Coal out -- Natural gas in

I have been pretty happy with FPL and I can't complain about my bills. The Ft Myers plant went off bunker oil over 2 decades ago. The only bad news is they have to artificially heat the discharge water for the manatees because the gas plant is so efficient the water isn't warm enough for them in the winter. I guess the manatee lovers are hoping for more global warming to expand their range.

I'm very happy with them. When I lived in CT the rates were effectively .21 kWhr. Here for the year I used more electricity but paid $900 less.

You guys are lucky. Ours keeps going up. DE got flim flammed by Bloom Engineering to have them build and use fuel cells using natural gas fuel and of course cost of power went up and jobs did not materialize. Using natural gas as a turbine fuel is cheaper and more efficient. State also got flim flammed into pumping money into offshore windmills that never got built.

In CT and MA they allowed you to choose your electric supplier (for generation) and competition would save you a lot of money. Sounds good, freedom of choice!

First year I saved about $60, second year $30, by fourth year is was more expensive and if you were not careful, very expensive. Middlemen made a bunch of money though.

Same with deregulation up here in Ontario. Sure, you can BUY your rlectricity and natural gas from anyone you choose - and have it delivered on OPG lines through, in my case, Waterloo North Hydro distribution system for elrctricity and Embridge (formerly union gas) for gas. Always on a "fixed price" contract which for at least the last 20 years has NEVER been cheaper over the long term than spot price through the primary supplier.

Someone's making a tidy profit. Kitchener utilities was hedging their bets, buying contracts on gas - and Kitchener residents payed significantly more than Waterloo, where we bought directly from Union Gas (now Embridge)

Clare - I'll happily buy you a Schmidtsville breakfast - if that's what it takes to set you straight on this ! :-) I can't speak for gas - but for electricity - it isn't the energy price - it's the delivery price - that is the problem .. .. OPG does not retail or deliver electricity - HydroOne delivers electricity... wholesale and retail .. .. and they are no longer included in the SunShine List - ... duh . Ontario - Quebec - Manitoba - public power systems - .. Provencial Public Utilities - along with TVA . we were historically the very best in North America . ... now look at us. I think Manitoba and Quebec are OK ... John T.

You will agree that "deregulation" was a terrible boondoggle? Yes, I mixed up OPG and Hydro One. Back when it was Ontario Hydro it was top-heavy, but when they split it to OPG and Hydro One there were TWO top-heavy overpriced bureaucracies instead of one.

The delivery price is the same regardless who you buy the power from

- or through - but it IS a significant portion of the total bill.

Might take you up on the schmidtsville breakfast for a jawfest sometime though - - - dutch.

The Seabrook nuke was controversial and one of the point of discussion was the discharge of cooling water a mile offshore. PSNH said the lobsters would love it. Maybe they were on to something.

If you call Ontario Hydro top heavy -

- Maurice Strong in the 1980's was called to task for his salary - he voluntarily reduced it to $ 1. .. from $ 400,000, .. that's for the whole Province. .. after "privatisation" and sell-offs - the several ensuing companies jacked-up salaries ~ many fold. and $ 400. k became a mid-management pay scale - for the several split-companies - ... with no over sight or SunShine List. Check out Ontario power & delivery rates compared to Quebec & Manitoba .. A few years ago - my daughter, in Quebec, installed an electric furnace ! .. not too many sold in Ontario lately. John T.

The endangered species act has gone off the rails down here in South Florida. The manatees are thriving but they have outgrown their habitat, same with the "Florida Panther", basically the same Cougars they have in Texas and the Mountain Lions you have out there. In fact they brought a bunch of Texas Cougars here to pump up the DNA pool but that just demonstrated there isn't any such thing as a Florida Panther. It is just a few Georgia Cougars that got cut off when we developed central Florida. Now we have hundreds and nowhere near enough wild country to support the population so they are moving into urban areas where they get hit by cars. "Oh no, we are killing endangered species". They aren't endangered and the population is thriving, within the limits of the available environment. I would say the same thing about the Manatee. The population we have needs to be near the power plant all winter or they will die of cold stress. (water temps <68-69 degrees). The problem is the power plant here is on the Okeechobee water way, the main east west route across Florida and prime time for boat traffic is the winter, when the manatee are there. Guess what? Manatees are getting hit. It is like putting a salt lick in the median of I-75 and wondering why the deer are getting hit by cars. They are also starving because there are so many they have eaten every blade of grass in the river within swimming distance until the cold water gets them. Populations are at record high levels and they still say boats are the real danger. The real danger is they have more manatee than the environment can support.

What did they do before the power plants? Head south for the winter?

They went south or they died and created the fossils that prove they died here. We don't really have a clue how many we are really talking about tho. It is enough to get people to say they are "native". I am sure we have a historically high number of them now. There is also lots of evidence that there were quite a number that were brought here in the 20th century to eat water hyacinth

No, no, no. That is all wrong. They should be burning more coal. Clean, beautiful coal. Dear Leader says so, he knows best, he's a very stable genius.

Have you ever heard me agree with him on coal? That old knee of yours is still jerking.

He is just channeling that idiot Jimmy Carter who bragged about coal saving us all the time after he and Nixon screwed up our middle east policy to the point that we were sitting in gas lines and people were worried that the couldn't heat their homes.

Jihn, there are several reasons for this discrepancy besides the lower cost of Hydro in Quebec. First of all,Natural Gas is not available to the majority of quebec residents outside major centers, and outside the eastern townships. Natural gas is the lowest cost heating option throughout virtually all of Canada where it is available. Second - While natural gas is 30% cheaper than electricity in Quebec, it is HALF the price of heating oil - the old standby - making electricity roughly 20% less than oil (I didn't do the calculation - so that's why Isaid roughly -)

From Embridge Quebec: The following is an example of the cost comparison calculation for a year’s use of oil and natural gas, taking into consideration the fuel efficiency of your 15 or more year-old furnace and a new natural gas furnace one:

Calculation of the annual cost of heating with oil:

Comparing the cost of heating with oil and with natural gas, taking into consideration the furnace’s fuel efficiency:

Annual saving from using natural gas as your energy source: $1,070

Third - The third option is Propane.About 85 per cent of the propane used in Quebec is shipped by rail from Sarnia, Ont. - making it more expensive than in Ontario - and then it needs to be trucked from Montreal or whatever rail head it is offloaded at. In many areas of quebec that trucking expense is far from trivial, and during hard winters the trucks have difficulty getting to many areas when needed. The price of propane fluctuates severely with supply in any given region.

Even in Ontario, propane prices have been very volatile over the last number of years, affected by rail strikes, bad weather, and other issues.

If propane, oil and natural gas cost the same - 1 liter of Propane or oil to 1 cubic meter of natural gas, propane would still cost 50% more because of it's lower heat value.

All this makes electric heat more attractive to many users in Quebec compared to Ontario. Of course, with quebec electricity costs running at about HALF of Ontario prices - just over half of Vancouver or Miami -and one quarter of New York - it doesn't hurt either!!!!!! Plug 7 cents a Kw H into the therm equasion vs 14 cents - - - -

They still do that now.

Not really, they just head up to the power plant. Manatee are 15-20 generations away from remembering about migration south, if they ever knew in the first place. It is clear now that they are not leaving the bays and moving up to the power plants until the last minute and that is far too late to actually get far enough south to find warm water. Most of the natural springs in south Florida that used to give them some relief have dried up from overuse of water by the millions of new residents.