On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 04:59:46 GMT, Rich The Philosophizer
wrote:

I would really believe this is a gag if you hadn't already shown that
you have the mentality of a neocon.

??
Example?
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

I guess I'm missing the logic of your argument. Why do you think you
owe them for the positive half of the cycle and they owe you for the
negative half cycle? Both half cycles produce (positive) work in your
appliances, so you owe for both halves of the cycles. I guess that if
you feel that strongly about the issue, you can always disconnect from
the mains and make your own power from solar panels, wind generators,
methane digesters, fuel cells, wood and steam, gas generator, etc. I'm
not sure where in the world you are, but here in the USA, you are not
FORCED into being served by any electric utility. A great place to
start on that issue is http://www.homepower.com and order their
magazine. Tons of people use "renewable" energy sources to power their
homes either in full or in part.

I happen to work for a power utility and we are installing methane
digesters on large farms in the area. Cow poop in equals electricity
and fertilizer out.

YOU can install your own digester, and if, for example, you live in a
farming community with a good supply of manure, you could form an
electric cooperative whereby the MEMBERS of the coop drop off manure,
you shovel it into the digester, methane is produced through
decomposition, collect the gas, use it to fire a generator set and sell
or provide the electricity to the members...By the way, it takes about
750 cows to provide enough manure to have a continuous supply of gas to
fire the generators and produce approximately 750 KW of power...enough
to supply the needs for approximately 50 homes at full load in each
house (240 Volts at 60 Amps). If each house is only using say 5 KW at
any instance, 150 homes could be served from the above noted digester.
You can form your own power plant if you desire (at least here in the
USA)...


Scott

Paul Burridge wrote:
On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 11:42:11 +0000, Scott
wrote:


Huh? It's only 5:30AM here and I just got up but, the ONLY time you
aren't consuming power is at the zero crossing of the voltage and
current sine waves (assuming a purely resistive load where I and E are
in phase). Since you are paying for power, which is P=I X E, during the
negative half cycle, you have, for example, -168 Volts X -1 Amp = +168
Watts...try it on a calculator...negative times a negative is positive.


Thanks, Scott. So you're basically agreeing with me. I owe the power
co. for the positive cycles they send me; they owe *me* for the
negative ones. Since they are equal and opposite, they cancel each
other out. Overall, then, zero billing justified.
We are being conned!!!

Sounds like Einstein's theory of relativity. It all depends on the
point of reference.

The power company could be providing YOU the courtesy of having
electrons piled up at your open switch and your appliances are just
waiting for you to close the switch so that they can do some kind of
work to give meaning to their lives.

Scott



John Fields wrote:


However, when you do turn on a switch you're providing a way for
_their_ electricity to get back to _them_ and stop beating it's head
against an open switch, so it seems to me that they should pay _you_
for doing them the courtesy of returning their electricity.

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 02:30:47 GMT, "Joel" wrote:

However, when you do turn on a switch you're providing a way for
_their_ electricity to get back to _them_ and stop beating it's head
against an open switch, so it seems to me that they should pay _you_
for doing them the courtesy of returning their electricity.


AH, BUT, how do _they_ know for sure _they_ are getting back the same
electrons _they_ sent out?

---
They read the meter, which only lets out (with one exception, see
below) the electrons they send it when you turn on a switch and turn
them loose.
---

Do the little suckers have tatoos?

---
"Tattoos". No, but they don't have to, since the power company knows
that since they were the only ones sending out the electrons, the ones
they get back must have been theirs in the first place. (Note the
exception below.)
---

Maybe I have a generator (such as my $500 combination treadmill/generator. I
run damn fast) that's feeding back MY OWN homemade electrons.
As soon as I think of a way to identify my personal electrons I'm going to
send them a bill. And since my electrons are of higher quality (not to
mention organic) I'll charge more for them.

---
That's already being done in lots of places, but the buying price for
imported electrons is fixed by law (usually) so you don't get to
arbitrarily determine how much you charge for your electrons if you
want to sell them to the electric company. What you do is to run your
electrons through the meter backwards, and then when the electric
company reads your meter they'll know where the surplus of electrons
(or fuel) at their facility came from and they'll pay you for them and
then sell them to someone else.

--
John Fields

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:28:27 +0000, Scott
wrote:

I guess I'm missing the logic of your argument. Why do you think you
owe them for the positive half of the cycle and they owe you for the
negative half cycle? Both half cycles produce (positive) work in your
appliances, so you owe for both halves of the cycles. I guess that if
you feel that strongly about the issue, you can always disconnect from
the mains and make your own power from solar panels, wind generators,
methane digesters, fuel cells, wood and steam, gas generator, etc. I'm
not sure where in the world you are, but here in the USA, you are not
FORCED into being served by any electric utility. A great place to
start on that issue is http://www.homepower.com and order their
magazine. Tons of people use "renewable" energy sources to power their
homes either in full or in part.

I happen to work for a power utility and we are installing methane
digesters on large farms in the area. Cow poop in equals electricity
and fertilizer out.

YOU can install your own digester, and if, for example, you live in a
farming community with a good supply of manure, you could form an
electric cooperative whereby the MEMBERS of the coop drop off manure,
you shovel it into the digester, methane is produced through
decomposition, collect the gas, use it to fire a generator set and sell
or provide the electricity to the members...By the way, it takes about
750 cows to provide enough manure to have a continuous supply of gas to
fire the generators and produce approximately 750 KW of power...enough
to supply the needs for approximately 50 homes at full load in each
house (240 Volts at 60 Amps). If each house is only using say 5 KW at
any instance, 150 homes could be served from the above noted digester.
You can form your own power plant if you desire (at least here in the
USA)...

---
Paul's in the UK, but I think you've hit on a terrific idea in that if
he installed a digester outfitted with a toilet seat he could,
single-assedly, supply electricity (_and_ fertilizer, God knows,) for
most of Europe!^)

--
John Fields

Paul Burridge wrote in message . ..

I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

Because if you don't they'll turn off their non-voltage and
non-current and you won't like the difference (even though there isn't
any).

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 11:25:52 -0600, John Fields
wrote:

Paul's in the UK, but I think you've hit on a terrific idea in that if
he installed a digester outfitted with a toilet seat he could,
single-assedly, supply electricity (_and_ fertilizer, God knows,) for
most of Europe!^)

Hey, I was going to give the surplus hot air suggestion a try, but I
couldn't afford to run a pipeline all the way to Austin. ;-

--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On 14 Nov 2004 12:35:00 -0800, (Mike Silva)
wrote:

Paul Burridge wrote in message . ..

I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

Because if you don't they'll turn off their non-voltage and
non-current and you won't like the difference (even though there isn't
any).

You're probably right. Sigh... I still think I'm a dumbass sucker,
though. But at least no one seems to agree with me on that.

--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 05:04:59 GMT, Rich The Philosophizer
wrote:

Well, yeah, except that it's so simple to "explain away" by just
saying that you're not paying for the electrons themselves that
are just passing through, but the energy required to get them
to do that passage.

Big deal. All they've got to do is pull some carbon rods out of a pile
of radio-active crap and the job's done. How hard can that be?
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:38:36 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 05:04:59 GMT, Rich The Philosophizer
wrote:

Well, yeah, except that it's so simple to "explain away" by just
saying that you're not paying for the electrons themselves that
are just passing through, but the energy required to get them
to do that passage.

Big deal. All they've got to do is pull some carbon rods out of a pile
of radio-active crap and the job's done. How hard can that be?

---
I think that's kinda what they thought at Chernobyl...

--
John Fields