the savings would amount to what?

Whatever amount their efforts led to. There's certainly no one set number.

For most people, saving electricity is more of a moral thing.

Interesting; would you say 'most people' are moral or immoral?

But once a person has bought all the expensive new electronic toys, electricity seems such a minor part of the total that the first thought is to just not buy another electronic toy (and use the others a little longer) rather than cut back on electricity use.

What do you base this opinion on?

Getting a person's house sealed tighter, or adding insulation requires some thought and an additional expenditure, so people tend to put it off.

With cheap electricity, perhaps. If cap and trade (or a carbon tax) is instituted, then that provides a greater incentive to start taking measures, many of which cost little to nothing.

Changing light bulbs could help too, but the light bulbs look more expensive.

It's well known that CFLs are much less expensive overall, so it's hard to understand where you are getting your opinion from.

But once a person has bought all the expensive new electronic toys, electricity seems such a minor part of the total that the first thought is to just not buy another electronic toy (and use the others a little longer) rather than cut back on electricity use.

That may be what your intuition says, but it doesn't seem to be true.

Take a look at per-state electricity data. Take a look at the residential price/consumption figures - there seems to be a strong correlation between higher prices and lower consumption, both within regions (the North Central regions in the table show this very clearly) and between regions (compare North Centrals to New England or Mid Atlantic).

Available data seems to suggest that residential customers in the US are actually fairly sensitive to electricity prices, and that higher prices (due to shortages and/or carbon taxes) are likely to result in significantly lower consumption.

Where does the extra cost of higher electricity rates go to? I don't think anyone is talking a carbon tax, and returning the money to the taxpayer.

No, the program being considered is Cap and Trade, with one option having the carbon auction proceeds returned to the consumer.

One issue is that you are often substituting higher cost generation for current lower cost generation, so just because of the higher costs, rates will be higher.

That's correct, though it's only fair to point out that the external costs are not part of that equation.

http://themes.eea.europa.eu/Sectors_and_activities/energy/indicators/EN3...

In most cases, you already have a gas-fired facility that provides that capacity, you will just use it a little less.

That depends on a number of factors, some of which are;
- Was this a peaker plant or a continuous operation plant?
- Will this be part of a very diverse mix (i.e., wind, solar, hydro, nuclear)
or just as a backfill for high wind penetration without storage?

There will probably be two sets of staffing costs.

Staffing for current design NG plants, wind farms, and solar farms is very low, especially when compared to coal and nuclear. For example, for the first two, they can be operated remotely, with no one on site.

Building the new wind or solar facility will cut down on the amount of natural gas you will use, but will leave the utility with debt payments on two sets of facilities, instead of one.

Yes, but that would be the same if you are adding more generation capacity reflecting the scenario under discussion (demand growth).

The big savings will be in the purchase of natural gas, but that won't be very big in relationship to the cost of the new wind or solar facility.

Nor would it be with a cost of a new nuclear plant, for example. Of course, many here at TOD don't assume NG will stay at its current low price and may become quite expensive.

A third issue arises if there is a cap and trade program, which is more likely what will be passed than a carbon tax. This has big (?) middle men costs

Can you provide more information on these costs? Would you assume them to be similar to current costs of current SO2 and NOx cap and trade?

Also, the amounts collected tend to go to someone else, for reducing carbon use, rather than coming back to the electricity purchaser payer.

What are you basing this on? If the policy was to rebate the auction proceedings to the consumer, who else would it go to, specifically?

I think it is the availability of all of these payments to middlemen and to folks reducing carbon use that is one reason many back the plan.

What middle men are you referring to, specifically? Might you be conflating this with renewable energy certificate traders? Different subject altogether.

If there weren't $$ in it for them, they would forget it.

The program would be run like the current SO2 and NOx programs. An auction is held, allowances are sold to the highest bidder. In one of the CO2 cap and trade options under consideration, the money is then refunded to consumers. Those who keep their electricity consumption low (or take measures to lower it), get more back in refund than they paid in taxes. Those who use more electricity than average, will pay more in taxes than is refunded to them.

And in today's Drumbeat;

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. may never need to build new nuclear or coal-fired power plants because renewable energy and improved efficiency can meet future power demand, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said.

“They’re too expensive,” Jon Wellinghoff told reporters today at a press conference in Washington hosted by the U.S. Energy Association. “The last price I saw for a nuke was north of $7,000 a kilowatt. That’s more expensive than a solar system.”

(Bloomberg) -- A proposed law to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would price carbon dioxide permits in a range of $13 to $26 a metric ton by 2015, according to a preliminary government analysis.

Permit prices would nearly double if the U.S. banned greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing countries from selling so-called “offsets” to domestic industry, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a report late yesterday.