California is the BEST!!
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/11/america/calif.php
California wants to control home thermostats
By Felicity Barringer Published: January 11, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO: The conceit in the 1960s show "The Outer Limits" was that outside forces had taken control of your television set.
Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.
The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators.
The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers' preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities' suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers' wishes.
Final approval is expected next month.
Today in Americas
In South Carolina, a bid for black women's votesRaising a wine's price improves its taste, study suggestsRepublicans gear-up for Tuesday vote in Michigan"You realize there are times - very rarely, once every few years - when you would be subject to a rotating outage and everything would crash including your computer and traffic lights, and you don't want to do that," said Arthur Rosenfeld, a member of the energy commission.
Reducing individual customers' electrical use - if necessary, involuntarily - could avoid that, Rosenfeld said. "If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain," he said, "there's a lot less pain to go around."
While the proposals have received little attention in California, the Internet and talk radio are abuzz with indignation at the idea.
The radio-controlled thermostat is not a new technology, though it is constantly being tweaked; the latest iterations were on display this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Pacific Gas and Electric, the major utility in Northern California, already has a pilot program in Stockton that allows customers to choose to have their air-conditioning systems attached to a radio-controlled device to reduce use during periods when electricity rates are at their peak. But the idea that a government would mandate use of these devices and reserve the power to override a building owner's wishes galls some people.
"This is an outrage," one Californian said in an e-mail message to Rosenfeld. "We need to build new facilities to handle the growth in this state, not become Big Brother to the citizens of California."
The broader stir on the Internet began when Joseph Somsel, a San Jose-based contributor to the publication American Thinker, wrote an article a week ago on the programmable communicating thermostat, or PCT. Somsel went after the proposal with arguments that were by turns populist ("Come the next heat wave, the elites might be comfortably lolling in La Jolla's ocean breezes" while "the Central Valley's poor peons are baking in Bakersfield"), free-market ("PCTs will obscure the price signals to power plant developers") and civil libertarian ("the new PCT requirement certainly seems to violate the 'a man's home is his castle' common-law dictum"). Word of the California proposal hit the outrage button in corners of the Internet, was written about in The North County Times in Southern California, and got a derisive mention on Wednesday on Rush Limbaugh's radio program. The fact that similar radio-controlled technologies have been used on a voluntary basis in irrigation systems on farm fields and golf courses and in limited programs for buildings on Long Island is seldom mentioned in Internet postings that make liberal use of references to George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" and Big Brother, the omnipresent voice of Orwell's police state. Ralph Cavanagh, an energy expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview that at a time of peak electricity use, "most people given a choice of 2 degrees of temperature setback and 14th-century living would happily embrace this capacity." Somsel, in an interview on Thursday, said he had done further research and was concerned that the radio signal - or the Internet instructions that would be sent, in an emergency, from utilities' central control stations to the broadcasters sending the FM signal - could be hacked into. That is not possible, said Nicole Tam, a spokeswoman for PG&E who works with the pilot program in Stockton. Radio pages "are encrypted and encoded," Tam said
California wants to control home thermostats
By Felicity Barringer Published: January 11, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO: The conceit in the 1960s show "The Outer Limits" was that outside forces had taken control of your television set.
Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.
The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators.
The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers' preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities' suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers' wishes.
Final approval is expected next month.
Today in Americas
In South Carolina, a bid for black women's votesRaising a wine's price improves its taste, study suggestsRepublicans gear-up for Tuesday vote in Michigan"You realize there are times - very rarely, once every few years - when you would be subject to a rotating outage and everything would crash including your computer and traffic lights, and you don't want to do that," said Arthur Rosenfeld, a member of the energy commission.
Reducing individual customers' electrical use - if necessary, involuntarily - could avoid that, Rosenfeld said. "If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain," he said, "there's a lot less pain to go around."
While the proposals have received little attention in California, the Internet and talk radio are abuzz with indignation at the idea.
The radio-controlled thermostat is not a new technology, though it is constantly being tweaked; the latest iterations were on display this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Pacific Gas and Electric, the major utility in Northern California, already has a pilot program in Stockton that allows customers to choose to have their air-conditioning systems attached to a radio-controlled device to reduce use during periods when electricity rates are at their peak. But the idea that a government would mandate use of these devices and reserve the power to override a building owner's wishes galls some people.
"This is an outrage," one Californian said in an e-mail message to Rosenfeld. "We need to build new facilities to handle the growth in this state, not become Big Brother to the citizens of California."
The broader stir on the Internet began when Joseph Somsel, a San Jose-based contributor to the publication American Thinker, wrote an article a week ago on the programmable communicating thermostat, or PCT. Somsel went after the proposal with arguments that were by turns populist ("Come the next heat wave, the elites might be comfortably lolling in La Jolla's ocean breezes" while "the Central Valley's poor peons are baking in Bakersfield"), free-market ("PCTs will obscure the price signals to power plant developers") and civil libertarian ("the new PCT requirement certainly seems to violate the 'a man's home is his castle' common-law dictum"). Word of the California proposal hit the outrage button in corners of the Internet, was written about in The North County Times in Southern California, and got a derisive mention on Wednesday on Rush Limbaugh's radio program. The fact that similar radio-controlled technologies have been used on a voluntary basis in irrigation systems on farm fields and golf courses and in limited programs for buildings on Long Island is seldom mentioned in Internet postings that make liberal use of references to George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" and Big Brother, the omnipresent voice of Orwell's police state. Ralph Cavanagh, an energy expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview that at a time of peak electricity use, "most people given a choice of 2 degrees of temperature setback and 14th-century living would happily embrace this capacity." Somsel, in an interview on Thursday, said he had done further research and was concerned that the radio signal - or the Internet instructions that would be sent, in an emergency, from utilities' central control stations to the broadcasters sending the FM signal - could be hacked into. That is not possible, said Nicole Tam, a spokeswoman for PG&E who works with the pilot program in Stockton. Radio pages "are encrypted and encoded," Tam said
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In MD some of the electric companies have load management switches on the water heaters to turn them off during the day. They give a credit on the bill if you have the device. 0 -
It's a proposal - look up the word 'proposal' in the dictionary.
Write the definition 100x and then you can go out for recess.
... and yes, as I've stated before, California IS the best place to live.
It was 78?F yesterday - almost went to the beach! Maybe today!
[:D]0 -
Southern California SUCS -- Your opinion may vary !!!
Thanks---Peabo0 -
It does!
[:D]0 -
quote:Originally posted by zipperzap
It's a proposal - look up the word 'proposal' in the dictionary.
[:D]Yes, but surely you will admit there is an abundant recurrence of nutty/socialist proposals such as this one by California folks! [:D]
quote:Originally posted by zipperzap
... and yes, as I've stated before, California IS the best place to live.[:D]I will support you in your statements about the desirability of living in the San Diego area! Our sanity came into question a number of times when we were there over Christmas. When folks found out we retired, owned our home in CA, yet chose to move to Texas they all questioned our sanity and asked if we moved intentionally! [:D]0 -
California can offer a quality of life and outdoor adventures unmatched by any other state in the US. Explaining that to this bunch is simply casting pearls before swine. 0 -
I was borne and raised in Orange California. I lived there for 41 years and left last October for Idaho.
California was the best place to live in the world through the 1980's. It has since fallen through the cracks and has become a dung heap!
There is a shrinking middle class that has no way out. Millions of poor illiterate illegal aliens that have swarmed the states social welfare system and are causing a complete collapse of the system. Public education is a joke. More non-English speaking students then native English speakers. The roads are falling apart and take an hour or more to drive anywhere. Most store clerks now speak Spanish.
The price of gas, food and housing are through the roof and are fast becoming to high for the middle class.
The rich like Zipp will do good anywhere just like the rich in Mexico do well, but that is beyond the reach of most native born Americans.
Yep Zipp Cali was once a great place to live, but it's nothing but a poop-hole(Thanks auto-edit) now! You can keep it! Your just one step from your neighbor to the south!
Dean0 -
update.... update....update
The wackos in Sacramento have taken so much flak over this stupid proposal that it has been withdrawn. It will not be happening.
I was born and raised here in so. Cal and still like it. I can see the ocean from my house, and the house will be paid off in a couple months.
We have the best climate anywhere. I can drive 90 minutes and be in the mountains or the desert, and I can walk to the beach.
I agree with Cascio, the city of Orange where you lived is a dump. It has been taken over by illegals.
Now.......... If we can just get the ICE folks to come here and remove the millions of illegals, that should free up room on the freeways and lessen the burden on our schools and hospitals.
Better yet, the illegals will leave on their own if they cannot get jobs. All the govt needs to do is go after the employers who hire the illegals and "walaa" the will return to their POS country.0 -
78 sounds better than 38 Zipper, but not better enough, thanks![^] 0 -
quote:Originally posted by sierrasam
California can offer a quality of life and outdoor adventures unmatched by any other state in the US.A good example of the blindness to reality that's allowed a place with such great potential to go straight down the toilet.0 -
Actually Txs, California is a beautiful place. It is all the Californians and their votes that have ruined it. 0 -
It's Bush's fault.
Ron Paul will save us from this insanity.0 -
quote:Originally posted by He Dog
Actually Txs, California is a beautiful place. It is all the Californians and their votes that have ruined it.Exactly why I came home to Texas when I retired! [8D]0 -
It is going down to 16 degrees here in the North Carolina mountains. It is going to snow all night Wednesday.
I have the wood stove running. This is good weather for a man of Northern European ancestry. Cold weather is good for you. I love it.
And, as the old Noreweigan farmer told my buddy when he moved up to South Dakota, as they discussed the minus 20 temps, "Cold weather keeps the rifraff out."
Have you got any rifraff in California, Zipperzap?0 -
I've only been in California once, back in 1980.
To be fair, it was the greater L.A. area, so that's like visiting Brownsville and saying that you hate Texas.
I have friends from the northern part of the state who miss it. But not enough to move back.
I'm much more at home in New Mexico, Arizona, and, of course, Colorado.
If I ever want to experience the laid-back attitude and driving skills of Southern Californians, all I have to do is visit the Western Slope of my native Colorado. Dude. They're all over Montrose County.0 -
quote:Originally posted by Txs
quote:Originally posted by sierrasam
California can offer a quality of life and outdoor adventures unmatched by any other state in the US.A good example of the blindness to reality that's allowed a place with such great potential to go straight down the toilet.
You may want to flip through a 2007 almanac and see for yourself just where Texas ranks in the nation as a state in livabilty ie : household income,homeownership, job growth, education, crime, poverty, health care,unemployment, literacy, illegal immigration etc. Now compare it to California? Post your findings and clue us in on the current reality.0 -
I was going to reply to this thread, but decided to make a new one !
So not to take away from RUGERGUNZ.0 -
It's telling that the word freedom was nowhere on your list of attributes. The term "nanny state" comes to mind.
Ever seen a gun advertised as "Texas Legal"?0 -
quote:Originally posted by sierrasam
California can offer a quality of life and outdoor adventures unmatched by any other state in the US. Explaining that to this bunch is simply casting pearls before swine.
Hogwash.
Doug0 -
fruits and nuts. 0 -
I'm with you Zipp. Nothing better then a day at the beach in January. No other place i'd wanna live. 0
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