Free Republic

This week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted that “the Inflation Reduction Act will put us on our way toward a future where we totally depend on the wind, the sun and other clean sources of energy. We will free ourselves from our dependence on fossil fuels.” Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm echoed Yellen’s remarks and cited “the tremendous progress being made in California under Governor Gavin Newsom’s leadership. He’s got his state on track to outlaw gasoline-powered cars by 2035. He’s pushing to wean the state off coal- and gas-fueled electricity generation and going all wind and solar. I...

The political push to force people to buy electric vehicles (EVs) has run into problems. The State of California has decreed that no fossil-fueled vehicles will be allowed to be sold in the state after 2035. About a dozen other states that have linked their vehicle emission rules to the "California Standard" are now legally obligated to follow whatever regulations California adopts. Left unconsidered in this bold stride toward clean energy is how enough electricity to power the growing number of EVs these rules will mandate. Right now only 1% of the vehicles on the road are EVs. Even with...

For many Americans, the summer of 2022 has been a blistering hot and humid miserable existence. It’s just one of those years when one truly appreciates the comfort provided by something as simple as an air conditioning unit. How did we live without them? But for some 22,000 Xcel Energy customers in Colorado who wanted to be a little more comfortable on Tuesday when the thermometer was pegged at 90+ degrees, a bizarre message flashed on their thermostats indicating they’d lost the ability to control the temperature in their own homes.According to KMGH-TV, “Energy Emergency” was part of the message...

Power companies in Texas are remotely raising temperatures inside of some customers’ homes amid the state’s ongoing energy shortage.Houston resident Brandon English, whose home has an internet-connected smart thermostat installed, was shocked to learn of the practice after his wife and infant daughter “woke up sweating.”Speaking with KHOU 11, English stated that despite his wife turning down the temperature before taking a nap with their 3-year-old child, the temperature in their home rose significantly.“They’d been asleep long enough that the house had already gotten to 78 degrees,” English said. “So they woke up sweating.”English, who expressed concerns over the potential...

U.S.—Pioneering smart thermostat company Matrimostat announced a brand-new thermostat that will automatically set the temperature to whatever your wife wants. “The Matrimostat 2000 uses advanced quantum technology to identify your wife’s temperature preference before she even mentions it --often before she even knows it!” says CTO Ted Shmarmanarf. “It’s a lot more challenging than it sounds. Research showed that many women don’t know what they want until at least an hour after they wish it had already happened, so the thermostat had to be able to accommodate for that.” "Now this is one smart thermostat." Shmarmanarf says that the solution...

In a report published to the site Freedom to Tinker and presented at the recent PrivacyCon conference, researchers at Princeton University detail how they detected that Nest's popular thermostat, among other web-connected devices, was transmitting data unencrypted, so in theory, online hackers could have intercepted that private information if they were looking in the right place. However, the issue stemmed from a weather update containing location information of the home and local weather stations, Nest told Mashable. Sensitive information such as home addresses was already encrypted, but the data collected from local weather stations was not. ... When setting up...

A software bug that caused Nest's smart thermostat to stop working has left many users both cold and angry. Some of those affected took to Nest's own forum and social media to vent their anger about the problem. Nest said that it was aware of the issue and that it had been fixed for "99.5%" of users. It recommended that, for those still experiencing problems "performing a manual reset should help". It also published a nine-step fix. "We are aware of a software bug impacting some Nest Thermostat owners. In some cases, this may cause the device to respond slowly...

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a law requiring manufacturers of thermostats with mercury to collect their old temperature controls in an effort to keep mercury out of the environment.</p> <p>The measure requires they establish collection programs and in 2015 start filing annual reports on collections.</p>

I try to ignore the stupidity that seems to rush in waves from our, so-called, government, but the following email from my daughter has really set me off. Yesterday, she told me that my son-in-law, (along with every other soldier and Marine in Afghanistan), was working in 125 degree heat. Now this morning I get this report: "Just got an email from_____. He said they just received communications saying in an effort to cut costs, they want them to turn their thermostats in their living areas up to 77 when they are there and 81 when they aren't. Are you...

Bradley J. Fikes reports in the N.C. Times: Home control of thermostats would be guaranteed under a new bill introduced in the state Legislature.The bill would forbid the California Building Standards Commission from mandating thermostats that are remote-controlled by anyone other than the building’s resident. Called Senate Bill 1491, the bill by State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, is in draft form. Good ol’ Tom McClintock — my hero. Not much of a surprise that he’d be behind something sensible like this. The California Energy Commission attempted earlier this year to mandate so-called “programmable communicating thermostats” in new and substantially...

Californians may soon have to deal with climate change on a different scale -- and this time the culprit isn't greenhouse gas. The California Energy Commission is proposing a plan which allows the government to regulate household thermostats in the event of an "energy crisis." Under the proposed rules, all new thermostats will be fitted with technology that will allow the government to adjust the temperature of someone's home by plus or minus four degrees. Originally the plans called for mandatory compliance; however, amid public outcry, the plans have been slightly altered to allow an individual to turn off the...

I admit that I didn’t believe the first reports that the California Energy Commission is seriously considering a law to require homeowners to install a thermostat that can be adjusted by government bureaucrats. It seemed like “black helicopter” hysterics to suggest our government has become so intrusive that it would seek to monitor and control minute decisions like what temperature we set for our own homes. But seeing is believing. The proposed regulations can be found beginning on page 63 at this link [PDF FILE]. The rationale for this brave new world is that government can promote energy conservation and...

California Proposes Taking Control of Thermostats By Monisha Bansal CNSNews.com Staff Writer January 11, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - The California Energy Commission has proposed requiring thermostats that allow the government to control the temperature of homes and businesses in case of high energy prices or shortages, a measure that some critics are calling "draconian." The proposed regulations would require all residential and non-residential buildings to have a Programmable Communicating Thermostat (PCT). The regulations state that "all PCTs shall be distributed with a non-removable Radio Data System (RDS) communications device ... which can be used by utilities to send price and emergency...

There is an imbalance between supply and demand in energy, and some California bureaucrats are standing around wondering what to do about it.One says: “Run commercials asking people to conserve!” This is met with general approval.Another says: “Make homeowners install thermostats that we bureaucrats can remotely control!” More general approval.A third says: “Raise . . . prices?”A roomful of angry people turns on him. “Raise prices — as a way of balancing supply and demand?!?!?! What an idiot!”That’s California in a nutshell. It appears that proposal number two — letting bureaucrats control homeowners’ thermostats — is indeed a potential reality....