California to require programmable communicating thermostats. It's a thermostat with a built-in FM receiver so the state can set the temperature of your HVAC system to whatever they think is appropriate.
"In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. Your desires and needs can and will be overridden by the state of California through its public and private utility organizations. All this is for the common good, of course."
I do part time consulting on chemical regulatory affairs. I make many an extra buck thanks to regs in the land of the fruits, nuts and flakes ;)
Frank
If you're going to read the americanthinker side of the story, you should also read this site:
Aside from the fact that it appears to be a fairly friendly discussion related to the pros and cons of PCT's by every day people, there seems to be some discrepencies between the main article at that site and the one at americanthinker. Well, maybe they are not 'discrepencies' in the literal sense, but the way each site explains the process certainly differs.
Specifically, americanthinker implies that the "state" will control your PCT during price events with manual overide by the homeowner possible, while the energycentral site seems to imply that the consumer can "opt-in" for these controls if desired. Yes, in both cases the utility will take control of your PCT, but the way it is worded at energycentral doesn't make it sound as big-brother-esque as americanthinker. If the homeowner gives the utility permission to control the PCT during price events, then no one has lost any freedoms.
As far the emergency conditions go, call me a wimp if you want, but if the utility decides to increase the set points of all the PCT's in my neighborhood so our AC only keeps our houses at 80, but our fridges, freezers, computers, TVs and phones keep working, let 'em! Given the choice of what devices to keep running in order to avoid a blackout, I'd choose to live without my AC over the others. Look at it this way
- the utilities already have the abilty to take areas off the grid if they feel it is in the best interest of the "whole" - i.e. rolling blackouts. Which would you prefer: A few hours at 80 degrees or a few hours with no power at all? I'll opt for the former.
I've not read the articles in question and (fortunately) do not live in the land of fruits, nuts and flakes.
My thought on the general subject is that without requiring any sort of direct state or even utility control, it would be possible to significantly reduce the peak utility loads and therefore the size and number of generating plants required by implementing a simple form of load management.
Big commercial buildings have done load management for many years, using simple controls to insure that large loads like heating and cooling that serve different parts of the building are not active at the same time. With the ease of receiving accurate time signals from the WWVB transmitters or from GPS, just creating thermostats that only operate the attached electrically powered heating or cooling equipment in a given half of the hour could substantially reduce peak loads with little to no impact on comfort. If your 5kW A/C unit and you neighbors 5kW A/C unit never operate at the same time, you give a more constant 5kW load to the utility instead of 0kW/5kW/10kW variability.
Trouble is, that's probably not the tradeoff you face. The tradeoff probably will look more like a few *days* at 80 degrees vs. a few hours with no power. Not to say that you wouldn't still come down on the same side of the decision... just pointing out that it's not likely to be a simple hours-for-hours trade.
Who decides who gets which half hour?
Big commercial buildings that do load management typically have a single owner/contractor responsible for the power management. A neighborhood full of individual houses does not. Even if they implemented something as simple as odd house numbers get the top half of the hour and even numbers get the bottom, someone in "authority" has to make that decision and processes need to be put into place to make it happen. That implies some type of "direct state or even utility control". You certainly can't expect mere citizens to get together and agree on a schedule. So whether it's remote controlled thermostats or a "half hour on, half hour off" duty cycle, there would need to be some body of authority in charge.
Point taken...and yes, I'd still opt for a few days in a state- mandated 80 degree house in exchange for always cold beverages.
Ya know, now that I've thought about it a bit, I wonder if it might indeed be just a few hours at 80 degrees.
We'd have to crunch a lot of numbers, but here's my 30,000 foot view:
=46rom what I have been able to gather, CA's rolling blackouts shed about 550 MW from the grid with each segment they shut off. Each outage lasts 60 - 90 minutes in each of the 14 segments. So all we need to know if it is possible to shed 550 MW by setting back every PCT in all 14 segments at once.
If the goal is to shed 550 MW during the peak periods and it could be done across all 14 segments at one time, then each set back would only last as long as the peak usage hours would be. Come to think of it, if having everybody's AC set at 72 is the major cause of the peaks, then the set back itself would ease the load and they might be able to shorten the time of set back.
I'm not sure if that makes sense but it would be fun to noodle through it a bit.
To be quite frank;
If we all had less "childeren" there would be less need for electricity, water, etc.
Instead, we all think that we can "cut back" our usage to deter the need for more ..... What does that mean? We're just pushing back the inevitable. No matter how you look at it, we as a society need more power generation. Just as fast as we're saving and conserving, our hungar for more continues to grow as that population does.
What's needed is a new generation of power. We need to generate more power in conservative and environmentally sound way.
The answer is to build more power plants, not add PCT's.
Let me see if I got this straight...
You're thinking that I should be upset that any entity outside my domicile should want to exercise control over the largest energy consuming device in my home. There is a certain "cold dead finger" feel to the issue. I'm certain that had then been electric powered air conditioners available to our original framers they would have felt it necessary to protect them in the bill of rights, much the same manner that operating a motor vehicle and separation of corporation and state would have been - if they'd only known.
Of course, they* could just cut the power off completely and I'd pretty much be screwed, so I guess if I wanna continue to suckle on the nanny-state's gridded teat I'll comply with their totalitarian demands. Oh, wait - dang! I've got thumbs - I'll just grow my own electricity, there aren't even emission controls regulations on the small displacement engines that I might choose to use - that'll show 'em! I'll spew as much as I damn well please and they can't stop me, Baa haa ha.
*assuming some sort of collusion between the now deregulated, completely privatized electricity providers and the democratically elected republicans that do my biding in the government as you have alluded to.
By serial number of the thermostat, i.e. odd sn runs in the first half of the hour, even in the second half. If every single thermostat off the production line is alternating and all the shipments have this same alternation then while the distribution might not be perfect at the street level, as a whole it would work.
Who is going to tell (force?) all the various manufacturers of thermostats how to number and ship their product?
At my company, T-Stats by DerbyDad, we chose to number our products with the first 4 digits being the model number, the next 8 being the serial number, and the last 6 being the date code. My competitor, Feng Shui TempControl (a Japanese company) chooses to end all of their serial numbers with a 4 digit plant code based on where the devices were assembled.
Who is going to make us change the way we chose to run our private enterprises?
Now you're just being silly. The point is to have alternating settings in the production stream. If every case of t-stats you ship is half and half the overall distribution will be just fine.
e temperature
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*I'm* being silly? Do you really think your suggestion is viable?How many thermostat manufacturers are there - worldwide? How are you going to get them to go along with your suggestion? What's in it for them to put in place the processes required to have thermostats with 2 different settings produced and packed half and half? If they won't do it voluntarily (and I doubt they will) then some authoritative body would have to make them "want" to do it - perhaps with incentives and all the grabage that goes along with that sort of program. Lucky for you, no such worldwide body exists, because that would put us right back where we started with the "direct state or even utility control" that you are trying to avoid.
Oh, by the way, please don't suggest that not every manufaturer has to play along for your suggestion to make a difference. If consumers have a choice between a thermostat that only works on a 50% duty cycle sitting on the shelf next to ones that work whenever the consumer wants it to, which one do you think they are going to buy? Which of course means that as soon as the full-time T-stats start outselling the 50% models, no one will make 50% models anymore.
Granted, on paper your suggestion makes sense, but it is simply not practical. Sorry.
The state will mandate the change.
Not every manufacturer will comply with the state's directive, only those who want to sell their stuff in California.
You're right about a consumer's decision when he has a choice, but the state makes that choice for him.
You think I exaggerate? Consider automobiles.
A more likely scenario involves defeating the thermostat's on-off cycle.
Somebody should.
Eighteen digits is something like 123,456,789,123,456,789 which is enough numbers to assign over a million unique identifiers to every person on the planet!
Does your product number include a check-digit? No? With eighteen digits, you're guaranteeing trouble.
How hard would it be to take the serial number and LOOK UP the model and date?
its just another right being taken from americans, based on its good for us.
just look at what we have lost in the last 10 years................
the US ignores the geneva convention
has indefinite detainees
has black prisons
waterboards and tortures, then destroys the evidence
look at the hassle of getting on a airliner.... cant find your drivers license? you cant fly sorry.
US tracks all our spending
US wiretaps phone calls without court order
US congress and wite house largely ignores open porus borders and at most gives lip service to fixing illegal immigration. no doubt because those illegals are essential for ouur economy.
vehicles are we regulated adding thousands to costs but the bump safe bumpers, that allowed a 3.5 mile hit were dropped, so car makersa can get wealthy everytime a minor bump occurs.
these regulations although sold to us for our benefit often benefit others, like big business.
the US is well along to be a declining country, debt ridden, congress handing out pork as payoffs to whoever gave them money to get re elected. without concern for the good of the people or our country.
we lost manufacturing, and are losing food production.
one day soon our country run by special interests will collapse of its own bureacratic money wasting ways.....
our standard of living will collapse, perhaps energy needs will tank at that time?
I'll assume you are being as facetious in this response as I was in mine.
## If you refer to the folks at Guantanamo, there is no Geneva Convention, treaty, or protocol that covers unlawful enemy combatants. The folks there are not criminals (so our constitutional safeguards do not apply) nor are they POWs.
## The usual practice throughout the centuries has been to summarily execute sabateurs, spys, guerrillas, fifth columnists, and other forms of unlawful enemy combatants. I remind you that the last of the German POWs were not repatriated until late 1949, almost five years after the cessation of hostilities.
##True. Having worked in a jail, I can say you can't integrate one person with 100 of a different type, be that type race, sexual orientation, national origin, or whatever. The cellblocks - or prisons - have to be roughly equal or all of one type. The reason we have "black prisons" is because there are more black prisoners.
## A rational person wouldn't want to KEEP the evidence, now would he?
## ???
## The first wiretaps took place when both the Union and Confederate forces intercepted telegraph messages. This is standard practice in wartime. There are no laws, treaties, or anything else proscribing such.
## Only the Republicans have the economy as their goal; Democrats want the votes.
## ???
## Agreed.
## The US is not a declining country. Just the INCREASE in our GDP for the last five years is greater than the entire GDP of China.
## It is good that we lose unprofitable manufacturing (or any other type of job). Adam Smith proved this in his "Wealth of Nations," published in 1776. Some people just need to keep up.
## We ARE losing food production because much "food" is being converted to fuel. When the problem gets severe enough, somebody will find a way to make food out of oil. It'll average out.
## "Special interests" are good. They act as a brake on the ignorant cries of the great uwashed mob. It's called "separation of power." Do you want to take a vote on what the tariff should be for hauling rendered Yak Fat on interstate railroads? Do you want your congress-critter to decide? Or would you rather the regulators have input from those who know how important Yak Fat is to homeland defense?
## The life expectancy of an American and the average African in 1910 was roughly the same - about 45. Today Americans live to 80 while Africans have shrunk to about 40.
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