PBS On Blacks And Energy
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Check out this 10-minute PBS Online story on how Blacks are coping with the recent rise in energy prices. High gas prices and utility rates are taking a bigger bite out of typically lower Black household incomes. People are juggling transportation and food issues along with trying to keep the lights on. Luckily, the story covered some weatherization projects, the best way to combat high home energy costs. But there’s so much more that can be done.
There’s a short mention of blackEnergy midway through on the difference between the last oil crisis and this one — pointing out that price will be the rationing force this time around. We need a new deal.
Disconnected By Deregulation
Posted by Sonja Ebron
No wonder it’s gotten more difficult to keep your lights on in deregulated areas. Residential natural gas customers in Georgia, electric customers in Texas, power and natural gas customers in New York and elsewhere have all paid much more for utilities after deregulation than before. We can now add Maryland to this sorry list.
According to The Capital, the local paper in Annapolis, Anne Arundel county officials are dealing with “a staggering increase” in the number of people needing help with electric bills. Supplier competition began two years ago in the territory of the former monopoly, Baltimore Gas & Electric, forcing household electric bills to jump 72 percent. The governor negotiated a one-time $170 credit with BGE’s parent company, Constellation Energy, which is slated to appear on September bills. Nevertheless, BGE has disconnected 12,000 people through the first five months of 2008, with 5,000 disconnections just in May (before it started getting hot in Baltimore). Despite the upcoming rebate, the company expects to disconnect 30,000 ratepayers this year, an increase of 30 percent over last year.
Why Blacks Pay More For Utilities
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Blacks do pay more for utilities, but not because we get different rates or a special energy tax. It’s because, since the 1980s, we use more. A 1975 Ford Foundation study (The American Energy Consumer) found that Blacks spent less on energy than others, mostly because of our limited housing choices. At that time, the typical Black home had no running hot water, few windows and doors, natural gas heat (gas was a lot cheaper then), and few appliances.
Then as now, most of us paid rent each month instead of a mortgage. But now, even renters are living large. We have all the amenities — washers and dryers, frost-free fridges, central air and heat, and all the electronics we can stand. But don’t ask us about the level of insulation in the walls or attic, the amount of weatherstripping or caulk on our doors and windows, or the number of Energy Stars on our appliances.
Expensive Heat This Winter
Posted by Sonja Ebron
By all accounts, heating our homes will be very expensive this winter. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) projects large increases in heating costs for all fuels this coming season, which runs from October through March. NEADA is the group of state agencies that handles LIHEAP funding for low-income residents nationwide. A recent NEADA study (PDF) shows an average 15% increase in heating costs this winter, capping a 42% increase over the last four years. Those using heating oil fare the worst: they will pay 32% more this winter than last, capping a 116% increase over the last four years. As you might expect, all-electric homes fare best in winter, with only a 4% increase this year and a 22% increase over the last four years.
Wholesale natural gas prices have been crazy this year, as high as they were after Katrina and Rita knocked out gas production in the Gulf three years ago. After peaking around $14 per million BTU, they’ve settled at just under $12 as of this writing. That’s about a 25% rise in price over the last year. Residential natural gas rates have risen accordingly, ranging from $1.59 to $1.82 per therm for a 12-month contract in Georgia. blackEnergy has offered only variable rates for the last three months. We’re betting — guessing, really — that prices will settle before the winter sets in, and we can recommend a good 12-month lock-in rate for our customers. Either way, it’s going to be a tough winter for those using oil, propane or natural gas.
What In The World Is A Backdraft Damper?
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Product selection is not my strong suit. We offer nearly 1000 energy efficiency products at blackEnergy, but I’m better at selling them than deciding what to sell. It’s often a challenge to explain just exactly what an item is supposed to do to help save energy, so I spend a fair amount of time trying to figure it out. I’ve just learned about the backdraft damper.
We Have To Make Other Arrangements
Posted by Sonja Ebron
James Howard Kunstler is a pessimist on the effects of peak oil, no doubt about it. But he’s mostly right about the changes needed to survive the next few decades. For many years, Kunstler has served as the leading doomsday forecaster on the American economy and way of life, due to our unwillingness - perhaps inability - to grapple with the facts of declining access to cheap oil. He is certainly not alone in predicting the current crisis and the economic sand castles we’ve built on cheap energy, but his straight talk has only recently been welcome in mainstream media.
