Colorado Living

Today, on the longest day of the year, we’ve added one to our family.

Kaden Michael Dorman was born this morning at 7:07 am in Parker, Colorado.  At 19 1/2 inches and 7 lbs 6 oz, he was almost exactly as tall as his big sister, and just a half pound heavier.  He looks more like his daddy, and definitely sleeps like him… we’ve had a lot of trouble getting him to wake up and eat!

Kaden and Adena are both doing very well, and we expect to go home tomorrow.  Liberty was with us through the delivery, and has handled it well.  She’s very excited to be a big sister and has been quite the jabberbox most of the day.  My sister-in-law Kaia has been staying with us this summer and she’s been a big help.

Labor started about 2:00 am Friday night, and I was awoken with the “I think it’s coming” message about 3:00.  We all left the house at 5:30 and got checked into the hospital shortly after 6:00.  By seven minutes after seven, we had another kid.

Our oldest was induced five days after the due date, and Kaden came on his own five days “late” as well.  I remember the process with Liberty as being pretty surreal, and although Kaden’s delivery today was much different, it’s still surreal.  From the dad’s perspective, there is not much you can really do other than do your best to comfort and encourage mom, and be an advocate with the doctor and nurses to make sure things go how you want.

Adena went “all natural” this time, with no drugs or anything.  She’d had an epidural with Liberty, so the pain was a lot more intense this time around.  That was a big difference for me, especially toward the end when there was a lot of pain.  Liberty could sense it, too, and she looked pretty scared a couple times while I was holding her and trying to help Adena get through.

I had some difficulty keeping it together the last 10 or 15 minutes, especially after the water broke and things really started moving.  It was quite an emotional roller coaster… going from fear and worry seeing my wife in such intense pain, to great pride and admiration for what she was accomplishing, to such a joy of having another baby with our whole family there to experience it together.

I’ve posted a few pictures up on Picasa, but here’s a preview:

Time for us all to get some sleep.  We all look forward to checking out of the hospital and getting settled in at home.

Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life” had a great program on recently describing the run-up and reasons behind the housing crisis and ensuing credit crunch.  Titled “The Giant Pool of Money“, it makes it a lot more clear how all of this happened.

Very interesting and really quite entertaining, I recommend it if you have an hour to listen.

I recently listened to a very interesting episode of KCRW’s To The Point that investigated the summer gas tax holiday proposed by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.  It was definitely a very intriguing discussion about the economics behind the oil industry and the short- and long-term effects of this idea.  I highly recommend listening to this program if you want to be informed about this issue.

What it boils down to is that a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would make little difference to consumers.  One guest interviewed on the program explained a rough calculation and estimated that it would only save the average commuter about $30 per month (assuming traveling 600 miles per week and a 20 miles/gallon fuel efficiency.)  Barack Obama, who is opposed to the tax holiday, has cited similar numbers.

Another interesting point is the signal our government is sending to us by fighting so hard to keep gas prices low.  We in the United States already pay much less for fuel than pretty much the entire rest of the world, and we feel entitled to cheap fuel and energy.  However, the reality is that we are running out of traditional energy sources as we continue to consume more and more.  We need to have a mindset of conservation and efficiency to protect the resources that are remaining, not a mindset of eternally cheap energy.  By working to keep gas prices artificially low, our government is only encouraging the misconception that energy will remain cheap and abundant for decades to come.  If we allow natural market forces to dictate the true value and price of fuel and energy, we would be forced out of this fantasy world and realize that we need significant efforts toward conservation and development of sustainable energy sources now. By continuing to fool ourselves, we are being set up for an even larger energy crisis in the future with much more dire economic consequences.

So what would a gas tax holiday actually do?  Because of the relatively inelastic demand for gasoline, standard principles of supply-and-demand economics show that the major portion of the tax break would actually end up in the pockets of the oil producers.  Not only that, but market conditions would likely cause price to consumers to increase.  (See Wikipedia’s Tax incidence with inelastic demand for an explanation.  There is also a good explanation posted on the “Stop the gas tax ‘holiday’ scam” Facebook group.  Rob Goodspeed has a similar analysis on his blog that references a recent Thomas Friedman op-ed article.)

Now, regardless of your feelings on whether or not Clinton and McCain are floating these ideas for political reasons (I, for one, believe that is the major motivation) the bottom line here is that most Americans think this is a good idea.  ”Lower taxes?  Sounds good to me!”  As several of the guests on the To The Point episode pointed out, most Americans don’t understand the economic principles behind this to realize what the ramifications really would be.

Last weekend my wife and I attended an information session about homeschooling.  I was surprised to see the list of legally-required subject matter that students graduating from high school in Colorado must learn: reading, writing, speaking, literature, mathematics, science, history, civics, U.S. constitution.  We are missing one critical subject that is essential for success in today’s world: economics.  Especially given the recent “housing crisis” and “credit crunch” that has trapped scores of Americans, wouldn’t it make sense to ensure our children understand the basic concepts of supply-and-demand economics and the magic (or horror) of compound interest?

Let’s stop being sheep that follow anything the politicians say and learn to think for ourselves.  With even the most basic understanding of economic principles, anyone can see how the gas tax holiday proposal is not a sound idea, and will likely end up hurting our economy even more.

About a month ago, I was having a lot of trouble with my cable modem. Going offline a few times a day, poor transfer speeds, etc.  Comcast decided I needed a new drop to the street (which, I can’t really complain about too much: it’s been working great since.)  Anyway, I’ve had a coax cable laying across my front lawn for the last several weeks.

This is the second new cable line we’ve had during the last two-and-a-half years.  The original line was damaged when they built the retaining wall along side the house.  I’m not sure what the problem was this time. (Although, I’d like to blame it on the mice that destroyed our front yard over the winter.)

So this weekend I’d planned to bury the new line under the river rock that runs between the two houses.  Last time the Comcast contractor came to bury the last new line, they royally screwed up my landscaping and a whole corner of the lawn, so I really don’t want them to do it again.

Looking around my garage earlier this week, I suddenly had a revelation when I saw the extra 50 feet of irrigation pipe left over from installing my sprinklers two summers ago.  Why not use that as conduit for the cable drop?  It’ll keep the coax line protected (especially if it’s only buried under the river rock and not underground), and it’s a good way to get that extra pipe out my garage.

That project went surprisingly well today.  It was much easier than I thought it would be to feed that coax cable through the pipe.  I had to cut off a few feed of the end to make it the right length, but other than that it was a snap.

Now, barring any major pick-axe or lawnmower accidents, that cable should stay in good shape from now on.  So next time I have cable modem problems, at least they won’t be able to claim that my drop is bad.

I got my electric bill the other day. $27.75, not bad, but mostly so cheap because we were out of town for 10 days at the end of March. I’m in the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) service area, and included in this month’s bill was the usual newsletter. This time it included the 2007 annual report.

IREA has consistently taken a opposition stance against development of any type of renewable or sustainable energy source, apparently solely on the basis of cost. Their primary goal appears to be holding on to the Big Coal days for as long as possible in order to stop a few cents-per-kilowatt-hour increase in electricity price to consumers. At $0.09 or $0.10 per kWh, we still enjoy extremely cheap electricity prices compared to other energy sources. (I.e. I pay on average about $60 per month for natural gas, which is only used to heat my house and water. And not to mention gasoline and diesel.)

Most IREA newsletters include some reference to Colorado constitutional amendment 37, which is a requirement for all electric utilities operating in this state to provide and increased portion of electricity production from renewable sources over the next several years. The amendment included a provision for electric cooperatives (like IREA) to “opt-out” of these requirements, if desired by their membership. IREA claims that its “membership voted by a 4 to 1 margin to ‘opt-out.’” However, with the recent passage of Colorado House Bill 1281 (signed by Governor Ritter last month), that provision has been eliminated and now holds all electric utilities to the renewable production requirement. IREA’s constant complaint is that this requirement will raise prices for consumers “while doing little, if anything, to affect our climate.”

IREA conducted a random poll of its members regarding the various proposals and regulations working their way through the legislature. Here are the results, as reported in IREA’s April 2008 newsletter:

• 84% oppose a “carbon tax” which would increase energy costs across the board.
• 78% oppose “retail netmetering” which would require IREA to pay the retail rate to consumers generating their own power.
• 77% oppose an “energy conservation tax.”
• 65% oppose solar rebates paid to consumers who install residential solar energy panels.

I really wish I’d been one of the randomly chosen members to be polled, because I am very curious as to how the questions were asked. “Do you support a carbon tax that would increase energy costs across the board?” will certainly encourage a different response than “Do you support a carbon tax that would encourage electric utilities to limit carbon emissions and develop sustainable and renewable energy sources?”

IREA’s consistent refusal to seriously consider any regulation or generation technology that will increase electric rates in the near-term is a recipe for long-term disaster. Keeping electric rates as low as they are now for as long as possible should not be the goal. But rather a long-term and sustainable plan for electricity generation in the future. I, for one, would much rather live with a modest, predictable annual increase in rates, rather than a 10%-20% jump 10 or 15 years from now.

One the other hand, there is Xcel energy, which provides most of the electricity generation for Colorado, as well as over 90% of the power consumed by IREA. A recent Rocky Mountain News article covered a public hearing held by Xcel energy to “outline how Xcel will meet the Front Range’s growing demand for electricity from 2009 through 2015.” The article reports that Xcel “drew strong criticism” from attendees as well as through over 800 emails the utility had received.

Xcel plans to add 800 megawatts of wind energy and 200 megawatts of solar energy. These renewable generation technologies would be augmented by 800 megawatts of natural gas generation. Apparently the main point of criticism was Xcel’s plans to add the natural gas capacity, as suggested by this quote from the article:

“I don’t like the plans,” said Nancy LaPlaca, who stood outside the building holding a banner that read “We want solar, wind, efficiency.”

What Nancy and others don’t seem to understand is that an electric generation system based solely on wind in solar is not feasible. Tom Henley from Xcel sums up this problem with this statement: “Wind is not a reliable resource. We have to have a resource that can be accessed at a moment’s notice. And that’s why we are proposing 800 megawatts of natural gas to match the 800 megawatts of wind.” Without some sort of storage technology (which I would argue is not developed enough at this time to be ready for large-scale implementation), it is impossible drive a major portion of electrical generation with wind and/or solar alone.

Xcel is one of the more forward-thinking utilities in that they realize the coming demise of fossil fuel generation technologies. Xcel is taking steps now to ensure an intelligent, incremental path to a future powered by renewable sources.

Of course, this all boils down to education, and the fact that most people don’t understand how electricity generation works and the implications behind different generation technologies. I’m no expert, but at least I ask the questions to separate the facts from the propaganda. Unfortunately, others like IREA and Nancy LaPlaca, blindly oppose anything that sounds bad with no consideration of the implications.

Well I thought I would get with the times and try out this blogging stuff.  There are a lot of things I think about, and maybe somebody in the world will be interested to read about it.  My web site has become pretty static (by design, so I don’t feel pressured to update it) so this may give it a bit more life.

Plus, this gives me a chance to play around with Word Press.  Maybe I will get ambitious and fire up Media Wiki, too.  Although I’m not sure what I would put there.

What can you expect?  Infrequent updates on a wide range of topics.  We have a second baby coming in a couple months, so free time will likely be in short supply.  But, we’ll see what happens.