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Imedion.

Here's a decent, recent review:

https://metaefficient.com/rech...

And now you can get an Eneloop Pro AA in 2500 mAh capacities, with far lower leakage & more lifetime cycles than anything from those days. And D-cells go up to 11,000 mAh.

The low discharge NiMH cells are pretty good and they have a higher capacity than any NiCd cell but they are still not as rugged and do not last as long as industrial (but not consumer) NiCd cells. The low discharge and high temperature NiCd cells which use a thicker and tougher separator seem to last forever.

And now you can get an Eneloop Pro AA in 2500 mAh capacities, with far lower leakage & more lifetime cycles than anything from those days. And D-cells go up to 11,000 mAh.

Today, modern nuclear designs are by far the best replacement for existing nuclear generation (wind and solar can help, but the time tables for the gigawatts we need are easier to meet with nuclear).

Citation needed. The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland, being built by the French government owned Areva, was supposed to be compleated in 2009. Now it's not scheduled for completion before 2012, three years late with cost overruns doubling the cost. According to the wiki article the first two reactors will generate 860 MW each. Erecting 10 5 megawatt wind turbines a month will potentially add 1 GW in 20 months. Erecting 10 a month 10 months a year would add more capacity in two years than one of Olkiluoto's reactors.

Quite simply erecting wind turbines will add capacity faster than building nuclear power plants will. With the added benefit that wind turbines can be erected in places where nuclear power plants can't be built and can be distributed and not be one monolithic plant.

Falcon

Because they planned and started building out their reactors before we invented that technology.

So what, LFTR is more than 20 years old and France could have used it for new plants. But they did not.

Looking for the cost of LFTR I came across aimhigh - rethinkingnuclearpower, a pro nuclear power page, which says a 100 MW unit will cost $200 million. It then says it can be developed in 5 years. Someone on Metaefficient says wind turbines have an installed cost of $2000 per KW, the same price as LFTR. And if only 10 5 Megawatt wind turbines are erected a month, for 10 months, wind could add 100 megawatts in 2 years. In the 5 years for LFTR 500 megawatts could be added. Double that by doubling the number of turbines.

Falcon

Rebuilding the electrical grid would be faster, as well as allowing more generation to be added easily.

You think so?

Go to the DOE web site and look up just how much fossil fuel energy we use compared to electrical energy.

What does using more fossil fuels have to do with how fast the grid can be rebuilt?

No matter where energy comes from the grid has to be rebuilt, making it smart as well will allow the payoff to be sooner. Understanding the Cost of Power Interruptions to U.S. Electricity Consumers [pdf] estimates "the annual cost for power interruptions to U.S. electricity consumers is $79 billion." It goes on saying it can be as high as $135 billion or as low as $22 billion. In shorter form, Berkeley Lab Study Estimates $80 Billion Annual Cost of Power Interruptions.

Even with your supergrid we'll need to make hydrocarbons for the chemical and agricultural industries so we might as well get started bringing this capability online as soon as possible.

Even though I oppose his motives, which was all about water, T Boone Pickens had a plan that dealt with your concerns, the Picken's Plan. Essentially the plan was to replace natural gas fired power plants with wind turbines and use the natural gas as fuel for vehicles. Of course that would still require a rebuild of the grid, but wind turbines can continuously add capacity as the grid is built. Erect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month and you add 600 megawatts of electricity a year. The largest nuclear power plant in the US is Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station and it averaged 3.2 Gigawatts of power in 2003. It would take all of 5 years to replace the plant with wind, can another nuclear power plant that big be built in 5 years? As I linked to already the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland, built by the French government owned Areva, is already 3 years behind schedule, it was originally supposed to start operation last year but isn't scheduled to before 2012 now. It's cost overruns are about $2.4 Billion too.

Falcon

Actually, I'm fine with them building small plants.

If that's what you meant, I didn't get that, then I agree. Myself I have said I wanted solar panels installed on roofs, wind turbines in back yards, geothermal and solar thermal heating, and such.

If your goal is to replace coal fired plants with renewables, then you have to think on the scale of a coal fired plant -- 300MW to 1000MW.

Elsewhere I've mentioned how the capacity from wind turbines could replace, or negate the reason to build, nuclear power plants. These power plants take years and years to build. And not just in the US. However if you erect 20 5 megawatt wind turbines, there are bigger ones, a month in 10 months you've added 1 gigawatt of potential capacity. Need more, erect more. Use solar, geothermal, and others as well. Use whatever can be used to generate electricity in a given area.

Falcon

We absolutely MUST replace coal fired electricity generation with low CO2 methods. Coal is the worst CO2 emitter.

I didn't say anything about replacing coal in the post you replied to. All I said was that nuclear power appeals to state planners not businesses.

I very much doubt that current renewable technologies are sufficient. The only stuff that is immediately deployable is wind and solar.

They are sufficient now. Those who build off the grid do so every day. And yea, solar and wind is employable today unlike nuclear power. According to Infoplease the Palo Verde 2, Ariz. is the largest reactor in the US, at 1,335 MWs. According to Wiki construction started in 1976 with it's first year of commercial operation in 1988, 12 years later. Now take wind turbines, erect and connect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month, and there are larger turbines, and in 1 year you've added 600 MWs or in 2 years 1,200 MWs. That's almost as much as Palo Verde 2 provides, in 1/6 the tyme. SciAm's A Solar Grand Plan says solar power "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the Unites States, created by the National Renewable Energy Lab of the Department of Energy, details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains along contain enough potential energy to electrify the US, but that's not the only region with large wind potential. On the East Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina offshore wind farms could "supply all the energy needs of much of the East Coast and then some". From British Columbia to Southern California on the Pacific Coast could provide a lot as well. Actually hook a hard left in S Ca through AZ and NM to western Texas and the wind potential grows.

For baseloads geothermal is good though not for all of the baseload. Until large scale storage is available currently used power plants could provide the baseload.

Enhanced geothermal is very promising but there is still no commercial size power station.

Ah but there is commercial scale geothermal right now. In CA geothermal provided 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2007. It provides 20 percent of Hawaii's Big Island electricity. Geothermal provides 27% of Philippine's energy. Geothermal is even available and used in New York City.

If it comes to raising the planet's temperature by 5C or nuclear power, I'd have to say nuclear is the clear choice.

Fine, let businesses pay for it not taxpayers. No loan guaranties, limited liability, or other subsidies. However left to their own devices corporations will not build nuclear power plants.

When all is said and done, I think that the carbon pollution problem will only be solved by inexpensive clean electricity. Some hard choices will have to be made.

Unfortunately there is no inexpensive clean electricity. Well, except for the Negawatt, the energy not produced due to energy efficiency or simply cutting the energy used. Therein lies the hard choice, people don't want to give up what they have even if they will s

We absolutely MUST replace coal fired electricity generation with low CO2 methods. Coal is the worst CO2 emitter.

I didn't say anything about replacing coal in the post you replied to. All I said was that nuclear power appeals to state planners not businesses.

I very much doubt that current renewable technologies are sufficient. The only stuff that is immediately deployable is wind and solar.

They are sufficient now. Those who build off the grid do so every day. And yea, solar and wind is employable today unlike nuclear power. According to Infoplease the Palo Verde 2, Ariz. is the largest reactor in the US, at 1,335 MWs. According to Wiki construction started in 1976 with it's first year of commercial operation in 1988, 12 years later. Now take wind turbines, erect and connect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month, and there are larger turbines, and in 1 year you've added 600 MWs or in 2 years 1,200 MWs. That's almost as much as Palo Verde 2 provides, in 1/6 the tyme. SciAm's A Solar Grand Plan says solar power "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the Unites States, created by the National Renewable Energy Lab of the Department of Energy, details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains along contain enough potential energy to electrify the US, but that's not the only region with large wind potential. On the East Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina offshore wind farms could "supply all the energy needs of much of the East Coast and then some". From British Columbia to Southern California on the Pacific Coast could provide a lot as well. Actually hook a hard left in S Ca through AZ and NM to western Texas and the wind potential grows.

For baseloads geothermal is good though not for all of the baseload. Until large scale storage is available currently used power plants could provide the baseload.

Enhanced geothermal is very promising but there is still no commercial size power station.

Ah but there is commercial scale geothermal right now. In CA geothermal provided 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2007. It provides 20 percent of Hawaii's Big Island electricity. Geothermal provides 27% of Philippine's energy. Geothermal is even available and used in New York City.

If it comes to raising the planet's temperature by 5C or nuclear power, I'd have to say nuclear is the clear choice.

Fine, let businesses pay for it not taxpayers. No loan guaranties, limited liability, or other subsidies. However left to their own devices corporations will not build nuclear power plants.

When all is said and done, I think that the carbon pollution problem will only be solved by inexpensive clean electricity. Some hard choices will have to be made.

Unfortunately there is no inexpensive clean electricity. Well, except for the Negawatt, the energy not produced due to energy efficiency or simply cutting the energy used. Therein lies the hard choice, people don't want to give up what they have even if they will s

The problem is that none of those things can right now, today be used to replace Coal-fired Power Plants.

...Nuclear can replace coal right now.

Nuclear power can not replace coal right now. It takes many years to build a nuclear power plant. And that's not just true in the US either. The French government owned Areva has been building the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Finland for years. Construction started in 2006 and was originally planned to be finished in 2009. Now it's not scheduled for completion until 2012 at the earliest. With cost overruns it is overbudget by more than 3 Billion euros and has suffered thousands of defects and deficiencies.

If however 20 5 megawatt wind turbines, and there are bigger ones, are erected a month in 1 year more than 1 gigawatt of capacity is added in that year. Need more, erect more. Quite simply more generation capacity can be added by erecting wind turbines than by building nuclear power plants.

People are making fun of the Administrations (not saying you personally, but some of the public in general) push for high-speed rail.

I love trains but I don't want government paying for them. However if other forms of transportation had to pay their full costs as well then people may think of using trains more.

People think that gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance, in reality those taxes barely make a dent in the total cost of maintaining our highway system

I agree and have repeatedly posted here that I thought drivers should pay the full cost of the roads. So I started supporting the Net Zero Gas Tax. Net zero, because it doesn't raise the average person's tax. Fuel taxes are raised but everyone gets a cut on their income tax. At first I advocated raising fuel taxes like this, but with more and more fuel efficient vehicles on the road it won't work. So instead I now support a mileage tax. When a person goes in to renew their license plate tags the odometer is read. By subtracting the last reading from the current one the number of miles driven is calculated then the person pays for those miles. Some have complained people have no idea how much their bill will be at the end of the year, well people can pay monthly or quarterly. They have a better idea of how much they drive and how much they owe.

The problem with that is that it ignores that fact that since the very first Nuclear Plant came online, utilities have been paying a tax per unit of electricity generated that specifically goes into a fund to pay for the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.

So you don't think businesses haven't looked at them either? Fact is is without subsidies businesses will not pay to build nuclear power plants. That is why they are asking for loan guaranties. And yes, I consider loan guaranties subsidies. Let then ask those banks that were bailed out for loans, without guaranties they will not get loans. Banks are giving loans for solar and wind without government guaranties though.

I think the positives (no Coal pollution -- Heavy metals being spewed into the air, people dieing to mine the coal, pollution from the coal mining itself, etc.) far outweigh the negatives.

And uranium mining is so pristine, NOT!!! Nuclear power is dirty from cradle to grave just as coal is.

Falcon

There's the Enercon E-126 which is rated at 6MW. It is still considered a prototype,
even though there are a couple of them already built, and it'll probably end up more
powerful still: http://www.metaefficient.com/news/new-record-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-7-megawatts.html
I've been told that 8-9MW versions are probably just a couple of years away.

Enercon are the guys with the no-gearbox design by the way.

There's also an American project - with participation of the DoE - to develop a supreconductor-based 10MW generator:
http://www.amsc.com/newsroom/pr.html?id=317

And then there's - admittedly a bit more speculative and potentially vapourware-y - Superwind,
a Danish university project to design a superconducting 10-20MW wind generator: http://www.superwind.dk/

I'm a bit sceptical about those superconducting designs - even very good insulation will not prevent
all icing, and uncontrolled icing isn't a good thing, especially when it is in lousy weather a good distance
off shore. But even conventional (i.e. non-superconducting) technology will probably reach 10MW
not too far in the future. Pretty cool.

Oh, and for the really crazy ideas, have a look at the 1GW Maglev Wind Turbine
At the time being, this is a "looks good on paper" design. However, it might actually be feasible,
but is certainly still a long time away.

Greenpeace opposes anything with co2 exhaust AND hates the one solution to the co2 problem that might actually work (today, not in 50 years) : nuclear power

There are at least two problems with this statement. Nuclear power is not a solution to CO2, and it will not work today. It takes years and years to build a nuclear power plant. The last one to go online in the US took more than 20 years to build. But even if you could build one in 5 years, that's still not today. However today you can erect 5 megawatt wind turbines quickly. If you erect 20 a month, in 1 year you'll add 1,200 megawatts of capacity a year and in five years you'll have added 6 gigawatts of capacity. Even if the energy captured comes to half that that's still 3 gigawatts. According to Infoplease the largest plant in the US is Palo Verde 2, Ariz. which has a capacity of 1,335 megawatts. It took more than a decade for Palo Verde 1 and 12 years for Palo Verde 3 to go online, it doesn't say how long Palo Verde 2 took.

They are also already decided : they oppose nuclear fusion, if and when it becomes available.

If true I think Greenpeace is wrong. In general I think fusion may provide much of our energy, however I'd like to see a life cycle analysis when it does become feasible.

Also greenpeace ignores massive co2 exhaust where it is politically inconvenient : ever looked at a wind turbine ? Every last square millimeter you see is reprocessed oil. On the inside, tons of components are made with oil, and the remainder, the steel supports, are made by burning coal (that's how cast iron is still made, coal is just too cheap and convenient. Everywhere you mine iron you will find coal deposits on top of it, between it, ...)

The same applies to nuclear power, even more so. Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of concrete and steel, which requires massive amounts of coal to burn.

Falcon

Fact is, there's no other energy technology available that can be widely implemented during Obama's administration, even if he's re-elected. You can't build nuclear plants that fast. Solar and wind aren't ready for wide-scale connection to the grid.

I don't know about solar but there are already large wind farms hooked to the grid. Currently the US has more than 9 Gigawatts of wind power installed. California leads but Minnesota and Kansas, Texas, and other states have wind farms in operation. And using 5 Megawatt wind turbines, if 20 are erected a month in 1 year you'll add 1.2 Gigawatts of generation capacity a year.

Falcon

we cannot afford to forget that it is nuclear power that promises us the quickest (and cleanest) way to combat our oil dependency.

The last nuclear power plant commissioned in the US took more than 20 years to build and put in operation. But say you could cut that into a quarter, 5 years to build a 1 gigawatt reactor, it's still not the fastest way to add generation. If you erect 20 5 megawatt wind turbines a month in one year you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of capacity in a year.

As and for cleanliness, nuclear power is dirty. There's the mining and initial processing, reprocessing spent fuel, storage of the leftovers as well as toxic chemicals used for reprocessing, then closure of the power plant.

we're going to be deeply screwed when it comes to producing something we've come to take for granted in the modern age - plastics.

Oil, petroleum, isn't needed to make plastic. Before oil was used to make plastic plastic was made from plant material. The original cellophane plastic wrap for sandwiches was made from cellulose, a part of plant cells. Way back when, before 1951, Kodak made their film from cellulose. The only reason bioplastics lost favor was because DuPont invented a process to polymerize petroleum to make plastic and that was cheaper than bioplastics. Today bioplastics are making a comeback. I don't feel like looking for it now but Kodak had a pdf online showing the process of making bioplastic.

Falcon

There's a *big* difference between a bunch of miners (who choose to do their job in the full knowledge of the risks) being injured or killed and a large civilian population being injured or killed by a nuclear reactor going boom.

I never said there wasn't a difference, and if you look my previous posts I am decidedly pessimistic about nuclear power.

The media and "environmentalist groups", of course, play a large part in continuing the myth that another Chernobyl disaster

Except environmentalists are supporting nuclear power. It's businesses and the freemarket that doesn't. Without massive government subsidies nuclear power is not profitable.

proposed Sizewell C reactor will have an output of 1600MW - that's the equivalent of around 450 offshore wind turbines

What wind turbines are you talking about? To produce 1600MW all it takes is 320 5 megawatt turbines but there are bigger ones.

And that's before you've even built all the infrastructure for connecting the hundreds of turbines to the grid

Transmission is needed whether the generators and nuclear or wind turbines. However if the wind genies are cited locally then not as much is needed to transmit power.

and the stand-by power generation capacity (probably gas turbines) for when the wind doesn't blow.

Or storage can be used.

Falcon

you have problem of transmitting power from where you can produce it, to the place where it needs to be employed

HVDC, High Voltage DC powerlines can transmit electricity log distances.

Also, you still need some way to ensure a stable baseline of power - power that you can count on producing a minimum amount, all hours of the day or night, every day of the year. Coal, oil, nuclear, and geothermal offer that

As you say geothermal can provide at least some baseload as can natural gas. Geothermal provides power in California. Geothermal provides 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. One geothermal power plant on the Big Island in Hawaii provides 25% of it's electricity. And in New York City geothermal energy is used to heat homes.

Finally, have environmentalists considered the impact of the land use necessary to produce electricity on the scale our nation needs using solar and wind?

Actually now many environmentalists now support nuclear power.

How many birds will be hacked to death by wind turbines

Cats are now a bigger threat to birds than wind turbines. Actually it was some of the older wind turbines that killed a lot of birds. Today they're made with bigger blades that spin slower, it was the fast spinning blades that killed birds.

Maybe bird migrations will be confused by all the glare from PV panels?

Birds are already confused by the windows on buildings.

Where are the UK, France, Germany, etc going to build their solar and wind farms?

Much of Germany has good potential wind energy. A German town is going 100% Renewable Power.

Falcon

You are using an appeal to authority to bolster what is otherwise a very weak argument, which seems to consist of "Nuclear is bad, m'kay?"

Make a real argument and someone will take you seriously - so far, no one seems have done so.

The same thing happens with solar and wind. "Solar or wind can't do it, and it's bad". I admit I'm guilty of it too, but I try to include links that support me. Here are a couple of them. A 5 megawatt wind generator should be able to be erected within a month. Erect 20 a month and you've added 1.2 gigawatts of capacity in 1 year. The last nuclear power plant that went into operation in the US was the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station, Construction started in 1973 and the first of 2 units was compleated in 1996. It produces 1,167 megawatts, the same amount an can be added a year by wind generators.

Falcon

As a former nuclear engineer you must also be aware that nuclear material can and is frequently used with virtually no risk to anyone.

I'm not a former nuclear engineer, perhaps you meant you are one. And yes, I know nuclear material is used with little risk. They are used in Nuclear medicine.

I too am scared by unregulated, corner-cutting businesses working with the stuff. But no more afraid of a commercial farmer breeding a potentially lethal or ecologically dangerous super-crop though... and that's legal.

Surprise, surprise. I'm more concerned with, scared of, genetic engineering of crops than I am with nuclear power. I'm not opposed to GE but believe maximum precautions should be taken. Though GE haven't been done long super weeds are already being created.

The nuclear industry exists now, and there have been tremendous strides in the technology and safety. To suggest that we should not encourage an industry that may, with advances such as this article discusses, result in nearly zero net effect on the environment is pretty awesome if you ask me.

I'm not totally opposed to nuclear power or research but I don't want taxpayer money paying for it. If it is subsidized then I want alternative energy sources subsidized just as much. McCain campaigned saying he wanted to give the nuclear power industry billions of dollars, I say if you want to do that then give solar just as much, and wind, and tidal energy research. Otherwise let Wall Street pay for it. The Freemarket think-tank CATO Institute explains "Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power." And CATO isn't some environmentalist hippies.

Honestly, nuclear fission is probably the best energy source we could pursue right now. Why, because we can do it now with virtually no waiting and no chance of finding out later that we rushed into something we shouldn't have (like corn ethanol).

I agree about corn ethanol, corn is a poor feedstock for ethanol. Sugarcane is better, but even better is switchgrass. Right now both solar and wind work. A 5 megawatt wind turbine should be able to be erected in less than a month. Erect 20 a month for a year and you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of power in that year. The last nuclea rpower plant to go online in the US was the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station. Construction started in 1973 and unit 1 of 2 units was compleated in 1996, it took 23 years. And how much does it generate? It has a generating capacity of 1,167 megawatts. Using wind genies that capacity could be done in one year.

Falcon

Part of the problem is Wired, or "Tired", which has turned into a sort of Sharper Image catalog. (Sharper Image itself is defunct.) Wired doesn't really have reporters any more; just "editors" and ad reps. Hence their product orientation.

More significant tech events this year include:

• Big Dog. At last, robust legged robots.
• Cheap "netbook" computers. The price point in laptops is dropping.
• Wind farms that are really big. The US has about 18 GW of installed wind capacity, more is going in at a rapid rate, and wind power companies are making money. At last, it's a serious source of power.
• The Tesla car, first delivered in 2008. Yes, it's overpriced, but for the first time, the range and performance are there.

Those are all more significant than anything in Wired's list.

There's probably good stuff in the bio field too, but I don't follow that.

I assume, from the context of your comment, that when you say "a power plant in every home" that you meant "a nuclear power plant in every home."

I probably read many the same books that you did, and I'm far from being a tree-hugger; but I have toured a nuke (my uncle worked in one and gave us a tour way before 9-11 made that impossible) and I can tell you that scaling that down is going to present a difficult engineering challenge - among all the other hurdles that you have to clear.

If you remove the word nuclear (either explicit or implied) from your comment, I wholeheartedly agree.

I wonder if anyone has examined the cost of deploying solar cells in, for example, median strips of highways and in parking lots and on rooftops. Compare this against the cost of deploying even a garden variety "community nuke" and I'll bet that the cost is competitive, and without the concomitant risk of nuclear material exposure.

How about supplanting solar panels with wind turbines? These turbines could be deployed anywhere and - surprise surprise, are insensitive to impinging solar radiation. All they need is wind, and you can even get that while it's raining. (And sunny, too, so you get a double whammy from the wind and solar panels.)

We have to start thinking creatively, 'tis true. I believe that we can do this in a slightly safer fashion than nuclear power in localized areas - still utilizing them, of course, for major metropolitan areas where they make sense.

> fast moving blades

Well, not all windpower generators take their design from 300yr old Dutch models; some companies remember we're in the 21st century. On their website there's a picture of their system on a low-rise apartment building; it's so invisible it could placate the most rabid NIMBY-ite.

> free poultry

Some companies are even putting grates in front of their blades. I do find it amusing when people become so concerned about the fauna when you talk about renewables when they never care about the small animals taken out by transformer stations unless said animal 'terrorist' kills himself as a blow against human imperialism against his species.

Actually, based on some off the cuff calculations...

Current solar acreage is probably small. A very large solar plant takes .2 sq miles.
http://www.metaefficient.com/news/north-americas-largest-solar-electric-plant-in-switched-on.html
http://www.metric-conversions.org/cgi-bin/util/convert.cgi

Electric Plant
It looks like electric plants maybe about 75 acres to 170 acres.
(various google "electric plant acres" results.
Say 125 acres average.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/ipp/ipp_sum.html
350mw per plant (19,300mw/55 plants)
604,514 = 1727 electric plants currently

This equates to roughly 300 square miles of electrical plants currently. I'm not sure if the gov site includes dams, windfarms, and nukes. I know windfarms get pretty big (google: 40000-Acre Wind Farm (~62 sq miles), 2000 turbines over 200000 acres (~310 sq miles), Indian Mesa wind farm situated on 34000 acres in West Texas).

For all practical purposes, solar energy is limitless.

I stand corrected. I meant to write that power is limited. While the sun's energy will be there for the next billion years, the planet's surface area is finite and limits the amount of power that we can capture from the sun. Power is the key point, because it is the rate at which energy is produced/consumed that is challenging.

Firstly, even with AC cycling, the temperature of the house will not increase to 90 degrees (unless you set the thermostat to 88 or 89 deg to begin with). I've never seen my temperature vary more than 1 degree during the summer with AC cycling. AC cycling does NOT cut off your AC in the sense of not allowing it to run. It simply adjusts the points at which the AC cuts on & off to prevent everyone's AC from sucking down power at the same time. It's a smarter way of power distribution. Are you offended that incandescent light bulbs are being phased out in favor of the more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs? Same amount of light output at a fraction of the power consumption.