0,24 EUR is currently ~0,29 USD. That's 0,29 USD for my cheapest price against your most expensive price with 0,20 USD.
Which is a good thing because we have electric heat and it's been a very cold month. I'm expecting an about $350 bill.
In Canada (Quebec) we pay 0.06$/kWh but the government gives incentive for energy efficiency as a tax deductible.
US building codes are also increasingly strict about insulation and energy efficiency. Premium home builders go even further with insulation. In some locations, new houses are so well insulated and sealed that extra fresh air heat recovery units are necessary to exchange the indoor air.
I recently noticed in the house I just purchased that a lot of cold air was coming in behind my kitchen cabinets and appliances. I pulled out my range and noticed that cold air was rushing through the gap between the drywall and the floor. Fortunately a can of expandable foam was an easy fix.
This house is only 2 years old. Corners were cut when building which makes this home not as efficient as it could be. I'm hoping to make gradual improvements.
Even though my electricity rate is only around $0.12/kwh and my gas bill isn't high, I'd still like to do what I can both for the environment and to save money.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/
Although, the states that are “energy deregulated” will often have a marketplace type website where you can compare suppliers. In those states, the utility commission sets rates for your local utility to run the transmission and local distribution wires, but allows you to choose which supplier generates the power on the grid on your behalf.
Really, the best way to figure out utility rates in the US is to check with that state’s utility commission or directly with the utility that provides physical infrastructure in a particular area.
https://app.bchydro.com/accounts-billing/rates-energy-use/el...
I'm struggling to believe this. Can you name one dam on Earth that has lost over 10% capacity due to sediment?
The Sanmenxia Dam in China lost 17% of its capacity in the first 18 months of its operation due to sediment accumulation [1]
Countless other dams have already been dismantled due to sediment build up, and many more will follow, considering that around 19000 large dams worldwide are over 50 years old [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmenxia_Dam [2] https://e360.yale.edu/features/water-warning-the-looming-thr...
[1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/WR0...
If seems you didn't even did the most basic cursory search on the issue.
Here's literally the first hit on a google search for "dam sediment".
https://www.hydroreview.com/world-regions/dealing-with-sedim...
And think about it: what's a dam reservoir other than a big old sedimentation basin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sediment_basin
Also, think about it: hydro power is not the only use for a dam. They are also typically used for things such as flood control, water supply, and energy storage. All of those usecases rely on the sam's ability to hold water (and it's sediments) and lower discharge, if not totally block it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/not-all-h...
I always assumed they would clear the area of trees first anyways. Why let the wood rot when you can cut it down and use it?
The spaces are often so vast that chopping down the wood could delay a project by impractical lengths of time.
> I get that trees are a store of carbon and if they get submerged they will break down and release it all, but surely over the lifespan of the dam that’s significantly lower than burning coal non-stop? Wouldn’t it be equivalent to a forest fire clearing the area?
My understanding is that microbial breakdown means a lot more carbon is released as methane vs. CO2 from fires — methane being a much more potent greenhouse gas.
Here’s one related paper I found
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/66/11/949/275427...
(I work for a hydro developer but I’m not an expert).
Geographically we can’t rely on solar; I’m not sure why we don’t have more wind turbines!
There are several states where the retail rates are lower than 10 cent/kwh.
paywalled, any open source for this data?
first 300 kwh @ .25 the next 1000 kwh @ .31 above that you pay .39
1) The US has good hydro resources (in the northwest where it rains all the time and there are lots of mountains so you have both lots of water and altitude change) as well as nuclear (especially in the long-industrialized northeast) that (mostly) has long been paid for and that we just keep running for cheap. Nuclear is about 19% of our electricity, and it's cheap once it has been built for decades.
2) Lots of cheap wind, especially in the middle of the continent where all the maize and stuff grows.
3) Way better solar resource especially in the south and southwest where it's about twice as much sun as in Germany and with much, MUCH less seasonal impact. See: http://www.sunisthefuture.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Sun...
4) Like Germany (but even more so), LOTS of coal. Over a quarter of the world's recoverable coal reserves. However, we don't even use that much of it anymore. Just the cheapest kind (usually not the crappy lignite stuff that Germany often uses for power) is still used for power. We use much less than half the coal for electricity than we did even 10 years ago. Because...
5) We have a ridiculous. A RIDICULOUS amount of cheap gas right now. Fracking has opened up the spigot. Texas, Pennsylvania, Lousiana, Oklahoma, Ohio, etc, etc. (And Canada produces a bunch that we end up using because they don't have anyone else to sell it to and it's produced a long way from Canada's cities.) We make so much natural gas we export it to Mexico, and are even starting to liquefy it and export it to Europe.
So yeah. While Germany has long relied heavily on imported fossil fuels, the shutdown of nuclear plants hasn't helped. Think of how expensive it is to send natural gas all the way from wherever Russia makes it (Siberia) all the way to Germany and the markup Putin asks for. (and that's roughly a third of Germany's natural gas, IIRC)
And I think the way wind/solar subsidies work in Germany and different than in the US. In Germany, the solar subsidy is paid for by all the ratepayers. That alone is like 4.6 US cents per kWh on top of your electricity. In the US, the solar subsidy is funded as a tax credit which means the cost isn't directly borne by consumers but ends up being paid for or borrowed by the federal government. (Also, having twice as much sun means the same solar panel makes roughly twice as much electricity...) This has the effect of solar actually reducing the cost of electricity in the US while it increases the cost of electricity in Germany for the consumer... which probably is why German companies have been more reluctant to switch to electric cars than you think they would have been.
So yeah. The US has a huge amount of land, so really good solar/wind resources (and decent geothermal while we're at it), a pretty solid hydro and nuclear power situation, and massive amounts of fossil fuel. The US is now actually a net energy exporter. That's why electricity is so cheap.
You can check out good statistics for US energy production and consumption here: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
If so, a citation would be good because my sources say Germany's electric supply has been stable.
Instead, your citations say renewables are producing more energy than can be used.
That's a good problem. It can be solved by turning some of the supply off, or adding long-distance transmission to move the excess power to where it's needed.
But there's no hint of renewables causing instability or unreliability or power outages.