Maine Considers Giving the Boot To Corporate Electric Utilities (apnews.com) 176
The state of Maine is "poised to vote on an unprecedented plan to rid themselves of the state's two largest electric utilities and start with a clean slate," reports the Associated Press:
The proposed takeover of two investor-owned utilities that distribute 97% of electricity in the state would mark the first time a U.S. state's utilities were forcibly removed at the same time. The referendum calls for dismantling Central Maine Power and Versant Power and replacing them with a nonprofit utility called Pine Tree Power to operate 28,000 miles (45,000 kilometers) of transmission lines...
The referendum calls for creation of a nonprofit utility with a board made up of mostly elected members and a few appointed ones. A primary selling point is that the new utility would be beholden only to ratepayers, not corporate shareholders, allowing lower costs, greater investments in the grid and improved performance, supporters said. Interest rates for long-term borrowing for capital improvements also would be less costly for Pine Tree Power. Supporters say there's little to lose: Both investor-owned utilities rank near the bottom in customer satisfaction, with longer-than-average response to power outages and higher-than-average electricity rates.
But critics, including Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, worry about the power grid becoming politicized. They also question savings projections because of the billions of dollars needed to buy out the utilities, and worry about the prospect of lengthy litigation. Maine Public Advocate William Harwood contends legal disputes could postpone the new utility's implementation by five to 10 years.
The American Public Power Association estimates that investor-owned utilities serve 66% of America's electricity consumers, according to the article. So the Associated Press notes that "Across the country, ratepayers who are unhappy with their utilities are watching what happens," citing this quote from energy-related research firm Clear View Energy Partners.
"What we say about state policy and trends is that it could become contagious."
Thanks to Slashdot reader jenningsthecat for sharing the article.
The referendum calls for creation of a nonprofit utility with a board made up of mostly elected members and a few appointed ones. A primary selling point is that the new utility would be beholden only to ratepayers, not corporate shareholders, allowing lower costs, greater investments in the grid and improved performance, supporters said. Interest rates for long-term borrowing for capital improvements also would be less costly for Pine Tree Power. Supporters say there's little to lose: Both investor-owned utilities rank near the bottom in customer satisfaction, with longer-than-average response to power outages and higher-than-average electricity rates.
But critics, including Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, worry about the power grid becoming politicized. They also question savings projections because of the billions of dollars needed to buy out the utilities, and worry about the prospect of lengthy litigation. Maine Public Advocate William Harwood contends legal disputes could postpone the new utility's implementation by five to 10 years.
The American Public Power Association estimates that investor-owned utilities serve 66% of America's electricity consumers, according to the article. So the Associated Press notes that "Across the country, ratepayers who are unhappy with their utilities are watching what happens," citing this quote from energy-related research firm Clear View Energy Partners.
"What we say about state policy and trends is that it could become contagious."
Thanks to Slashdot reader jenningsthecat for sharing the article.
VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:5, Informative)
I've got public power, with a local utility board distributing and TVA generating.
It's not perfect, but it's so much better than being stuck with for-profit companies for an essential service.
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Re:VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory at least, the private enterprise should have more bloat/overhead simply because their primary goal is not to provide the service but to gain a profit, while with public services, the service itself is the primary goal and managing to cover the cost would be enough.
The real reason why public services often tend to cost more for many customers is simply that they try to provide a service also to customers that are probably not serviced by a private enterprise because it would simply be unprofitable.
An example.
A power company will gladly provide power to large cities because running and maintaining cables there is cheap and you only need a few meters per customer because a lot of people are packed densely into a small area. Running that power cable to remote farms is not exactly something they will do very willingly because that's by far less profitable and service quality out there would be shabby, if existing at all, and would only exist if they get forced somehow by government contracts which they will fulfill to the utmost minimum required to still be able to rake in the downtown profits.
A government run power facility would have a pretty considerable interest in providing that service to farms because it requires those farms to provide food (something the private power company doesn't give a damn about), and if people can't live adequately on the farm, they'll move to the city and you have a potential unemployment problem as well at your hands (again, why would the private power company care?). Of course providing that power to the farm costs more money than providing it downtown, so the people downtown would cross-finance running that power to the farms.
And this is why "public" services often cost some people more than private service: They have a different focus and goal.
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Government-granted monopolies. Once the bloat/waste from a private corporation exceeds their profit margins, they should go out of business or a competitor should be able to scoop them. The only reason that doesn't happen is because these private corporations have government-granted monopolies whether that is property-based, licensing based or other basis.
I as a home owner can't even service my own meter/line in the yard up into the meter box, even if I wanted to comply with safety standards and get a licen
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It's a very organized fucking racket.
Re:VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:4, Informative)
They are called Public Utility Districts here, aka The PUD.
They also lay the fiber optic cables.
It works pretty well.
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Isn't that a bit of a too commie comment for a US resident? McCarthy where are you?
Meh, the US system has a whole lot of socialism built in. We even have socialist snowplows, and no one except kooks seems to mind them.
DEpends on where you get your news, I suppose.
The TVA is really unique. (Score:3)
The history of the TVA is pretty wild. It must blow the libertarians minds to consider it's succeeded as much as it has.
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They are already nationalized and they are called food banks.
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2 Million people per month in Canada do.
I'd welcome a nationalized grocery chain.
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I'd welcome a nationalized grocery chain.
Only three aisles: Kale, soy products and bugs.
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Or maybe all the food from small farms, rather than agribusiness, since stupormarket chains won't buy from small farms.
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I'd welcome a nationalized grocery chain.
Millions of people over 30 in Eastern Europe just shuddered.
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Re:VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:4, Interesting)
also a lot of people don't realize that most of the DMV offices in some states are Sub Contracted out to private companies. This is how NC & SC is. Outside of the main state offices, all the "local" ones are 3rd party.
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Re:VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Or all the examples of mortgage companies doing things right (can you say 2008?)?
You're an idiological idiot.
Re:VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:5, Interesting)
then demand that the government stop grand helps to farmers, milk and cattle ... you give the money, but you are not the owner in the end.
at leas with this one, they will be the owners
Re:VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:5, Interesting)
Is food essential?
Food is not a natural monopoly. Anyone can grow food.
But electricity distribution IS a natural monopoly. Once the first company runs wire through a neighborhood, no other distributor has an incentive to compete. They will incur the same cost, yet likely get only half the revenue, and barely any profit.
I am generally pro-capitalist, but I also believe in evidence-based reasoning. Municipal power has a pretty good track record. At least in California, municipal power is more reliable and slightly cheaper.
Another option is public ownership of the grid, but private ownership of generation. That makes sense because generation, unlike distribution, is not a natural monopoly as long as everyone can feed into the grid on the same terms.
Re: VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:2)
Evidence based reasoning is what the world needs more. Ideologies are nothing more than secular religions, they have some grain of truth within them but they fail, sometimes spectacularly, if applied overzealously without reason.
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Not to mention that getting something like this approved is completely bonkers. Unless of course you don't mind your streets to look like this [wikimedia.org].
And by the way, what you suggest there is exactly what's happening in my country. The power grid is a state monopoly, with power generation happening in private hands. They will buy your power at a fixed rate, the most expensive generator that still gets to sell their power gets to set the price.
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Anyone can grow food.
Can they really?
Many people don't have the space to grow enough food for themselves and their families. Many people don't have the time to tend to crops. And even if they do, how many can grow a well balanced diet that keeps them healthy?
In practice farming is heavily subsidised, so effectively somewhat nationalized. It's seen as a national security issue. The benefit of true public ownership is that healthy staples can be sold below cost, with taxes on the wealthy subsidising the health of the nation. Of c
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Is food essential?
Food is not a natural monopoly. Anyone can grow food.
But electricity distribution IS a natural monopoly. Once the first company runs wire through a neighborhood, no other distributor has an incentive to compete.
So we could avoid this: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildl... [reddit.com] or this: https://www.kshs.org/km/items/... [kshs.org]
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Not at all, once the first company runs through they can only compete until their costs reach about 50% over the total cost of building out a new system after which it becomes cheaper to switch your service to another company, even if they had to build out an entirely new system.
More than likely the first company will bear the brunt of the cost of enabling electric, after which customers can switch to a competitor that doesn't have those upfront investment and innovation costs (hence the existence of patent
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Food is not a natural monopoly. Anyone can grow food. But electricity distribution IS a natural monopoly.
Man, I really wish there was a way for me to create and store my own electricity at home. That would be awesome.
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You might notice that it's far harder to monopolize food production and distribution than it is for utilities.
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Not yet, anyway.
Not yet. One or two more mergers & we are likely going to get there. The only thing keeping these massive chains somewhat in line is competition.
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The same happe
Re: VOTE YES, MAINE! (Score:2)
Can you change electricity supplier like you can change grocery store?
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Are grocery stores a government granted monopoly? No.
I doubt it will happen, but a great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly how things should go, but I doubt it will actually happen. Any utilities should be government owned. There is no reason to give any company a monopoly on a utility that every person needs. That puts us exactly where we are, with companies providing crappy service for high prices so they can make more money. If you really want to have private companies do things, then the government should own the lines and companies can compete to provide the electricity.
Re:I doubt it will happen, but a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly how things should go, but I doubt it will actually happen. Any utilities should be government owned. There is no reason to give any company a monopoly on a utility that every person needs. That puts us exactly where we are, with companies providing crappy service for high prices so they can make more money. If you really want to have private companies do things, then the government should own the lines and companies can compete to provide the electricity.
I guess we could say "It depends" about the success of such venture. Anyway a very successful such venture has taken in place in Quebec:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
They own and maintain everything, power lines, production and everything is well maintained. It is completely government owned, they have something like a 99% monopoly, 99% "green renewable" production, sell power to the United States and citizens still get their power for under 10 cents a Kw.h which I believe is one of the cheapest rate in the world. Even with all the surplus they have, they say they couldn't cope with electric cars 100% replacing ICE without building several new dams although.
The surplus from Hydro-Quebec and the surplus from Loto-Quebec and its casinos, completely government owned help to pay for roads and especially health care since health care is government owned there but not very efficient.
Re:I doubt it will happen, but a great idea (Score:4, Informative)
BC Hydro has been a similar success story, though the previous government, who didn't believe in public ownership of anything, siphoned a lot of money from Hydro to balance the budget and if they'd stayed in government, might have killed it.
It's the danger of public ownership, a government that sabotages it.
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Canada has a number of Crown Corporations [wikipedia.org] which work pretty well. They're government owned, but in theory shielded from politicization, though in practice that's not always the case. Something like that could work in the US as long as politicians refrained from meddling... OK, never mind.
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Actually, make that rate-payer owned rather than government owned. If it's rate-payer owned, you can have a local organization. Keeps the bureaucracy manageable.
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Oh, Hydro-Quebec is managed mostly like a private company, just a private company owned by the Quebec government. People working for Hydro-Quebec work for them, not directly for the government. So, different set of rules.
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Any utilities should be government owned.
No, there's a far better way: Co-ops. Think of them as Credit Unions for power and water. Not profit driven, but not beholden to a government, either. Users are essentially members.
Re: I doubt it will happen, but a great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because one of the easiest ways for any kind of governing body to save money and the people in charge to woo voters with promises of no tax increases is to defer maintenance on infrastructure. To see the true state of a nation's finances, you need to look not at imaginary numbers from corporate share prices but things like how much accumulated debt exists because of deferred maintenance. In the US I believe it's now reached the trillions. I've been to countries in Africa where the infrastructure is in better condition than an equivalent location in the US (OK, most of Africa never had any infrastructure to begin with, I mean places where there are paved roads and whatnot).
So even in the case of a non-crooked administration, it's very difficult to maintain, let alone upgrade, infrastructure when your re-election depends on not maintaining it in order to out-price-cut the other lot.
Re: I doubt it will happen, but a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK, all the utilities used to be govt owned & run, i.e. under democratic control, & they were very cheap & worked pretty well. Then along came "Thatcherism" & they sold them all off at fire-sale prices, promising that everyone could be a shareholder (I mean, who needs democracy when you can hold shares, right?), & that everything would get even better.
Now the UK has crumbling infrastructure due to a lack of basic maintenance, despite prices having gone through the roof to the point that they're a major contributor to poverty, & lip-service from executives who, for decades, have been telling everyone that they're investing billions & doing everything possible to "catch up" with the negligence, while at the same time paying out record dividends to their shareholders & huge bonuses to themselves.
Anyone who thinks that this was an improvement is a wilfully ignorant ideologist.
Re: I doubt it will happen, but a great idea (Score:4, Informative)
Reagan pushed a similar plan in the U.S. although we didn't have the public utilities and infrastructure to the extent Britain did. Still, he allowed the 'Beltway Bandits', otherwise known as Campaign Contributors, to get their pieces of the pies. It is still going on today and now they have their own lobbyists so there's no getting rid of those vermin.
Not an impressive argument (Score:2)
The UK separated out the production and transmission of electricity - and then sold both bits to different shareholders. The cost of the network and its reliability has not been an issue; the price rises are recent and mostly relate to the cost of gas.
Here's slightly more data than you will need; note the significant FALL in electricity prices after privitisation.
https://assets.publishing.serv... [service.gov.uk]
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Re:Not an impressive argument (Score:5, Informative)
Now argue that water and trains have improved since privatisation. Go on. Try.
Then there was the UK steel industry. Whatever happened to that after privatisation?
Meanwhile, the UK is now marinading in its own faeces due to decades sewage mismanagement & what looks like misappropriated tax payer funds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
Water and the railways - much better now thank you (Score:2)
The record on cleaning up of the rivers of England since privitisation is very positive; both my local river - the Mersey - and the Thames are now clean and attractive. There's a lot of noise now about increasing pollution - but that's from a much lower base than was the case at privitisation, whilst it seems to be caused by the overwhelming of infrastructure by the effects of climate change. And when the companies do something wrong, they get seriously fined, unlike in the old days when water authorities w
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Doubting government statistics? (Score:2)
Really?
Average net selling value of electricity to all consumers (pence/kWh) move from 5.37 in 1990 to 2.30 in 1996 - see the last sheet of the spreadsheet I linked to.
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It's important to recognize the trick that politicians used here too. They ran the public services into the ground deliberately, so that they could claim that they would be better run in private hands.
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The mind of a Western Communist. Central planning is good, except for where it's tried, where it fails because politicians are bad.
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There are plenty of examples of places where it's worked really well. What you need is a very strong democracy, where power is properly distributed and a small number of people can't wreck it. Countries with such democracies also have very good publicly owned services.
Besides, your logic can be applied to capitalism too. It's good, except everywhere it's been tried because the capitalists buy politicians and benefit from natural monopolies.
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Besides, your logic can be applied to capitalism too. It's good, except everywhere it's been tried because the capitalists buy politicians and benefit from natural monopolies.
That's what I was going to point out.
Never make a point in an argument that can also be directly used against you. Debate 101.
I used to live in a town with a public electric (Score:2)
utility. And others where it was Eversource (and National Grid).
Absolutely no difference I could notice.
This is a red herring. I'd wager this public entity would suck just as much as the private companies do because the source of the suck is that Maine is sparsely populated and gets hurricanes and blizzards. Not because some tophat wearing capitalist is buying himself an extra yacht.
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Sounds like a mix of towns in Massachusetts. My friends with local electric "light" companies say they have much lower electric rates, but they also have a much tougher time if they want to install solar panels.
public vs private (Score:4, Insightful)
Being a "customer" in various public owned and private owned utility areas, I can say the distinction is not whether who owns the system, but how it is governed. And if you don't change the basic principles, change of ownership is only a dressing, and might even backfire.
Take California. Some of the cities run their own public utilities. For example, in Bay Area, Santa Clara runs "Silicon Valley Power" with less than half of the cost of neighboring cities. Yes, it costs $0.15 on average there, whereas neighboring PGE areas pay more than $0.36:
https://www.siliconvalleypower... [siliconvalleypower.com]
How does this happen? They have two power plants, one locally in the city. And they don't have to pay settlements to all those people and infrastructure burned in fires thanks to mismanagement.
Okay, public better, right? No, not so fast. Sunnyvale (another city in the region) decided to handle their own utilities. But being the "worst of both worlds" they went with PGE for distribution and distant power plants for generation. The result? Almost same exact exuberant rates as anywhere else. They "own" nothing, but have extra administration in the end.
(And not, "privatizing PGE" means taking over tens of billions of settlement debt they have to pay. Unfortunately there is no easy out).
Compare that to next state over, Arizona, which ironically gets its electricity from a hydropower dam, among others. (Salt River Project). Again government owned, but with much lower rates. But the other neighbor, Nevada has a private company (NV Energy, owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy), which offers even lower rates.
Bottom line: the problem is not whether it is government or private owned, but rather how it is operated.
Re:public vs private (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair enough, but then how do you improve or manage how it is operated?
If private, shareholders and boards define the operations, and there is little in the way for the public to apply leverage against mismanagement (except possibly regulation, which is de facto public ownership).
If public, the concerns of energy becoming a political football (see how public schools operate) is a problem, with the specter of loads of bureaucracy and regulation.
In both, the "public" have little say beyond voting with their feet, which is after the system has been gutted of any value.
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a board made up of mostly elected members and a few appointed ones
This could turn out to be an issue, where the power players on the board are only there because they have the charisma to get elected or they get appointed a cushy job. Hopefully they will put restrictions on who is allowed to run for these positions.
Naive and doomed (Score:2)
Government run: Post Office. Private: FedEx
Government run: DMV Private: Costco
It is extremely unlikely that taking over legacy utilities will "lower costs, greater investments in the grid and improved performance". Public utilities are already heavily government regulated with mandated rates of returns. There's no magic want that both lowers costs and has greater inve
Re:Naive and doomed (Score:5, Informative)
Private enterprise has a long, long history of using every possible dirty trick to wring another penny out of its customers any way it can get away with it.
Government-run usually comes with a lot more red tape and less legal standing to sue when they screw up... but the primary motivation of the entity created is to provide the service, not to make money. If you want more reliable power that is delivered according to best practices even if that means taking more of the tax budget to do so... you want government control. If you want it cheap and will put up with the occasional Great Northeast Blackout of 2003, or Texas, then you want private control. There are also blended options, like a government utility that relies heavily on private contractors.
None of the options are perfect, but by now the flaws of each model have provided enough evidence for an informed choice to be made as to which meets your personal requirements for power generation and delivery.
As we start to rely more and more on electrical power for heating... places that get dangerously cold should probably lean towards the government model.
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I like our solution. Government-run private enterprises. Sounds weird, but hear me out. Government creates a 100% daughter company and sets the rules that this company has to follow, i.e. what kind of services MUST be provided. An auditing board checks everything this company does to ensure that tax money is used sensibly with the goal of providing the service first and of course be profitable as a secondary goal.
It works ... well, mostly. Like pretty much everything works "mostly". But it meant that we get
Pinko commies are taking over Maine! (Score:5, Funny)
This is outrageous! It's a direct assault on the God-given right of private owners to exploit their natural monopoly, milk their captive customer-base for all it's worth, favor short-term profits over long-term investment and maintenance and generally hurt the community!
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If you look how things work, god is a pinko commie while nature is capitalist.
I mean, just take the competing models of how life comes into existence. From a naturalist point of view, there is evolution. Different species compete with each other and produce competing offspring, which then have to prevail in the open market of life.
And what has God to offer in return? Central planning. Now where have we seen that before?
There's no reason for power delivery (Score:5, Insightful)
Public sector maintance gets delayed (Score:2)
Unless the public sector utility is de facto independent of the state, there will be a regular battle for expenditure between sexy projects like education and health and spending money on keeping the lights on and water flowing. Given the choice, most politicians will cut back on utility expenditure. The result is that water pollution persists and electricity supply is erratic. Remember Flint, MI? A publicly owned water company that was desperately cutting expenditure...
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A private company will always prioritize profit to providing the service. Providing the service is to a private enterprise always the necessary evil that they have to do to get the profit they are actually interested in.
I don't think that's true for small companies (Score:2)
But something big enough to run a public utility? Yeah, they *hate* having to provide service. Look at Texas. My
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You know an owner/operated power grid company that does what it loves? Please.
You'll find that these kinds of shops are hardly in a monopoly position. Those that are are quickly pushed aside by others who don't give a fuck about the product and just want to corner the market, at first by undercutting the service (because providing what you love to do usually means providing a quality product, which invariably means that your product will cost more to produce than some cheap crap) and when they ruined the on
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It depends on the regulations. Many natural monopolies are regulated to allow at most a fixed percentage of profit above cost. Of course, this is manipulated by the company to maximize profits. It incentives them to spend as much as possible. In NJ, private water costs 59% more than public water with no demonstrative benefits.
Flint, MI was something else entirely (Score:2)
It was *not* a publicly owned water company. Not in the practical sense. It was another example of a quasi public/private where we were letting cronies skim m
'During a financial crisis' (Score:2)
Which is not what you appear to be suggesting; Flint was broke and this was an attempt by the emergency state appointee to address the issue a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There is no siler bullet (Score:2)
Corporate utilities do have their problems. Their profit motive drives them to make decisions that are more in line with the short-term best interests of shareholders, than in the best interests of customers.
On the other hand, government-run utilities have their own problems. Government jobs typically pay less than private-sector jobs, leading many of the best workers to go elsewhere. Typically, government employment rules make it very hard to fire slackers. Government agencies can hardly be described as "
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In Canada, the Provinces with public power run them as Crown Corporations, a business with one shareholder, the Province. At least here in BC, Hydro is fairly independent (previous government did interfere as they didn't believe in public ownership and wanted to kill it), their employees are not government employees, they don't have anymore red tape then most large businesses and they do a fairly good job. It does take government being mostly hands off and there's always the danger of a future government fu
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I don't really think we disagree. There are problems with both corporation and government-run services.
It could work, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I live, we are served by an "investor owned" utility that has over the years been gutted. Everything from maintenance, meter reading, engineering and other related services is provided by private contractors. None of which can be bought by a public utility, because their owners could just decide that there's enough construction work in the next state and move all their personnel and equipment. Towers and other structures are owned by a real estate company and leased back. All the better to pass pole sharing fees (cable, telephone, broadband, etc) to each utility. Most of their power is provided by other utilities on fixed rate contracts who actually run the plants. Except for a few "boutique" facilities, like an underground hydro plant.
Essentially, the company has been hollowed out. It's owners are a private consortium of the contractors that provide it service (it's stock was de-listed years ago). It turns out that this is an ingenious poison pill against just such a public takeover.
Pacific Gas & Explosion (Score:2)
"Elected" ? (Score:3)
Why does America take every good idea and run it through an enshitification process. Yes public ownership of grid transmission is important. All utilities should be free from profit motive. But "elected" people running the show is just fucking stupid. The last thing you want is your grid to be beholden to the whims of the moronic masses voting with their own short term narrow minded self interest in mind.
Why does every damn part of America need to be beholden to partisan political bullshit.
It's called democracy (Score:2)
Keeping political activists out of making hay from perceived issues is impossible. So they become partisan fights...
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But "elected" people running the show is just fucking stupid. The last thing you want is your grid to be beholden to the whims of the moronic masses voting with their own short term narrow minded self interest in mind.
So... you're saying you want to put the Deep State in control of this, too, since it's one of the last parts of our lives it doesn't already control.
The above is a joke, but it's not entirely a joke. I don't believe in (read in ominous tones) The Deep State, but there are problems with putting unelected bureaucrats in charge, too.
Bottom line is that natural monopolies are problematic for almost any sort of administrative structure. Private enterprise will help to keep costs down (good) in order to maxim
Good and Bad (Score:2)
I live in a place where the electricity distribution network [and retail] is 100% Govt owned - plus there is another utility for a separate geographical area which generates/distributes/owns - again 100% Govt owned.
Whilst prices are cheaper than other areas, the reasons are due to a number of factors [being 100% Govt owned is not the major one] including supply sources. Investment is difficult as the Utility needs to get their investment plan approved years in advance and which can work against technical im
Maine's Power (Score:4, Funny)
I hope they call it 'Maine's Power'. As in 'I got a new casio keyboard for christmas, just gotta plug it into the Maine's'
Which is better? (Score:4, Informative)
My experience with government-controlled entities is that they become unwieldy and uneconomic behemoths over time that often employ workers (for lower salaries) that can't get employed in the private sector. Yet, we also see private entities milking profit as much as possible.
In some instances, private companies outcompete the public ones, in other instances, it is the other way around (schooling in the US was under discussion here yesterday). Not sure how one would ensure a utility gives the best service at the lowest price. Maybe having different entities (both private profit-oriented and public service-oriented) compete for the same customers?
In my country, South Africa, many decades ago the government created the state-owned electricity provider currently known as Eskom. In the beginning it created cheap and reliable power driving industrial growth, even exporting power to neighboring countries. But it had a monopoly on providing power, and under the disastrous ANC management it was captured and milked dry by state capturers - now it is an unreliable supply, with scheduled "load shedding" black-outs and steep price hikes each year. Thanks to the advances in PV tech, a lot of electricity is now being generated on-prem by homeowners and businesses. There are a couple of very funny (ironic) inconsistencies, like office blocks being 100% off-grid still required to buy electricity (which is then used for something trivial e.g. landscape lighting), and small municipalities that generate 100% of their own power via an investment in PV, still being required to adhere to the official load-shedding schedule and switch off the supply to their consumers even if they have the watt hours at hand and would need to dump them otherwise.
In Ga, we have EMC's... (Score:2)
Politicized (Score:2)
Oh (Score:2)
The referendum calls for creation of a nonprofit utility with a board made up of mostly elected members and a few appointed ones. A primary selling point is that the new utility would be beholden only to ratepayers, not corporate shareholders, allowing lower costs, greater investments in the grid and improved performance, supporters said. Interest rates for long-term borrowing for capital improvements also would be less costly for Pine Tree Power
And a free unicorn!
Who knows, might be better. At first.
Fortunately, government only involves elected and appointed people who are pure as the driven snow, so all will be well ...
Blatant dump on citizens (Score:2)
Whether planned deliberately or administratively industry just walked away from its burden. Citizens hold the bag.
This is the time citizens don’t follow industry, rebuild the same model that they inherited or fall for centralized architecture. Explore Canadian hydro if avail, cross-state import, wind and add technology schemes like thermal heat pumps that unladen electricity draw.
Check out Puerto Rico's publicly owned power (Score:2)
Socal Edison might want to take note (Score:2)
i would vote to blast that company away in half a heartbeat.
Gov vs private (Score:2)
But I was told by Ronald Reagan that anything run by the gov (they make an exception for the military of course) is incompetent and the market will always take care of things better. The privatization of Britain's rail system is a fine example.
It's all fun and games until.... (Score:2)
..... disaster strikes.
Almost 25 years ago Maine suffered perhaps the worst ice storm in its history.
In January 199, Maine and other New England states, even parts of norther New York, received 2 days of icy rain, resulting in massive power outages. Bangor Hydro, now renamed after change of ownership, lost its primary transmission line entirely, Central Maine Power had more than 220,000 outage reports. I lost my power for 11 days, my sister's family lost theirs for 16 days. Some residents in Portland, Maine
Re: (Score:2)
How sad. Most large-ish corporations function as bureaucracies. Until the profit is threatened.
Government bureaucracies tend, over time, to function in self-serving ways, protecting and expanding their power, influence, and budgets.
Truly, you are correct, I fear. Even FEMA, predicated on emergency response, fails spectacularly from time to time. Excused when the demand far exceeds reasonable precautions, but I live in Gilbert Arizona, and I have to have flood insurance on my home. Mandated by law. Why? In t
Experimental subject #3 (Score:2)
It's astounding how many shriek that the solution to a duopoly is a government monopoly.
The industry and its prices are ready heavily regulated.
I encourage this government central planning effort to go all the way, so in 20 years the folly will be obvious to all. That isn't what some of you want to hear. Don't believe me! We are people of science. Run the experiment!
Nebraska! (Score:2)
Nebraska is, I believe, the only state in the country with 100 percent public power. By law.
We also have some of the cheapest and most reliable electricity in the country.
re: What can possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
I guess, nothing. Just look at what happened to the Soviet Union... But hell, why would we want to look back! Right?
Here are a few citations following a quick search given recent memories:
= = =
[1 of 2] Pacific Gas & Electric confessed to killing 84 people [apnews.com] in one of the most devastating wildfires in recent U.S. history during a dramatic court hearing punctuated by a promise from the company's outgoing CEO that the nation's largest utility will never again put profits ahead of safety.
PG&E CEO Bill Johnson made the roughly 170-mile (275-kilometer) journey from the company's San Francisco headquarters to a Butte Coun
Re: (Score:2)
PG&E, SoCalGas and Hawaiian Electric are effectively government-owned and government-operated. If the legislation has the power to set company policy, they are not considered private.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of Europe have public owned distribution network, where public and private electricity producers can connect (helping the solar and wind deployment). The only problem is still inter country inter-connects, where some countries have few or weaker connections, mostly for historic, cost and nationalism reasons... but the EU is trying to promote more inter-connects.
Anyway, most Europe have better electrical distribution networks than the USA, so yes, this works fine
Europe has what? (Score:2)
' they really had more time to develop the land'
What on earth has that to do with the installation of electricity, given that it only became widespread last century, when both the USA (or at least the developed bits on the coast) and Europe were equally developed?
Re: (Score:2)
Now, why do you think that it is better, when the entity (government) is running something and also oversees it?
First hand experience.
Do not you see some conflict of interest here?
What would that conflict be?
Geeks built the grid (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
great, lets mix unrelated problems (practical vs political) just to associate it to communism and so make it look evil!
Re: (Score:2)
The problems with Venezuela revolve around corruption, which is a bad problem no matter the system.