one, but was a dumb ass and only used a four inch pipe, so there was no draw.  At least I dug the trench by hand ( it was only four feet deep ), so I was only out the hundred bucks on pipe.  After that, rather than fixing the Tube ( I still, at that time, with limited knowledge, didn’t know what I did wrong ), I just built my underground home rather than trying to heat/cool the RV.

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Enough about that.  It can be its own article ( although you’ll probably find all you need on YouTube.  A couple of other good subjects for you to explore: making your own Berky filter, making a methane gas generation system, Earthship construction ).  Back to all other electrical use.  I lived many years on $10 a month electricity.  Of course, being hooked up to the wires you pay a surcharge just for the privilege, so it was a $25 bill with $10 of actual kilowatts used.  When I was in the RV park, we had meters but paid the office and hence there was no surcharge.  So the bill was actually $10.  The winter months I knew exactly what the heater used and that was what I considered separate from daily electrical use.  In Florida the kilowatts were half the price as in Nevada, so Florida I was able to keep using a hot water tank.  And running rotating fans most of the time in lieu of AC ( living under a tree, that was sufficient ).  Both places included a refrigerator, which was the prime energy user.

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Of course, back then a new, VERY energy efficient fridge was a mere $300, AND you didn’t have to worry about it breaking in three to five years ( This was around the turn of the millennium ), unlike today.  You’ll have to decide if buying a new fridge is worth the small energy saving.  Me?  I really don’t think it is, given the quality declines.  BUT!  Don’t just factor in the current 15 cents a kilowatt.  Also do the math on $1 a kilowatt ( or at least fifty cents-but my money would be on the buck.  Remember, when the PetroDollar goes, inflation explodes and imports stop ).

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You might consider the solar fridge idea we have been discussing.  Yes, it is a chest fridge.  But it is also just 200 watts a day and you can run it off solar if you want.  The inconvenience of stacking crates to organize and avoid lack of rotation might just be worth it.  For a freezer, I would can meat AND freeze it.  Once electric rates skyrocket, use up all the freezer meat, unplug it and start canning all meat from then on.  Have a few years of cans and lids in case of shortages or price hikes.

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I recommend six months frozen meat, as unemployment insurance.  At current prices, that isn’t much more than a hundred bucks in cans/lids.  Long term canned meat is a separate cost.  You COULD buy one of those $250 “gasket-less” pressure canners, but I think Presto brand makes very good products and their $85 canner with a $10 back-up gasket should last a very long while.  And recall, canning isn’t all THAT much of a pain.  One batch every two weeks if you are light meat eaters.  It isn’t too much more work than wrapping the meat for the freezer.

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I could probably wrap this up today but I’m going to go ahead and make it a two-parter. 

( .Y. )

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