The Upside of Utility Deregulation

There is a positive outcome from the deregulation of utilities that as fostered during the Reagan Administration. That deregulation made it possible for competing gas suppliers and traditional electricity suppliers to compete and allegedly lower the cost to consumers. There was a secondary and some say an unintended consequence to that deregulation.

At the time of the changes to laws and regulations no one had ever heard of a commercial-grade solar or wind sourced supplier being able to generate electricity and move it to market.

What the deregulation process created was the ability for a legacy utility company to continue to deliver the commodities and charge a delivery fee separate from the actual commodity. The original idea was that small and competing providers could sell their commodity to the utility and they would blend it in with their own material. Then the idea of selling directly to the consumer took over.

Today, many Americans are able to choose the electricity supplier they want to buy from. Such providers may source some or all of their electricity from the wind or solar sources. Best of all the legacy utility company will deliver for the same fee as they do their own electricity.

A quick search of the Internet using ones zipcode can determine if there is the opportunity to buy electricity from an alternative source. Billing is transparent and seamless so there is no need to get two bills from two different companies. There is no investment to pay for. There are only yearly contracts to adhere to. While the price today may be a bit higher than coal, nuclear or hydro-electric power, the far smaller carbon footprint will make any ecologically sensitive consumer satisfied.

When I chose wind power I agreed to pay 0.5 cents more per kilowatt-hour.  That was a small price to pay for knowing that I was doing something good for the environment. Now I don't fret about leaving the light on.

Every time a consumer chooses to buy electricity from a wind or solar sourced utility provider they make it possible for that company to build more capacity. New alt sources are faster and easier to bring online. Similarly, as the technologies are improved, there is no need to stay stuck with the old tech.

Every time an investor with a conscious thinks about the choice between a legacy power source and a modern alternative source, he, she, they make it possible  to have energy AND a sustainable environment.

"That which brought us through the past century will not sustain us through the next one."

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Author's Note: The book cover images in the side margins of this blog are my own publications of eBooks available at both Amazon and B&N. Please take a moment and go to the sites and read about them. Then if you like it, buy one or two.

Coal Ash: Then and Now

In the summer of 1979, a group of friends of mine and I forded a back channel of the upper Allegheny River in Warren, Pennsylvania to camp on an island situated adjacent to a coal fired electric generation plant. To get there we had to hike past the ash pit that had accumulated over years of generating electricity.

The pits were being services and the orange-brown effluent was obvious in the low-lying areas. Though the site was ugly, the island was small and uninhabited except for a few birds and snakes that frequented the forested spit of land. The water in the main channel are as cold as the bottom of a reservoir but the back channel was extremely warm "fresh" from cooling the machinery. The Kinzua Dams is only a few miles upstream from this site.

These ash pits were located only a few feet above "normal pool elevation" and would periodically get flooded when the river flow was high.

since that day in 1979 the coal burning plant was closed and the ash pits remediated. Sometime around 1990 the ash was dug up and relocated at a higher elevation. It was still on-site, but it was sealed in an area with an impervious bottom lining and top cover. With the rain kept at bey the amount of run-off has been minimalized. The water that does leak out does so via a drain into a catch basin where it can be removed and treated.

This third image is the aerial view of the site now. Ash storage is in the upper left quadrant. The square catch basin is clearly in the center and the location of the former pits along the river are now grassy fields. There is no coal pile ready to be burned and no smoke and CO2 to foul the air.

Such sites can be rehabilitated, but should only be done so at the expense of the utilities that were for so long allowed to neglect the "externalities" of their business model, i.e. land, air and water pollution.

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