http://www.energy.ca.gov/title24/2008standards/faq.html

I’d call this a victory in the first battle but not the end of the war.

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

“There ought to be a way to let citizens know if prices are high and shortages critical.”

There is, it’s called the free market. And it doesn’t require much, if any, government involvement to work.

I wrote the original American Thinker article on this that went on-line Jan 4th.

One possibility is a red light – yellow light – green light broadcast. You could get a PCT if you wanted that would respond but be able to control the response yourself. Maybe just a receiver with the lights so you could adjust your use IF YOU WANTED TO.

I’m not adverse to doing some things to save juice when it is helpful but I want to be the decider.

Don’t know if it will be worth the investment though.

What do you folks think?

This thing is being sold by the liberals and left wing wackos as a rational solution to prevent rolling blackouts on those few days a year when the demand puts the power grid at risk. Now consider what’s really going to happen. At first it will be only used for emergencies; then a little later it will be used during things like smog alerts in order to help prevent power plants from adding more pollutants to the air. Of course once it’s used for that, we all know that the global warming crowd considers carbon dioxide a pollutant (so that they can control the economy by controlling energy), so once that’s established the control will be used to limit your use of electricity period, because every good liberal knows that when you use your air conditioning you are killing the poor defenseless polar bears.

While big brother is at it why stop at thermostats? Why not control the lights (oops, they are already by forcing everyone to buy mercury filled light bulbs), your TV, your refrigerator (refrigerators will detect the presence of “prohibited” foods inside, such as red meat, and will automatically turn off so that the prohibited items spoil), your computer (computer will shut off if you read anything written by a conservative), and the everything else that technology could possibly be used to control in your life.

This is the kind of shit that happens when the government has created a regulatory state that makes the building of new power plants (especially nuclear ones) problematic if not impossible. We had the state government sink the construction of one here in Kansas in October (and, not coincidentally, it’s scared off all sorts of new business from other industries that were thinking about moving here).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802452.html

On the plus side, I have a feeling that if they actually do set up a thermostat that can be run by the state, some enterprising individual is going to find a way to successfully tamper with it, which will spread to the customer base. Nobody’s going to put up with the state micromanaging their heat in the summer time (especially in a heat wave, which is when the “emergencies” happen).

Not funny at all is the terrorism potential – i.e. turning off heat in winter or AC in summer could kill people, especially older folks.

Bad idea all around.