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Megawatts, volts and all that explained
Editor:
Because of deregulation, rising electricity consumption, hydroelectric power shortages, and greed, we’re suddenly seeing front-page articles about such unfamiliar topics as megawatts and volts. Most articles get some technical details wrong, confusing power and energy for starters.
It’s easy to understand if we relate electricity flow to a familiar subject – wages. Electric power is the rate at which you use electric energy. This is like one’s wage rate, measured in dollars per hour. Electric power is measured in watts, kilowatts (1,000 watts), or megawatts (1 million watts). The total electric energy used is analogous to the total amount of money you’re paid for working some number of hours. Thus, the electric energy used equals the electric power multiplied by the duration of use, just as the total wages you earn doing a job is your wage rate times the number of hours it took.
Your electric meter computes the product of the power and the length of time you use it. The unit used for the energy registered by your PG&E meter – as shown on its face – is the kilowatt-hour, abbreviated as Kwh on your PG&E bill.
Suppose that the current flowing in a typical electric iron is 10 amperes, and the voltage at the wall outlet is 120 volts. The rate at which the iron converts electric energy into heat – the rate of energy consumption measured in watts – equals the current in amperes times the voltage in volts. The power rating for the iron is thus 1,200 watts, or 1.2 kilowatts. If you run this iron for half an hour, you use 600 watt-hours (0.6 kilowatt-hours) of electric energy. On my November 2000 bill, the charge for generating electricity was about 8 cents/Kwh, so the cost of generating the energy to run the iron for half an hour would have been 4.8 cents. The wholesale price charged by the generating companies has in recent months been as low as $45 per megawatt-hour (4-1/2 cents per Kwh), and as high as $1,000 per megawatt-hour ($1 per Kwh).
You can find out more about this, and see some choice bloopers from the media, at:
http://www.electronics-uncovered.com
Dick White
Berkeley
Complies because he’s pressured to
Editor:
Richard Register suggests that developer Patrick Kennedy cuts special deals for disabled tenants because he “likes the people.”
Perhaps, but interested observers should note that his buildings were brought into compliance with the ADA not voluntarily, but rather because of the hard work of activists in Berkeley who pressured him to do so.
Carol Denney
Berkeley
Forget medical pot; Legalize the herb
Editor:
Why do we waste so much time on the medical marijuana issue? It seems so senseless anymore. Why couldn't cannabis be decriminalized and regulated like alcohol?
Any doctor will tell you that there is no harm in relaxing after work with one beer or one glass of wine and it can actually be healthy for you. The 18th Amendment in 1920 ( prohibition) made alcohol illegal, except within the home or for “medical,” religious or industrial purposes.
Cannabis contains antioxidants “more powerful than vitamin E or vitamin C,” according to Dr. Aiden Hampson of the National Institute of Mental Health.
This is in addition to its well documented neuro-protective, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. So why couldn't one joint a day to relax with after work be healthy too!
Why couldn't alcohol and cannabis be sold in the same stores side by side!
Why not be able to grow your own cannabis? You can manufacture your own alcohol. You can legally make 100 gallons per adult, up to two adults per household. So its legal to manufacture and have in your home 200 gallons (1,200 pounds) of beer.
It doesn't seem to matter that marijuana is illegal, even with the threat of prison, people use it recreationally or medically any way.
We didn't repeal the 18th amendment on Dec. 5, 1933 so people could use alcohol, they were already using alcohol. It was repealed because of the crime and corruption it generated.
Larry Seguin
Lisbon, New York
Support westside office moratorium
Editor:
The Planning Commission recently proposed (on a 5-4 vote) a year moratorium on any further office development in the West Berkeley Mixed Use-Light Industrial district. It is scheduled to come before the Council on March 13.
As a person who has worked in manufacturing in West Berkeley since the 1970s, I support the moratorium and I urge you to.
The moratorium comes in the wake of a developer's proposal to build 450,000 square feet of new office space near Aquatic Park, using a loophole in the West Berkeley Plan. This development - the “American Soils project” - would be tantamount to dropping a bomb on the area, setting off a new and unconstrainable gentrification spiral. Sadly we hear that some city staff have even been encouraging this.
West Berkeley is a unique place, harmoniously mixing manufacturing, arts & crafts, and residents with limited commercial and office uses in defined areas. The basic goal of the West Berkeley Plan is to preserve and enhance this mix. This unique diversity has been preserved in some parts, but threatened and damaged in others.
A diverse community-based economy is a great strength. Over-specialization is a great weakness. Options for blue-collar families and young people in our community need to be increased, but sadly they are still narrowing, as manufacturing jobs continue to disappear.
Some developers would love to open the city's gates wide to the dot.com world, which is threatening to crash like a great wave against the East Bay and overwhelm the West Berkeley community. If they succeed, in a short time they will drive arts and crafts and manufacturing out of town and transform the city in their image. The diversity of North West Berkeley in particular has suffered greatly in the last few years. The irreversible gentrification around Fourth Street cannot be permitted to spread into South West Berkeley.
Ironically, this threat is coming at the very moment when many dot.coms in San Francisco are collapsing, leaving empty buildings in their wake.
Arts & crafts and manufacturing are gone in San Francisco through that municipal government having other priorities. They simply cannot generate the income levels required to compete with offices in an unregulated market. Without government regulation, offices will replace arts & crafts and manufacturing every time.
This new huge office project has to be stopped, and additional regulations need to be enacted to prevent another threat of this magnitude from arising. City staff needs to be told in no uncertain terms that the council will not permit the destruction of West Berkeley. The moratorium is needed now to provide the time to evaluate the Plan's effectiveness, to plug loopholes and to strengthen weaknesses.
The Plan is the only way we can preserve the diversity of West Berkeley, and therefore in the City. Without the West Berkeley community, the entire City would be impoverished, culturally and spiritually, and lack many essential services.
Support the retention of arts & crafts and manufacturing in Berkeley. Support the moratorium. Strengthen the West Berkeley Plan.
John Curl
West Berkeley Cabinetmaker
