Front Page Musings

From the Freeps front page headlines today:

Vermonter Indicted

We first talked about Ralph Cioffi's role in the Bear Stearns  meltdown nearly a year ago here on Vermont Tiger and wondered why no local media thought it worthwhile.  I guess only an indictment is newsworthy, not losing a couple of billion dollars.

Cost, Demand Rise for Wood

But it appears that the reporter isn't too good with numbers.  The first sentence of the article states that

The cost of heating your home with wood, like the cost of heating your home with oil, propane, kerosene, natural gas or electricity, has increased significantly during the past five years.

And  the accompanying chart shows that the cost of oil, propane. kerosene, and natural gas are indeed higher than they were five years ago.  But electricity is cheaper, not more expensive.   And the chart does show that, which makes the article's lede flat out wrong.  As we noted a few weeks ago in Vermont Tiger, that electricity is now relatively cheap compared to other fuels, and cheaper than it was five years ago, is just as important as the point the article made, which is that firewood, although up in price, is still much cheaper than competing fuels. 

Although the article wants us to believe that many Vermonters will be using more wood to heat their homes this winter, I think that even more will be using more electricity.  After all, buying an electric space heater is a lot cheaper than buying a wood stove and installing a chimney.

Oh, and to the Freeps' editor:  The logger you featured, Ron Frey Jr. is a neighbor of mine and supplier of my firewood.  His name is spelled with an "e", not F-R-Y.  They got it right in the photo caption, but not in the article.

Comments

[Brattleboro_Conservative]

Art, electricity remains a cheaper alternative so long as VY remains in operation. Once VY is out of the picture, electric space heaters are no longer a viable option. There are going to be major wood supply problems in this state the minute you cut out VY and HydroQuebec despite any assurances from Central Vermont Power. With a population of 630,000 people you will quickly denude the forests of this state as was done in the 19th century. Coal was a much more popular alternative for heat once the trees were gone.

[Sheldon Katz]

Art,

Another outstanding post. The comment is also perceptive.
Lest we forget, for years the Vermont Department of Public Service has for years been encouraging consumers -- using other people's money -- to convert from electric heat to other fuels. This strategy was part of demand side management (DSM), which was at first administered by the utilities and then over the last eight years by Efficiency Vermont, which was given a monopoly on ratepayers funds collected by a "fee" (quotes because it was involuntary, making it a tax) to subsidize these conversions.

Someone should ask where ratepayers go to get a refund of all the dollars that were spent on these conversions now that electric heat turns out be more economical. The DPS? the Public Service Board? The legislature? Sorry, they are immune from suit.

It just goes to show that socialized solutions don't work and should not be tried because (i) no one knows more about an individual consumer's particular situation than that individual consumer and (ii) not even bureaucrats have crystal balls, though they act like they do.