Nuclear power. I find it embarrassing that we produce so little of our electricity from it.

There are some exceptionally cool designs for energy production using solar power in a completely different way, meaning no photovoltaic (sp?) cells. I just can't seem to find any links to them at present.

Yup, spelled correctly. I just did a patent application for such a device. Like supertwistedbirefringent, a word that will live in my memory banks forever.

I am about to go suck electricity by drying my hair. But it's after 9pm.

And I'll turn off a bunch of lights on the way to the bathroom too.

I noticed just about every house I saw in Hawaii had solar panels- I thought it was kind of cool. Of course, electricity must be outta sight costwise.

We have been under a "Flex Alert" all week. This is nothing new here. I hate the rolling blackouts, but at least there is some warning that you are going to be without power. They keep saying not to have your a/c below 78. Durin the day I keep it at 80 for the Girls, but it doesn't click on until 82. At night it is at 79. I have yet to have a bill over $200 this summer.

The funny thing about the Flex Alert is that I don't do laundry before 7pm normally, just because it is too hot to be in the garage. I did have a thought last night. So, if we are to wait until after 7 to use major appliances, doesn't that mean at 7 everyone turns on their stuff and could cause the same sort of power drain that they would cause earlier in the day?

During the last serious heat wave, when it hit 117, we lost power for a few hours. It was right at 5:30, when everyone was getting home from work and turning on their a/c. Boy and I bailed and went to the movies. There were outages all over town that day, affecting 6 different zip codes.

Before dragons, our electric bills were no more than $50/month. With all the dragons we have, it is now up in the $100-$150/month range.

An interesting new problem with nukes and global warming is that lately plants in France and even our own in the TVA have had to shut down because the river water they use to cool the reactors was too warm. Bit of a catch 22 there - though more cooling towers might be a fix.

while buster was at the base, bob paid a visit. does that count?

Considering the temperatures involved in the things that need to be cooled, I'm surprised to learn that a different of a few degrees (how much warmer are the rivers than normal?) makes that much of a difference.

Interesting problem.

I believe the problem is also in how much above the ambient temperature water can be released into the rivers. I know in the TVA situation the river water was at 90 and was a first for them.