interesting map of electricity costs in the USA

[passatdoc]

A week or so ago, we had a discussion for the benefit of European readers on the use of gas vs. electric dryers. I posted that when I bought my first home 19 years ago, the utility sent me a memo stating that it cost $1 to dry a load of laundry with electricity and only $.25 with gas (not sure if the 25 cents included the electricity to run the dryer, but the utility in question supplies both gas and electricity).

I found this map that shows the wide variation in prices of electricity in the USA, based on 2003 data:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html
As you can see, the cost (2003) varies almost three-fold, depending where one lives in the USA. My electricity supplier, SDGE (San Diego Gas and Electric) supposedly has the highest rates in California, as well as rates second in the nation only to New York City and Long Island (LILCO). So the figure for SDGE is probably higher than the rate for California as a whole.

I was amazed to learn in that discussion thread that 80% of the dryers sold in USA are electric. I do have a 240V outlet (never used in 19 years...) in my dryer area, but newer homes in our area are built with a gas line and 120V only, by city ordinance, to promote electricity conservation. Anyone who moves in with an electric dryer has to buy a new gas dryer, or else rip out the wall and have 240V installed.

If I ever bought a Miele washer, I could plug it in the 240V outlet, as long as I kept a non-Miele gas dryer (Bosch makes them for the US market). If I had a Miele washer AND dryer, I would need a second 240V outlet.

As you can see from the map, in many low cost areas of the USA, electricity probably costs the same or less than gas to dry a load of laundry. Where I live in California, however, most neighborhoods have gas lines and people generally choose gas models, even though the dryers cost $50-60 more than the matching electric models.

 

[passatdoc]

oops here is a clickable link and an image

Link to energy cost map:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html

 

[stopmeister72]

wow

TXU is charging me 13.54 cents per kilowatt now in Texas. Can't image how much my electric bill would be if I hadn't put in some insulation summer before last. The sad thing is, that since the rates kept going up, didn't see much difference in the bill. During the summer, i run between $300-$400 on electic usage, thank god for average billing!!!!!!

 

[accapp]

Miele makes a special box which plugs into a 240v outlet and splits it into two outlets, one for the washer, one for the dryer. Only costs around $250 but you can make something similar for about $20 in electrical parts. They come up on ebay every so often.

 

[appnut]

I don't even remember when I saw 9.16 cents/kwh.

 

[dj-gabriele]

I want US prices too!

God Lord, that is waaay cheaper than here, I knew it was cheaper but not that much! In Italy the price for electricity is 0,23€/kWh that means 0,31 $ per kWh (give or take 5% depending on the utility company)

 

[dalangdon]

Ha! As an employee of a municipal utility (Seattle City Light) let me just say hooray for public power, and hooray for Franklin D. Roosevelt (Who championed the Bonneville Power Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority)

Our electricity is 3.76 cents per kwh for the first 10kwh per day, and 7.93 cents for each add'l hour per day, plus 10 cents per meter per day. My sister in Omaha (Omaha Public Power District) pays a similar rate. My mom in Council Bluffs, Iowa, pays somewhat more.

 

[sudsman]

In Fort Worth

TXU is charging 13.97

 

[DADoES]

Local cooperative is between $0.12 and $0.13 last few months, which is running high for them.

 

[retroguy]

I find it hard to believe....

That (according to that graph, anyway) electricity cost more, way back when, than it does now. I never remember anyone from my youth complaining about their electric bill. Me? I'll complain to anyone who will listen about mine. =)

D

 

[passatdoc]

about $0.125 per KwH

My electric bill contains a usage charge and a fixed charge that covers the cost of operating the system other than actually the commodity costs to generate electricity. The commodity cost is about $.085 per KwH, but last month I paid $28 for 224 KwH, so it works out to about $0.125 per KwH here in San Diego Gas and Electric territory. About 2/3 of the bill is the commodity charge, and 1/3 the charge for the fixed costs of operating their system.

 

[lederstiefel1]

Electricity cost in Leverkusen/Cologne

We pay actually about 15,5 Euro-Cents which is almost 20,0 Dollar-Cents per kilowatt hour and they promised us to rise the price this year again!

Ralf

 

[dj-gabriele]

> Lederstiefel1

rising prices: that's the good thing about getting rid of nuclear power plants!

 

[tolivac]

Don't be in a hurry to get rid of "nuke" plants-In some areas putting these on line has REDUCED electric bills!VEPCO in US is an example.

 

[dalangdon]

Nuclear power is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Anything with a highly toxic waste by-product that lasts three times the length of human history is a bad idea. If they could figure out a way to clean up that problem, however, I'd be all for it

 

[lederstiefel1]

nuclear power

dj-gabriele: you are sooo right!!!
We pay millions of tax to substitute nuclear power of being competitive on the market!!
And: nobody< on this planet has any idea where to store the nuclear waste! No thank-you!!

Ralf

 

[passatdoc]

deceptive pricing

I should explain that many power companies in the USA have a two or three-tiered pricing system to encourage conservation. In my case, I am given a "baseline allowance" of about 268 KwH per month. As long as I use less than this amount, I pay about 12.5 cents per KwH. But if I go over 268, the amount above 268 KwH can be double or triple this amount. There was an article in our local newspaper about a family with a $600 per month power bill. They used about 1000 KwH per month, but when the power company began to double and triple the cost for KwH above the baseline allowance, their bill became very high very fast. I believe they had a large house (about 350 square meters), air conditioning, a pool with electric filter, lots of televisions and computers, etc. Basically a family with many toys and not even paying attention to electricity consumption. Then their bill becomes $600 a month and they go crying to the newspaper as if it isn't fair. They got what they deserved.

 

[dj-gabriele]

BUT I AM PRO NUCLEAR!!!! I'M A NUCLEAR ENGENEER!
I was just being sarcastic about the rising prices =equal= lack of nuclear plants!

Oh my!
BTW: France, UK and Japan actively recycle nuclear fuel, only USA decided to store it for the millennia to come.

 

[petek]

I pay just under .06 per KwH but there's a "transmission" charge and a couple of other "gotcha's" on the bill which basically doubles it to around .12 cents. Still it's very reasonable I think.

 

[passatdoc]

Yeah, those are the fixed costs of operating the system and you pay those regardless of how much electricity you use.

 

[neptunebob]

Does anybody here work for Areva, the French nuclear company with the catchy commercials?

 

[MrX]

Electricity prices in Ireland

Here's the charges for domestic electricity from ESB, the largest power company in Ireland. You can change provider, but the prices are broadly very similar.

Prices in €uro cents.
Day Units (kWh) 14.35¢ (= US¢ 19.51)
Night Units (kWh) 7.05¢ ( = US¢ 9.58)

 

[irishwashguy]

Nuclear power...........BAD...Solar power, Good......

They closed the only Nuclear power plant in Ranier, Or about ten or so years ago, as far as I can see, it has not changed our rate at all. We have Portland Genral Electric, formerly of ENRON, till their demise, now PGE is independant of anyone.i will say that the Bush administration has been after low electric rates here in the Northwest since it has stolen itw way into the white house.Within the last month, they managed to take away our discount that we had from the Bonnoville Power people, now we get to pay for it. All of the electric utilities in Or and Wash, reguardless of who runs the local electric company. My mother lives in Clark County Washington, and now payes the same increase I do. i was truely shocked---no pun intended of course, to see that they even went to court over this.
PS I am planning to get solar pannels when I move. They are a big investment, about tweny thousand, when you are talking about borrowing 340,000, then, it seems to make sence. That way it will save money over the long run.it is still a though, I just do not know anyone that has one as of yet, i am sure that i will though.

 

[goprog]

Electricity in Cologne

My understanding is the higher electricity charge in Germany
goes directly to encouraging alternative energy vs. into the
pockets of corporations and CEOs... Germany is way ahead of
the US in alternative energy production.

electricity costs in the past

I don't know what it really was, but I was thinking it used
to be $.03 (decades ago). I remember the commercials saying
"Electricity is penny-cheap from NSP" and the Reddy Kilowatt
character.

I suppose I could be convinced otherwise, but having
residential customers paying higher rates than industries
doesn't seem quite right. At least that's the way it was
a number of years ago. Industry gets to negotiate rates,
consumers don't (other than via state regulation - for those
states that still have regulation.)

recycling nuclear waste

Just what does France do to recycle nuclear waste? Seems
if it was possible, everyone would do it. (And converting
it to depleted uranium munitions doesn't count as recycling.)

 

[dj-gabriele]

Recycling nuclear waste

Depleted uranium it not recycling, is a byproduct of the enrichement of natural uranium to make it reactor grade (meaning with at least 2-2,5% of isotope 235 as natural uranium is only 0,7% U235).
MOX fuel is composed from plutonium (taken from used fuel) and uranium and used in normal reactors just like recycled papers is used for newspapers.
Then think about that Canadian CANDU reactors can "burn" used light water reactor fuel without virtually no reprocessing, just changing the pysical shape of the fuel assembly to fit the new type. This just because of the better reaction efficency. The USA never wanted to apply this process. (you can also have a look on wikipedia, just type candu)
This are just the facts. You can find much more by reading any book about the subject. I personally love "Introduction to nuclear engeneering" edited by Prentice Hall and written by A. J. Baratta & J. R. Lamarsh. That's the one of those I used for my exam on nuclear reactor physics.

 

[goprog]

Not to be insulting, but HA HA. Me, read a book called
"Introduction to nuclear engineering" and understanding it????
I'd like to think I could, but I only took 6 quarters of physics
in college. Though it certainly sounds interesting - wonder if
it is in my local library (or maybe all such types of books
have been removed in the interest of so-called national
security - maybe anything beyond the level of Bush's
reading level has been removed.)

Not wanting to apply the CANDU process (without reading the
wikipedia article) sounds pretty stupid, but then the US hasn't
been known for intelligence lately.

My question would be what is the byproduct of using the MOX
fuel or the CANDU reactors?

 

[dj-gabriele]

My question would be what is the byproduct of using the MOX fuel or the CANDU reactors?

In spent fuel the uranium inventory stays about the same, around 97% is unchanged, you will find less U235 (0,8-0,5%), newly created U236, more plutonium (both can be reprocessed and recovered). Actinides (that can be recovered using the purex process as some of them are useful), reactor poisons (atoms with a "cross section" - their love to catch useful neutrons - so big that they kill any fission reaction) and other fission products. Only these last ones will eventually get stored in "dry cask storage" in situ at the power plant or in centralized storage plants. All the others can be recovered.

Am I being too much off topic? Sorry but the subject simply steals my attention! If I'm distracting/annoying you just tell me and I'll stop.

 

[goprog]

What are the properties of the reactor poisons and other
fission products that end up in dry cask storage? Do they
still have thousands of years of half life? Are they as
toxic as the waste generated in the US reactors?

When you say 97% remains unchanged, that means less than
3% ends up in the dry cask storage (or 3% each time it is
recycled?) Not recycling sounds like a waste. Why would
they not recycle it in the US if the fuel still has energy
potential?

 

[dj-gabriele]

Why would they not recycle it in the US if the fuel still has energy potential?

The USA are concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation.

3% that's the amount of real waste you get from every recycling of the fuel.
You could actually transmute the poisons and the actinides in "less radioactive" and shorter lived elements (agan it is possible in candu and fast reactors) but as today we don't have industrial application of that.
The poitons are elements like Tc-99, Pd-107,Sm-149 that build up during the life of the fuel in the reactor and actually slow down the reaction. Some, like Sm-149 are stable (non radioactive) others like Tc-99 and Pd-107 are radioactive with long half lives. They can be transmuted but they happen in little concentrations and it's easier (and more economic) to just store them.
Btw... did you know that ordinary smoke detectors usually have a source of americium (a fission product) as the sensing element? Or that first generation boeing 747 had depleted uranium counterweights (up to 1500kg)?
About being toxic, the radio-toxicty is the same, it's the fission products that emit the most of the radiactions. Uranium by itself it an alpha-emitter, those particle are stopped by just one centimetre of air and are a danger only if ingested. You could actually touch a fresh fuel assemby with your bare hands without being in danger.
I hope I've been exhaustive enough now, but if you have more question feel free to ask.
I know I'm very pro-nuclear but afer having been INSIDE two reactors, studing the matter all the time and not having had harm of any kind one's of the matter changes

 

[neptunebob]

Gabriel, let me guess, do you work for Areva?