Hard News: Dear Prudence
153 Responses
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My teenage son did one of those IQ tests (probably not from there) - it wanted his cell number to text the results to - somewhere along the way he signed up to some bogus text service he couldn't afford - much yelling was done over the phone - beware
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In an attempt at visual:
Generator A (hydro)+Generator B (coal)
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Big pool o electricity
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Your house (billed to you by retailer)
There is no concept of getting "electrons" from A rather than B into your house. So all they can do is offset the emissions of "B electrons" (percentage of generation) that end up in your house.I'm trying to think through the incentive to generation that greater purchase of "offset units" carries but can't see it (there's no difference to the generator in terms of their sell price and they have no visibility of how many units have been offset).
I guess pressure from retailers (who in some cases are the same people) to avoid their offset purchases may come into it. -
I think Kyle is asking the question I have:
If you buy the cleaner option, does that increase the amount of clean generation, or is it simply an accounting trick, where your purchase of clean generation is just allocated out of the general "mixed" pool of power available, thus making the remainder proportionally less clean?
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Have you ever met anyone who did an IQ test and scored lower than 140?
Proper IQ tests are ranged. If you sat the most generic one (which I assume the online ones are modelled on), and you reasonably well, then you'd end up sitting successively harder tests. A short test would probably have perhaps one question designed to test at a 130-140 level.
So somewhat in answer to your question, I suspect the pool of people you know (and are prepared to 'fess up) are probably over 120, at which point they should be sitting a different (harder) test, and the results aren't valid. -
I was tickled by the fact that there was an animated ad for Vodaphone interrupting Drinnan's drivel, as well as one for the NBZ in the top right corner, plus contextual Google ads down the right hand side.
Also, from the last section, Drinnan has a fixation on dirty toilet bowls, which kind of loses any credibility his arguments might have mustered.
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Ben - with Meridian it's the latter. If they retail less than they generate "cleanly" then they claim that they need no offset for any of their retailed electricity, effectively claiming they have only retailed "their" generation. Thus dirtying the remainder of the pool I suppose, yes.
Green Power Company offsets the average emission intensity of the entire power pool.
Neither directly increases the amount of at-source clean generation, but the Green Power Company is at least increasing the amount of "net clean" generation. If that makes sense
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To quote myself: If they retail less than they generate "cleanly" then they claim that they need no offset for any of their retailed electricity
This provides incentive for Meridan themselves to increase their clean generation I suppose.
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Given that TVNZ pays the taxpayer a dividend, isn't Russell funding the taxpayer, rather than the other way?
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My teenage son did one of those IQ tests (probably not from there) - it wanted his cell number to text the results to - somewhere along the way he signed up to some bogus text service he couldn't afford - much yelling was done over the phone - beware
My partner struck the same thing. She didn't know they had charged her cell phone until she received a txt telling her that it had been taken. Might have been hidden in the small print I guess.
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Cheers Gareth... that's what i suspected was the case.
It seems to my Friday brain, that nominally splitting the generation into 2 tiers when the resource is pooled is silly, and won't result in any sort of market pressure on generators to make their new generation renewable, particularly when it's such a small segment of the market that you are applying the difference to.
Perhaps what is needed is a way of accounting for cleanness at the generation source across the whole market... A "tax" on the "carbon", if you will.
Or, it could even be arranged into some sort of market where clean generators were able to monetise their cleanness directly, and trade the surpluses to those who were less clean.
I'm sure I've heard that sort of idea talked about... I wonder what happened to that?
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Gareth,
It sounds like an accounting trick to make everyone pay a bit extra voluntarily for renewable electricity that we already get at the normal price.
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Proper IQ tests are ranged.
For example, I understand you can get a couple of points on the WAIS if you're dead.
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Given that TVNZ pays the taxpayer a dividend, isn't Russell funding the taxpayer, rather than the other way?
Until you count the charter money I think.
What is the difference between TVNZ's dividened to the gummint, and the charter money they are given to fund public good broadcasting?
(and I'll say publically I think Russ's show is good)
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<--edit publicly
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Might have been hidden in the small print I guess.
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Ben and Kyle re "accounting trick" - the more generous interpretation is that you are simply buying offsets for the emissions of your electricity usage (this is true with Green Power Company at least).
But yes the incentive-to-clean-generation is not really part of the equation. -
It seems to my Friday brain, that nominally splitting the generation into 2 tiers when the resource is pooled is silly, and won't result in any sort of market pressure on generators to make their new generation renewable, particularly when it's such a small segment of the market that you are applying the difference to.
I don't know the NZ situation, but in Australia these arrangements are all related to the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target which requires electricity generators to generate no less than 20 per cent of their total from renewable sources by 2020. That's one hell of a change when you think that (a) Australia is the largest emitter of CHG per head of population and (b) we've got an unbelievable amount of brown coal which means we've also got the cheapest energy in the world!
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So, where does the clean electricity come from? Until Powershop, Meridian could claim this all to themselves. But since they own Powershop, they can't claim to be only selling Green electricity.
Agh, so confusing. Proves only one thing: the electricity industry is a farkn shambles. Consumers are beweildered, prices are meteoric and the environment is getting prepped for a visit to Dr Kevorkian. If the government doesn't wade in to clean it up, nobody else is gonna.
Which right now means one thing: If you live in Mt Albert, vote for that guy Russel (not that Russell, but Russel).
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On topic #1, I'd suggest the following partisan view:
- For most people, the main problem with the recession is that a lot of people who had productive jobs a year ago don't now.
- Loosening fiscal policy, increasing borrowing and maintaining public spending would help rectify that
- Again, for most people, the only bad effect of that would be that when normality eventually comes around, interest rates and taxes will be a bit higher in order to pay down the debt. So they'd have a bit less spending money in the future in return for security now.
- For NACTs core supporters, they actually *want* high unemployment, so they can pay their staff less. They've got enough cash stashed away to weather the downturn and still keep the yacht and beach houses. A bit of pork from the government (motorway building, stadiums, etc) and they're sweet.
- The rich would suffer a bit from higher debt and taxes, because they would have to pay higher interest rates and might actually run the risk of paying some tax as well.
- NACTs focus isn't to make things better for ordinary people, it's to protect the position of the rich. So taxes stay up (for most people) and public spending comes down.
I guess people wanted a change.
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The bit I've never got about this new fangled electrickery stuff is how do you know which electricity are you getting? I mean, it all comes down the same wire and you can't even see it. Sure, you can see the effects, like light or heat or whatever but honestly. you have a generator, a bunch of wires, transformers, poles, meters and plug points in your house. What do the "retailers" actually do, apart from charging a premium for their "service"?.
Sounds like robbery to me. -
More a concern that I felt those comments maybe needed a stronger disclaimer, an indication of what PA/Russell Brown was getting from the company (which you've provided today) so we could assess your comments about it in their light.
And I don't mind you saying so. Indeed, I rely on you saying so.
I'm being quite sincere when I say that the appeal of these campaigns is that they're about us as independent publishers, rather than just being the tail end of someone else's media buy. But it is experimental, and it involves y'all as an audience and a community, so it helps me get a read on things.
In that spirit, Ffunnell is discussing a campaign with Freeview. A reader each from participating sites gets a Freeview PVR, on the condition that they blog about their experience of entering the world of digital time-shifting. They'd be someone who didn't have any form of digital TV or recorder.
I made it clear that we'd have to do it our way -- no daily posts (eg: perhaps two posts over two weeks would be appropriate), it'd have to be someone who could write engagingly enough to make it worthwhile, and I'd clearly explain the basis on which things were being done.
What do you think? It clearly benefits the lucky punter who gets a PVR, we get a little money, and -- hopefully -- the conversation is worthwhile.
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And another thing!
Retail electricity "markets" are intrinsically bogus. There's only one set of wires in the country, so you get the same power as the guy next door, no matter who you pay for it. If you get cheap power, it's at the expense of someone else.
What should happen is that which generators run hour-by-hour is decided according to a fossil fuel minimisation and security of supply algorithm. Then the generator owners get paid according to fuel costs + capital costs + a reasonable operating fee. The total cost gets divided by national power consumption, which sets the price everyone pays.
Ok, so it doesn't create an ecosystem of traders, marketing people and website sponsorship, but it would minimise carbon emissions and keep prices down.
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Actually, this discussion about WTF green power actually means is a good example of a worthwhile conversation.
I'll see if I can ask someone from Powershop to front and answer the questions.
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Rich, 100% correct. The recession is actually just another right wing plot. :-)
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What do the "retailers" actually do, apart from charging a premium for their "service"?.
Retailers are there because the alternative would see us all shafted (even more) for our electricity - it's a realisation that there will only ever be one set of "the wires" in your area and leaving the owner of them to charge you for the power they deliver wouldn't be a recipe for lean pricing.
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