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Today in Fortnightly

Dr. Benjamin Spock's Child Care Book, and Reddy Kilowatt

Dorothea Warren got her start drawing Reddy Kilowatt and ultimately became one of the twentieth century’s top illustrators 

Reddy Kilowatt, our industry’s adorable mascot for ninety years, appears in a different spot in every issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

Many of you know Reddy was developed and promoted by Ash Collins, Sr.  Collins had been a manager at Alabama Power.  He felt our industry needed to engage the public more positively.

Alabama Power copyrighted Collins’ cartoon in 1926.  Then, the Edison Electric Institute was founded in 1933.  Collins left Alabama Power and joined EEI.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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George Bernard Shaw Got His Start with Edison and Insull

Samuel Insull interviewed George Bernard Shaw, then put him to work at Edison Telephone Company in the battery room, in the basement.

Was reading, for fun, “The Memoirs of Samuel Insull.” 

Insull wrote the autobiography in the summer of 1934.

As the Depression deepened in 1932, Insull’s extensive utility holding company had collapsed. The press, public and politicians found a scapegoat. After several attempts to extradite him from Europe, U.S. authorities took him off a ship to stand trial in three high-profile cases.

Insull, the man who went from Thomas Edison’s secretary to the inventor of utility regulation, was acquitted on all charges. 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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We're Free for 8,283 State Commission Staff

All 8,283 state commission staff can receive PUF for free when their commissions set up free site licenses 

Using the cool state map on the NARUC web site, I calculated that there are 8,283 state commission staff.

Only the screen for the Wisconsin Public Service Commission didn’t show the number of staff.  But I counted using that Commission’s staff directory. 

There’s an average of 162 staff at each state commission.  

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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85 Years Ago, on October 18, The Wizard of Menlo Park Died

The day of the funeral was October 21, the day Edison demonstrated his invention of the incandescent light exactly 52 years earlier

Eight-five years ago, on October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, died.

The Wizard’s passing was big news nationally and internationally. Though Al Capone was convicted that day for tax evasion. And though a hundred thousand Nazi storm troopers rioted in Braunschweig, Germany. 

President Herbert Hoover urged all Americans to turn out their lights for one-minute at 10 p.m., the night of Edison’s funeral. Similar observances took place throughout the world. 

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Electric Service Becomes Cheaper

On Tuesday, the Labor Department released the Consumer Price Index data for September. It shows electric utility service continues to become cheaper inflation-adjusted.

Nationally, the CPI overall went up 1.5 percent since September 2015. But the CPI electricity went up just 0.1 percent during the period.

The gap between the CPI overall and the CPI electricity was 1.4 percent.

In the Northeast, the CPI overall went up 1.3 percent. But the CPI electricity went up just 0.3 percent.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Electric Vehicles: The race is on!

The electric power industry is not new to the desire to have electric cars added to the grid. 

A hundred years ago, legendary automobile manufacturer Henry Ford and equally legendary inventor and electric power industry founder Thomas Edison, two friends who fished and camped together in late life, considered manufacturing electric cars. They even developed a prototype jointly. 

Check out this interview with Ford in the New York Times of January 11, 1914:

Byline: 

Branko Terzic

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Flat Rates Were Known in 1917 as the American Plan 

A number of states are discussing retail electric and gas distribution rates based on demand considerations. It may come as a surprise, to some, that demand rates are not new at all to the public utility industry. 

According to my 1917 edition of Public Utility Rates by Harry Barker, the concept of a multi-part tariff was first introduced in 1892. 

Dr. John Hopkinson in England gave an address to the Junior Engineering Society. His two-part demand and energy rate is still known as the Hopkinson Demand Rate. 

Byline: 

Branko Terzic

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NARUC's Existential Threat Defeated in 1931, and PUF

The character of NARUC Annual Meetings was disputed and settled at the 1931 Meeting, including NARUC’s strong relationship with PUF

This year’s NARUC Annual Meeting starts in two and a half weeks, in La Quinta, California. Few of those planning to attend know that the character of the Annual Meetings was disputed and settled at the 1931 Meeting in Richmond, Virginia.

David Lilienthal of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission already had a national reputation. He would later help found and lead the Tennessee Valley Authority and then the Atomic Energy Commission. But in October 1931, the regulatory reformer upset and clashed with his fellow regulators in Richmond.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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Residential and Commercial Customers Set Records

The residential and commercial classes bought record volumes of electricity this summer

On Tuesday afternoon, the Energy Department published electricity industry data for August. Among the thousands of values was this number: 155,863.

As in 155,863 thousand megawatt-hours. That was the nation’s residential consumption of electricity in August.

Residential consumption has never been that high in any month in history. 

August 2016 consumption is now number one. It beat number two, July 2011, by seven tenths of a percent.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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