Y2Kyoto: The Thermominator

Great Moments In Socialism 30 Comments

California utilities…

…would control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat, under a proposed state update to building energy efficiency standards.
Customers could not override the thermostats during “emergency events,” according to the proposal, part of a 236-page revision to building standards. The document is scheduled to be considered by the California Energy Commission, a state agency, on Jan. 30.
The description does not provide any exception for health or safety concerns. It also does not define what are “emergency events.”

30 Replies to “Y2Kyoto: The Thermominator”

  1. Perhaps if a rolling blackout were headed for Gore’s mansion? Would that be an emergency?

  2. We got a flyer of some sort in the mail about a month ago, here in Southern Ontario. Not sure if it was the local Hydro office, but they wanted to do The Same Damn Thing here! They wanted the ability to shut down our AC during peak usage in the summer… Did anyone else get one of those?

  5. That is truly frightening.
    Bring on the day when we can have some form of energy source that sits in a small box outside our homes and provides all the energy we need.
    In any case utility companies are dinosaurs just waiting to die. It couldn’t happen soon enough.

  6. if it’s hot, i go to the mall/movies/swimming pool/bow river to cool off
    not a problem in this day of global warming
    it hits maybe 30C for week in a good year.
    otherwise put in a wood stove

  7. There would have to be an exemption clause in there for the Hollyweirdos or they would never go for that.
    And what pray tell, would they do if it ever malfunctioned on say, the hottest day of the year?

  8. I give it a week before a PROM hack is out that gets the thing to ignore incoming commands while assuring the monitors that everything is just fine and dandy…
    “We’re all ok here. How are you?”

  9. Hello Mr. Thermostat. Meet Mr. Icepack.
    (What? None of you ever had a cheap landlord?)
    I’ve had to override such sensors at work…

  11. Puddin and pie – I agree with you. I don’t like air conditioning. It makes you soft and we have to toughen ourselves up for the future global warming :). But, I saw something a few weeks ago that a bunch of places are, or have banned wood stoves, they’re bad for the environment don’t you know.

  13. in Canada, with our extreme climate, we always get a few weeks every summer where the temperatures are unbearable… air conditioning is essential during those periods… as I said on a previous post, the eco-doomers are anarchists and this hydro shortage issue is a total fraud… these same “communists” (and they are communists) are the same group who protest against the use of affordable and plentiful nuclear energy… just consider the excessive number of deaths in Europe each summer from heat prostration… air conditioning is not a luxury, it is essential during our summer heat waves

  15. A lot of this stuff is called ‘Negawatts on Demand’. It is something that came out of the US a few years ago – and it is actually a good idea.
    (This issue in California doesn’t sound good though.)
    The problem is that utilities plan energy needs based on peek usage scenarios to ensure that everyone has energy in the worst case. However, this is usually overkill when you look at all consumers of energy.
    So in the US, a bunch of smart guys started companies whereby they organized businesses, companies, and even family communities such that they would give up energy during peak periods. They then sold these ‘negawatts’ to utilities (and also distributed profits to the businesses, etc., who signed up). When a utility needs energy – because of a heat wave or something – and they panic because they don’t know if they can supply peak demand – these guys guarantee so much energy for a certain period of time which will not be pulled off of the grid. This is very efficient.
    Last year Loblaws signed an agreement with Ontario Hydro to supply ‘negawatts’. Loblaws agreed that with 12 hours notice they would guarantee not to pull a certain amount of energy off of the Ontario Hydro grid. This was actually necessary last summer – Loblaws turned off all lights in about 70 big stores in Ontario – and shutdown all non-essential hydro for about 8 hours – and hydro met their needs – and Loblaws made or saved a buck or two.
    Also new thermostats (or meters or whatever) that directly show you how much electricity you are using – real time – and show you what appliances are the culprits are good things. It is also a good thing to have immediate access to your energy costs (instead of waiting for the monthly bill).
    Anyway, the Cali stuff looks pretty bogus (and unless Cali already has an emergency RF network, they are going to be paying a bundle to either use some of the new WiMAX stuff being deployed now by carriers – or they will have to setup their own network.)

  17. Next move: Remote control on the water taps.
    Ccon … no bandwidth problems … the systems use cel technology and send data in the short message space

  18. Just a thought, but the Utility companies and cops have had a bitch of a time locating grow-ops that are stealing power; good luck on nailing granny for cranking up the heat a couple of degrees. Talk about committing career suicide, for any execs who get caught trying.
    Maybe the Golf Clubs should consider closing up shop at dusk rather than staying open till the wee hours; that goes double for professional sports facilities.
    Yeh, I thought not…

  19. Just a thought, but the Utility companies and cops have had a bitch of a time locating grow-ops that are stealing power; good luck on nailing granny for cranking up the heat a couple of degrees. Talk about committing career suicide, for any execs who get caught trying.
    Maybe the Golf Clubs should consider closing up shop at dusk rather than staying open till the wee hours; that goes double for professional sports facilities.
    Yeh, I thought not…

  22. I see Canadians are talking about a week or so of hot weather and the need of A/C. Living in Houston, I can say that I have had to use A/C in every month of the year. I don’t really need a furnace. It must be that location, location, location thing.
    I still say that if I have to pay for my energy or whatever, I should determine how I use it.

  23. Another assinine statist proposal that will probably fail miserably. The system appears to involve one way transmission with no acknowledgement from the controlled thermostat. The simplest solution would be to build a Faraday cage around the reciever thus blocking all control signals.
    The solution would be to build more power plants, but I guess such simple solutions are verbotten now.
    cconn’s solution would work but I would suggest the following modification. Have the price of power fluctuate constantly with the lowest price being when excess generating capacity was the highest and the highest price being when the system was close to failing. People could then make the decision of whether they were willing to pay say 20 times the going rate for power in order to keep their house as cool/warm as they would like, or whether they would switch off air-conditioner/heating to save some money. By obtaining such high prices for electricity at peak demand periods, there would be incentives for companies to invest in new generating capacity to cash in on people who had no interest in reducing their power consumption. Obviously current power meters can’t be used for such minute by minute power pricing, but a computerized meter accessible over the internet would allow this sort of dynamic pricing of power. An open source system might have some chance of working, but a closed-source centralized bureaucratic system would probably be unworkable.

  24. Probably just another way to sneak in a rate hike. Likely they will raise your hydro usage in off hours to pad the bill.
    When Hydro installed those ‘smart’ meters so they could charge us more for ‘peak’ hours a nice lady I knew was elated. She thought that this would save her money if she kept her peak hour usage to a minimum and did her laundry and dishes at night. Her Hydro bill, like mine, went up about 30%.
    The moral of the story: beware of Hydro bearing gifts.

  26. California is a state where the worst leftard idiots live.
    They deserve whatever jackbooted government interference they voted for.
    If I was running the utilities company I’d declare San Fran and Marin County permanently in emergency and cut off their power indefinitely. Ditto for the studios of Hollywood. I’d target the homes of Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. But in their case instead of cutting them off I’d re-route half the grids to their homes in the hope they’d be there when it blew…
    How’d the hippies drive their electric cars to the protests? How would they charge their bull horns? It would not affect their lack of hygiene as they already save on water by not showering… Heh.

  27. Maybe Hollywood will go romantic and use candle light, put horses on treadmills to generate power.
    They’re so damned smart, they’ll think of something.
    Yeah, right.
    In this great process to elect the next President, will Caleefawneeya Governor, Arnie the Terminator be entering stage Left or stage Right?
    Then there’s Lardy Butt Gore, is there a stage strong enough to him?

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