5 ms·

Electricity has a real per-kWh cost to produce. Packets have, at best, a nominal per-mbps cost to transmit.

by rosser 8y ago

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
> Electricity has a real per-kWh cost to produce. Like, what? What do you consider a "real" cost of producing a kWh?
- rosser 8y ago
  The all-in costs of whatever you had to burn (literally or not) to produce that kWh? Packets do not have a meaningful marginal cost. Metering is a crap model.
  - hueving 8y ago
    That cost is only a small part of a power plant. Most of the cost is amortizing the build of the plant, just like an ISP. This is especially true with wind, solar, and nuclear.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
    > The all-in costs of whatever you had to burn (literally or not) to produce that kWh? OK, so in the case of wind and solar power, what is burned (not literally) is hydrogen (being fused into helium), which noone is paying for, so there is zero cost for what is being burned to produce each kWh of wind or solar power. So, if you are being billed per kWh for wind or solar power, that's fleecing the customer then? Also, for coal, the coal per kWh costs about 3 cents, you pay at least three times that for electricity, usually more--is that also fleecing the customer? > Packets do not have a meaningful marginal cost. Metering is a crap model. What do you mean by "meaningful"? I mean, either they have a marginal cost, or they don't right?
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > So, if you are being billed per kWh for wind or solar power, that's fleecing the customer then? At any time other than a load emergency, yes. The ideal pricing mechanism for a 100% renewable grid would be to pay a flat rate based on your service size (100 amp, 200 amp, etc.) and then get paid by the grid for dropping your load when the grid is overloaded. That would give the power company the incentive to prevent overloads by providing adequate capacity. > Also, for coal, the coal per kWh costs about 3 cents, you pay at least three times that for electricity, usually more--is that also fleecing the customer? That price doesn't include externalities. It can make sense to use pricing to discourage usage of resources with otherwise unpriced negative externalities. > What do you mean by "meaningful"? I mean, either they have a marginal cost, or they don't right? Network equipment may use more electricity when forwarding packets than not. But when this is in the amount of pennies per TB of data, the accounting overhead of keeping track of it would exceed the measured dollar amount.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
        > At any time other than a load emergency, yes. The ideal pricing mechanism for a 100% renewable grid would be to pay a flat rate based on your service size (100 amp, 200 amp, etc.) and then get paid by the grid for dropping your load when the grid is overloaded. That would give the power company the incentive to prevent overloads by providing adequate capacity. So, do I understand you correctly that someone who uses their electric oven (so, ~ 3 kW) once a day for half an hour but uses no other electricity should pay the same total as someone who runs some 3 kW machine 24/7, unless the grid is overloaded, in which case the latter pays less? > That price doesn't include externalities. It can make sense to use pricing to discourage usage of resources with otherwise unpriced negative externalities. Except that's not what is happening here? > Network equipment may use more electricity when forwarding packets than not. But when this is in the amount of pennies per TB of data, the accounting overhead of keeping track of it would exceed the measured dollar amount. Except that that's a minor part of the marginal cost of moving a packet?
        AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > So, do I understand you correctly that someone who uses their electric oven (so, ~ 3 kW) once a day for half an hour but uses no other electricity should pay the same total as someone who runs some 3 kW machine 24/7, Yes, exactly. Because they both want to come home and use 3 kW for a half an hour at the same time, so the grid needs 6 kW of capacity just then. But if it has 6 kW just then with a source that generates 24/7 the same amount at no marginal cost, the person who is also using that amount the whole day isn't costing the power company anything more. The capacity was needed for that half hour regardless of what you do the rest of the day, so why should what you do for the rest of the day change what you pay? > unless the grid is overloaded, in which case the latter pays less? No, you get compensated for not using what you paid for, not for not using what you normally use. If they're both not using then they both get paid. Obviously this gives the power company a good incentive not to have an overloaded grid. Now in practice what's going to happen is that the person who uses 3 kW for a half hour a day isn't going to buy 30 amp service for that, they're going to get 10 amp service and a 5 kWh battery that can run their oven or clothes drier from time to time and then slowly charge back up over 24 hours. The analogy for broadband is you pay for 50Mbps service but it will burst up to 500Mbps for a few seconds at a time, so the person who doesn't use 24/7 has de facto 500Mbps instantaneous service for the price of 50Mbps. And there are some complexities in power generation that don't apply to broadband, e.g. grid-scale batteries and the fact that solar doesn't actually generate 24/7. But even that doesn't really change that much, especially if you tie the service level to time of day, e.g. you can order 10 amp from 4PM to 10PM and 100 amp from 10PM to 4PM and that costs a lot less than 100 amp 24/7, but it means you're not allowed to use more than 10 amps during peak hours. And it would make sense to sell broadband that way as well, with Mbps rather than amperes. Why can't I get 10Mbps during peak hours and gigabit the rest of the time? And then someone who needs 20Mbps during peak hours can get that and pay twice as much as me, even if I'm using a thousand times more data than them during off peak times. > Except that's not what is happening here? It's not administratively what's happening with power generation, but it's de facto what's happening, and so there isn't a lot of cause to change it just because we're doing something sensible and calling it something else. By contrast, there is no comparable negative externality caused by sending data. > Except that that's a minor part of the marginal cost of moving a packet? That's the entire marginal cost of moving a packet. The infrastructure cost is a fixed cost. You don't get it back if you don't send the packet and the network goes underutilized.
gbear605 8y ago
Renewable energy is making that less the case
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Electricity has a real per-kWh cost to produce. Packets have, at best, a nominal per-mbps cost to transmit.

by rosser 8y ago

Electricity has a real per-kWh cost to produce. Packets have, at best, a nominal per-mbps cost to transmit.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago

> Electricity has a real per-kWh cost to produce. Like, what? What do you consider a "real" cost of producing a kWh?

rosser 8y ago
The all-in costs of whatever you had to burn (literally or not) to produce that kWh? Packets do not have a meaningful marginal cost. Metering is a crap model.
- hueving 8y ago
  That cost is only a small part of a power plant. Most of the cost is amortizing the build of the plant, just like an ISP. This is especially true with wind, solar, and nuclear.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  > The all-in costs of whatever you had to burn (literally or not) to produce that kWh? OK, so in the case of wind and solar power, what is burned (not literally) is hydrogen (being fused into helium), which noone is paying for, so there is zero cost for what is being burned to produce each kWh of wind or solar power. So, if you are being billed per kWh for wind or solar power, that's fleecing the customer then? Also, for coal, the coal per kWh costs about 3 cents, you pay at least three times that for electricity, usually more--is that also fleecing the customer? > Packets do not have a meaningful marginal cost. Metering is a crap model. What do you mean by "meaningful"? I mean, either they have a marginal cost, or they don't right?
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > So, if you are being billed per kWh for wind or solar power, that's fleecing the customer then? At any time other than a load emergency, yes. The ideal pricing mechanism for a 100% renewable grid would be to pay a flat rate based on your service size (100 amp, 200 amp, etc.) and then get paid by the grid for dropping your load when the grid is overloaded. That would give the power company the incentive to prevent overloads by providing adequate capacity. > Also, for coal, the coal per kWh costs about 3 cents, you pay at least three times that for electricity, usually more--is that also fleecing the customer? That price doesn't include externalities. It can make sense to use pricing to discourage usage of resources with otherwise unpriced negative externalities. > What do you mean by "meaningful"? I mean, either they have a marginal cost, or they don't right? Network equipment may use more electricity when forwarding packets than not. But when this is in the amount of pennies per TB of data, the accounting overhead of keeping track of it would exceed the measured dollar amount.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
      > At any time other than a load emergency, yes. The ideal pricing mechanism for a 100% renewable grid would be to pay a flat rate based on your service size (100 amp, 200 amp, etc.) and then get paid by the grid for dropping your load when the grid is overloaded. That would give the power company the incentive to prevent overloads by providing adequate capacity. So, do I understand you correctly that someone who uses their electric oven (so, ~ 3 kW) once a day for half an hour but uses no other electricity should pay the same total as someone who runs some 3 kW machine 24/7, unless the grid is overloaded, in which case the latter pays less? > That price doesn't include externalities. It can make sense to use pricing to discourage usage of resources with otherwise unpriced negative externalities. Except that's not what is happening here? > Network equipment may use more electricity when forwarding packets than not. But when this is in the amount of pennies per TB of data, the accounting overhead of keeping track of it would exceed the measured dollar amount. Except that that's a minor part of the marginal cost of moving a packet?
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > So, do I understand you correctly that someone who uses their electric oven (so, ~ 3 kW) once a day for half an hour but uses no other electricity should pay the same total as someone who runs some 3 kW machine 24/7, Yes, exactly. Because they both want to come home and use 3 kW for a half an hour at the same time, so the grid needs 6 kW of capacity just then. But if it has 6 kW just then with a source that generates 24/7 the same amount at no marginal cost, the person who is also using that amount the whole day isn't costing the power company anything more. The capacity was needed for that half hour regardless of what you do the rest of the day, so why should what you do for the rest of the day change what you pay? > unless the grid is overloaded, in which case the latter pays less? No, you get compensated for not using what you paid for, not for not using what you normally use. If they're both not using then they both get paid. Obviously this gives the power company a good incentive not to have an overloaded grid. Now in practice what's going to happen is that the person who uses 3 kW for a half hour a day isn't going to buy 30 amp service for that, they're going to get 10 amp service and a 5 kWh battery that can run their oven or clothes drier from time to time and then slowly charge back up over 24 hours. The analogy for broadband is you pay for 50Mbps service but it will burst up to 500Mbps for a few seconds at a time, so the person who doesn't use 24/7 has de facto 500Mbps instantaneous service for the price of 50Mbps. And there are some complexities in power generation that don't apply to broadband, e.g. grid-scale batteries and the fact that solar doesn't actually generate 24/7. But even that doesn't really change that much, especially if you tie the service level to time of day, e.g. you can order 10 amp from 4PM to 10PM and 100 amp from 10PM to 4PM and that costs a lot less than 100 amp 24/7, but it means you're not allowed to use more than 10 amps during peak hours. And it would make sense to sell broadband that way as well, with Mbps rather than amperes. Why can't I get 10Mbps during peak hours and gigabit the rest of the time? And then someone who needs 20Mbps during peak hours can get that and pay twice as much as me, even if I'm using a thousand times more data than them during off peak times. > Except that's not what is happening here? It's not administratively what's happening with power generation, but it's de facto what's happening, and so there isn't a lot of cause to change it just because we're doing something sensible and calling it something else. By contrast, there is no comparable negative externality caused by sending data. > Except that that's a minor part of the marginal cost of moving a packet? That's the entire marginal cost of moving a packet. The infrastructure cost is a fixed cost. You don't get it back if you don't send the packet and the network goes underutilized.

gbear605 8y ago

Renewable energy is making that less the case

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]