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And since it takes years to get plants online and powering the grid

Three years from starting construction to getting power out.

The government never makes money
Yes, they do. Fees? Penalties? Taxes? It's time for the "Government is the root of all inefficiency" to die.

My power company is owned by the city government, and it turns a profit. It also has the lowest rates in the state, and the most dependable electricity. Its customer service is stellar. If the customer service or dependability drops, or if rates rise too much, it's guaranteed to cost the Mayor the next election.

It doesn't hurt that Mr. Burns runs CWLP.

Because we all know a government run monopoly is the most cost effective means of doing something.

My power company, CWLP, is a government run monopoly, owned by the city of Springfield. We have the cheapest electricity in the state, and and the most reliable power.

In March, 2006 two F-2 tornados (almost F-3s) tore through Springfield and completely destroyed the electrical infrastructure in my neighborhood and a lot of other neighborhoods. There wasn't a single unbroken utility pole, nor a single wire that didn't touch the ground. The transformers were all on the ground, on roofs, and in trees. They had to completely rebuild, and my power was back on in a week.

Later that spring a single weak F-1 went through the St Louis area. I visited a friend in Cahokia on the Illinois side of the river, served by the private power company Amerin three weeks later, and the only evidence that there had been a tornado at all was that my friend's power was still out.

Amerin is my natural gas company, and their customer service is abysmal. CWLP's customer service is for the most part excellent. The reason is, if I'm unhappy with my electrical service I'm liable to vote against the Mayor next election, but if I'm unhappy with my gas service there's absolutely nothing I can do; it's not like I can get another gas company.

If you have choices, the free market works well. With a monopoly there is no free market, and you are far better served by it being a government monopoly.

Yes, of course! The government has already taken over the banking sector, the mortgage sector, the automotive sector, is about to take over the healthcare sector, so fuck it - the government may as well take over the energy sector as well.

My power company, CWLP, is owned and operated by Springfield's city government. We have the lowest bills in the state and the least downtime. It not only isn't getting any tax money, it turns a profit and helps fund our socialist fire department and socialist police department.

Government taking over health care works in every other country.

As to food, do you have any idea how heavily the food industry is subsidized by the government?

You were marked "troll" because there's no mod for "fucking retarded". BTW, maybe Springfield's power company works so well because this guy runs it....

And on a side note, thanks to DTE Energy for telling us we had power when we didn't, for losing the ticket for our neighborhood, for telling us it would be back every single day when it wasn't, and for the helpful DTE representative who warned us that our pipes might burst. Thanks

Many folks here are wary of anything government, saying that the private sector can always do the job better and cheaper than government, but Springfield IL's city government puts the lie to that. Our power plant, CWLP (third picture down is General Manager Mr. Burns... er, sorry, Todd Renfrow. He just looks like Mr. Burns) is owned by the city.

When two F-2 tornados destroyed most of the city's south end infrastructure in 2006 we didn't have any of the problems the submitter experienced with his private utility. Power was out for a week at the longest in the hardest hit areas; poles and lines and transformers and everything else had to be replaced. It was three weeks before the privately owned telcos got landlines working, and a month before Insight (since bought out) got my cable and internet back online.

A few months later and a hundred miles south a single F1 went through the St. Louis area, doing far less damage. The private company Ameren took over a month to get power restored to all its customers.

See, it's not government, but government's bureaucracy. The bureaucracy doesn't come from the fact that it's government, it comes from the fact that the bigger an organization, any orginazation, the more bureaucracy, the less customer service, the more the cost, and the shoddier the workmanship.

If I'm unhappy with my electric service I can vote for the Mayor's opponent the next election. If you're unhappy with your private electric company you're shit out of luck. You can't just go down the street and use a different power company, they have you by the balls and there's nothing whatever you can do about it (save getting a humungous generator).

Yeah, this place is full of cartoon characters. Gail Simpson is an alderman here. The bald guy on the right, in front of the giant check, in this picture runs the power plant. Looks familiar, doesn't he? Here is Springfield's Mayor, I'm sure you'll recognise him as well.

There are more links at the bottom of this barely SFW journal.

I've seen Betty Boop, Popeye, and a whole rash of non-Simpsons cartoon characters here. Betty Boop is a hooker I call "Bighead" in the linked journal.

Durbin is from one of the surrounding towns and ran for mayor quite a while back, befire he was elected Senator.

I agree. A lot of people are sure that anything any government runs will be run badly, but health care in other countries belies that. All the retired people I know are happy as clams with their medicare, yet the youngsters don't want it. I think they're brainwashed fools who refuse to look at facts.

Here in Springfield the power company is owned and run by the city government. We have the lowest electric rates in Illinois.

When the tornados tore through here in 2006, they destroyed a very large portion of the electrical infrastructure here. Power was restored to everyone city-wide in a week.

In contrast, later that summer St Louis was hit by a single tornado. Its corporate owned power company, Ameren (IINM) took a month to get everyone affected back on line.

I would love to see CWLP take over broadband and cable.

-mcgrew

In Springfield (home of alderman Simpson) the city owns the power company and the water company, and we have the cheapest electricity in the midwest, and service is very reliable. I wish CWLP would provide cable, telephone, gas, and internet!

Note this drawing of Springfield's mayor Davlin, CWLP's general manager Todd Renfro, and some guy probably related in some way to alderman Simpson.

-mcgrew (yes, my town is a cartoon)

No, I live in THE Springfield. As in this political cartoon about the local power plant exploding. Note that the artist's depiction of Todd Renfrow (the bald guy on the right) and Mayor Davlin are well penned. And we have an alderman named Gail Simpson.

The real Springfield is Capital of Illinois. And our roads suck, too. Well, except for the one in front of the Capitol.

The reason your roads suck like ours and California's don't is the weather. Florida mostly has good roads too.

We have lots of people here in South Park (no, not a joke) that run solar

Is this a first, someone from one cartoon town responding to someone else on slashdot from another cartoon town? We have an alderman named Gail Simpson here in Springfield. The power plant blew up a month or so ago, look at This editorial cartoon about it. Now look at a photo of Todd Renfrow, AKA "Mr. Burns" (on the right, in front of the giant check) and a photo of Springfield's Mayor.

Its scary thinking what Canadians must look like where you live! I can't figure out if I live in Cool World or Toon Town. Anyone reading my journals most likely thinks I either make them up or...

Here in Springfield, our power plant runs on coal. Since my electricity's cost is not only the coal, but the maintenance and transmission of electricity, it should be cheaper to line my roof with these things than to buy it from Mr. Burns (he's the one in front of the giant check, on the left. He's also the one in the first linked picture, also on the left).

But at a dollar per watt I'd pay $20,000 for a single circuit... oh wait my math is wrong. At 100 volts that aould be $200. So I could power my whole house for a one time investment of less than $2k?

Sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?

Actually, this Springfield is even more cartoonish than the TV Springfield. One of our Aldermen is Gail Simpson. Todd Renfrow, the guy in charge of our power plant, is a dead ringer for Mr. Burns (he's the guy in front of the giant check, on the right). Betty Boop lives here, Popeye, Olive, Bluto and Brutis all live here, although the Spriingfield Betty Boop's head is bigger, and Springfield's Olive Oyl is flatter chested. Many of our denizens are bugeyed (although not all of them).

here is a tale of some of our trolls. here are a lot more Springfield stories, all true, few believable.

-mcgrew

Springfield? that darn Mr Burns at it again?

One of our aldermen is Gail Simpson (not sure, maybe she's married to Homer's brother).

Actually here's a picture of the guy in charge of Springfield's electricity. He's the guy sitting in front of the big green check, on the right. Groening had him pegged! here's one of him breaking ground at the new generator they're building.

I mean your truck must have been spared, otherwise how would you charge the cell phone? Just face it toward the window, it should light up the entire trailer.

The trailers were all destroyed in the tornado. There was one behind my apartment that looked like a box of crackers a toddler had been playing with. The electricity was only out for a few hours, except for where the tornados actually hit, which happened to be my neighborhood AND the neighborhood the woman I was visiting lived in, so I could charge it up at work.

Those damned tornados had it in for me but oddly didn't hurt anything of mine. My daughter and her fiancee left the Target store a minute and a half before the tornado tore the roof off of it, and followed their car. Then the thing hit my apartment, tearing a few shingles off the roof and completely destroying everything around it. It tore a path through the neighborhood, demolishing houses, businesses, and completely destroying a trailer park between my apartment and my friend's house.

She lives close to a railroad track. "I can't believe the trains are running in this weather" she said as we huddled in her dark basement. "They don't", I told her, right before I heard the jet engine.

When you hear the train, the tornado's almost there. When you hear the jet, it's on top of you.

All of her stuff and all of my stuff and all of my daughter's and her fiancee's stuff was spared. Meanwhile, complete destruction around my friend's house and my apartment. A five foot diameter tree was uprooted two houses away from hers; all her neighbors' on both sides trees were uprooted but hers were untouched except for a few branches.

Nobody was seriously injured.

-mcgrew

PS- the "real" Springfield is even more cartoonish than the one on TV.

Springfield? that darn Mr Burns at it again?

One of our aldermen is Gail Simpson (not sure, maybe she's married to Homer's brother).

Actually here's a picture of the guy in charge of Springfield's electricity. He's the guy sitting in front of the big green check, on the right. Groening had him pegged! here's one of him breaking ground at the new generator they're building.

I mean your truck must have been spared, otherwise how would you charge the cell phone? Just face it toward the window, it should light up the entire trailer.

The trailers were all destroyed in the tornado. There was one behind my apartment that looked like a box of crackers a toddler had been playing with. The electricity was only out for a few hours, except for where the tornados actually hit, which happened to be my neighborhood AND the neighborhood the woman I was visiting lived in, so I could charge it up at work.

Those damned tornados had it in for me but oddly didn't hurt anything of mine. My daughter and her fiancee left the Target store a minute and a half before the tornado tore the roof off of it, and followed their car. Then the thing hit my apartment, tearing a few shingles off the roof and completely destroying everything around it. It tore a path through the neighborhood, demolishing houses, businesses, and completely destroying a trailer park between my apartment and my friend's house.

She lives close to a railroad track. "I can't believe the trains are running in this weather" she said as we huddled in her dark basement. "They don't", I told her, right before I heard the jet engine.

When you hear the train, the tornado's almost there. When you hear the jet, it's on top of you.

All of her stuff and all of my stuff and all of my daughter's and her fiancee's stuff was spared. Meanwhile, complete destruction around my friend's house and my apartment. A five foot diameter tree was uprooted two houses away from hers; all her neighbors' on both sides trees were uprooted but hers were untouched except for a few branches.

Nobody was seriously injured.

-mcgrew

PS- the "real" Springfield is even more cartoonish than the one on TV.

even if all corn grown in the US was used for fuel, it would only offset 15% of the country's gasoline use, according to the study. The same reduction could be achieved by a 3.5-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards for all cars and light trucks, according a federal figures cited in the report.

And using corn-derived ethanol does not necessarily even reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A number of recent studies have attempted to assess the total carbon footprint - from the field to the tailpipe - of the biofuel. Conclusions vary widely from being worse than gasoline to being about the same. [emphasis mine]
...
...cellulosic ethanol could reduce emissions by 87% compared to gasoline. Cellulosic ethanol produces fuel from non-food sources such as prairie grasses and woody plants, but production is still under development.

Mercury emissions from power plants are considered the largest anthropogenic source of mercury released to the atmosphere; about 48 tons are emitted annually in the U.S.A. as a result of fossil fuel combustion, mostly from coal-fired power plants. Although the elemental mercury emitted to the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants is not considered harmful, it can chemically transform into a toxic form, methylmercury, that can become concentrated in fish and birds, and from there enter the human body.

If you want to be a real financial hound about it all, it's not just saving the power for the lights - it's also knocking down the air conditioning to remove all the wasted heat from the air. I live in Texas - this is a major reason folks down here are making the move. They kinda get the more efficient light thing, but talk about air conditioning and they'll pay attention. It's what got my Uncle motivated, anyway.

Replacing a 60W bulb with a 15W CFL and you just removed 45W from the air. Well, what's that worth? Air conditioners today must have have SEER ratings of at least 10. Older ones go down to 6. SEER = BTU cooling / 1 w-H. 1 BTU ~= 0.29 w-H. That 10 SEER air conditioner will remove ~3 watts of heat for every watt from the electric company. I'm intentionally ignoring the part where SEER is an average over the summer, YMMV, etc

So, in the Texas summer, when you swap that light bulb, you're saving 45W from the lightbulb and 15W from cooling down the house from the lightbulb. It's almost like free light. Damn thermodynamics for not making it so.

- Tash