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open it up, get the guv out.
Why is an electric grid any different than tv's, computers, fast food burgers etc.? Competition brings prices down and advancements.
Whats in place now is a sole electricity provider with a gov enforced monopoly on service.
In order to have competition in the electrical or communications space the infrastructure itself needs to be nationalized, otherwise whatever company is the first to get wide area infrastructure in place for their service runs a defacto monopoly because nobody else can compete any longer with the prospect of having to recreate the entire service infrastructure from scratch.
Say you are some power company and 40 years ago your company put up all the power lines and infrastructure for a small city.
20 years later competition comes along and wants to compete with your service, but they cannot because you will not allow them access to the infrastructure you have in place and in order to compete they would need to build their own grid from the ground up that can compete with a grid that has been in place and having work done on it for 20 years already, and they have to be able to do it with a low enough overhead to be able to be competitive on prices, while having to use current construction prices to compete with the construction prices from 20 years ago.
So basically impossible.
IMO the power lines, communication lines, sewer and water lines, roads should all be government owned and proportionally rented out to businesses to use at some standard price or tax that scales with the volume of traffic they generate on that particular infrastructure. This is the only way you can have effective competition in these fields. Without that, whoever first owns the infrastructure will always have an area based monopoly. Honestly with those systems' cumulative dramatic impacts on national security I can see the case for having them completely nationalized all together.
Last edited by zzzSnorlax; 09-12-2017 at 10:53 AM..
6.5 million people without power and high 80s and low 90 degree temperatures , it could be weeks to get power back on for some people.
Its crazy that places like florida and houston just grow and grow and grow, in florida alot of the growth right on the ocean and in houston its some development is in flood plains. Both places that are just prone to hurricanes and flooding. Florida actually dodged a bullet, next time it may not be so lucky, something like an andrew taking a direct hit on miami would be astronomical in terms of damage.
And they know that the Feds will bail them out every time, so why not rebuild? Other people's money is no object.
Part of the reason this is not addressed is because of the very thing you tried to do. Make it political. This would define all, states. States ran by the (D)'s or (R)'s.
Exactly! The ideal long-term solution is to work toward owning your own home, and installing your own generator and or solar panels. More and more individual responsibility seems likely to be the default option for the forward-thinking as the system breaks down under more and more "dead weight" forced upon us by "progressivism" -- which is neither progressive nor open-minded.
Just try installing either a generator or solar electricity in some place run by a Home Owner's Association, Relator controlled town or a monopoly power company controlling the state government.
The mere thought of an individual being able to go "off the grid" is anathema to these people because they have based their profits on their monopolies.
I agree with the idea that all of the services and supplies that would be too costly to have duplicates should be owned by the government. This applies to any and all "natural" monopolies. We should have never let private business get a hook into our wallets by owning a monopoly we are forbidden from not using.
As for costs, I imagine (but do not know, of course) that many in Florida have reasoned that the average hurricane blasts through the state from west to east, or vise versa, leaving a rather narrow trail of destruction and electrical outage, which can be addressed by sending the state's complement of electricians out to fix.
Irma, of course, was quite different, running south to north, and causing outages over a huge area.
In hindsight, one would wish that Florida had opted for underground electrical grid way back when. But, they didn't. Developers certainly did not wish to spend the money (recall that for many years, especially prior to Disney World's development, Florida was rather a joke concerning its cheap land and numerous real estate scams), and I doubt taxpayers (including the retired people) wish to contribute today to such costs. Yes, they would like the benefits of underground grid, but would not desire to pay for it.
Underground utilities is not the panacea people think. Under normal weather they are more reliable. They are prone to break down in flooding conditions and overall do not last as long as overhead lines. They also take longer to fix. Another issue is when they fix them they are liable to cut other utility lines like cable of phone. Moreover, unless most all of the grid is underground than it doesn't help much.
The most power outages I ever had was in a neighborhood with underground lines.
Underground utilities is not the panacea people think. Under normal weather they are more reliable. They are prone to break down in flooding conditions and overall do not last as long as overhead lines. They also take longer to fix. Another issue is when they fix them they are liable to cut other utility lines like cable of phone. Moreover, unless most all of the grid is underground than it doesn't help much.
The most power outages I ever had was in a neighborhood with underground lines.
Hmm well I am not an expert... but I am sure there MUST be a way that is better, more secure, and more reliable than the century and a half + old technology we are currently using for most of our power grid. Plus it is ugly.
Just try installing either a generator or solar electricity in some place run by a Home Owner's Association, Relator controlled town or a monopoly power company controlling the state government.
The mere thought of an individual being able to go "off the grid" is anathema to these people because they have based their profits on their monopolies.
I agree with the idea that all of the services and supplies that would be too costly to have duplicates should be owned by the government. This applies to any and all "natural" monopolies. We should have never let private business get a hook into our wallets by owning a monopoly we are forbidden from not using.
Florida is the poster child for American-style crony-capitalism. And like contemporary America, Florida has no economy other than real estate speculation, illegal drugs, sprawl & highway building, and healthcare for the ever-growing number of old people.
Underground utilities is not the panacea people think. Under normal weather they are more reliable. They are prone to break down in flooding conditions and overall do not last as long as overhead lines. They also take longer to fix. Another issue is when they fix them they are liable to cut other utility lines like cable of phone. Moreover, unless most all of the grid is underground than it doesn't help much.
The most power outages I ever had was in a neighborhood with underground lines.
That may well be, however, I guess the choice is above ground, or below. Here in my part of Texas (Fort Worth) our outages are virtually all caused by wind/tree limbs; often enough that I have an electrical generator. I guess if no trees, no power outages. If underground, probably few outages.
Indeed, if we simply had boatloads of money, one option would be both: each home hooked up to underground and overhead lines, with a relay switch. Tree limb takes out the above ground line, switch to the underground line.
Yet, we do not have boatloads of money. Such is life.
Florida is the poster child for American-style crony-capitalism. And like contemporary America, Florida has no economy other than real estate speculation, illegal drugs, sprawl & highway building, and healthcare for the ever-growing number of old people.
How about agriculture that employs 2 million people.
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