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Utilities are in a thankless position. Everyone wants rock-bottom low rates, but also wants 100% solar, distribution lines in their neighborhood buried undergro

Utilities are in a thankless position. Everyone wants rock-bottom low rates, but also wants 100% solar, distribution lines in their neighborhood buried underground, and every new development in the middle of the wilderness supplied with reliable power at the same price paid by people in dense city apartments. Major infrastructure is near universally well past its designed end-of-life across the United States, but no one wants to pay for replacing it. Poor people complain, rich homeowners complain, state legislature complains and blames the utility for all the woes of the state, environmentalists complain, anti and pro nuke advocates complain, the newspapers publishes idiotic articles written by journalists with no idea what they're talking about bashing the utility, every dollar spent is scrutinized at length, but at the end of the day everyone expects the lights to come on like magic whatever the weather or demand is like and doesn't even think about it. Everyone always thinks there is some grand nefarious plot in play out to fraudulently overcharge them, suppress solar power, or emit mind control waves into their brain, but the system is really just the result of all the many demands placed on it by many different and frequently opposed interests. Generally they understand their role is to "play the bad guy" and be a foil for politicians to look good in public by standing up to a big bad villain. At least in my experience, a utility is a big boring company full of people doing their best to provide their customers with reliable service given whatever constraints are put on them.

jariel 6y ago
In Ontario, over 77% of 'Hydro One' (roughly equivalent entity) earn over $100 000, average pay is well over $100K for 'basically skilled labour'. They are paid nearly double market rates, tons of vacation, grate benefits, 0 layoffs and quite difficult to get fired. The intangible benefits are worth probably 10% extra. Many of these people live in more rural area where cost of living is 30-40% lower than otherwise. If that's not enough - they are paid glorious retirement benefits for decades after retirement - it's hard to fathom the 'net present value' of those benefits. With overtime, semi-skilled line workers can easily earn over $200K. Counting the cost of education and overhead and retirement package - if you live in a rural area, you're going to make more money doing 'semi skilled line work' for Hyro One than you will as a Doctor or frankly anything else. Have a look [1] While I think you are very correct in your concerns - Public Sector Unions have an iron grip over such infrastructure and they will seek as much profit as they can from their monopoly. They have no incentive to do anything other than the minimum and extract from their guild monopolization of that bit of infrastructure. There's no way we can make any significant progress with those kinds of institutional barriers so there needs to be progress there as well. [1] https://www.ontariosunshinelist.com/employers/pnfx https://www.ontariosunshinelist.com/employers/pnfx
- dubcanada 6y ago
  You're basically arguing against unions. There is nothing proven that unions result in "They have no incentive to do anything other than the minimum and extract from their guild monopolization of that bit of infrastructure." So most of what you said is purely speculation. There is incentive to do "anything other than the minimum", it's called a decent wage.
  - jariel 6y ago
    First - it's not 'speculative' - we know what 'monopolies' are, and if a Guild or Union has a monopoly over a chunk of the economy, we understand at least some of the implications. Second - in this case, it's obvious that Unions are not 'about a decent wage' - rather '2-3x' the market wage for a given job. Is it going to work out if the guy at the 7/11 is getting paid $100K as well? Third - this isn't about 'Unions' (it never is) it's about power. I actually support most unions wherein they are trying to form, usually there's good reason for a union when it's trying to come into formation - but when Unions have more power over time, they are literally the 'owning and controlling entity that can extract most of the wealth' in a system. With respect to Electricity and other public utilities - these Guilds/Unions are actually the most powerful artifact in the equation, and to contemplate 'how to improve the system' without dealing with this issue is not going to work. The 'carrier cost' is now the primary charge on most electricity bills, i.e. you're paying for the transport fees as much as the the power itself - those charges will increase to offset any of the gains in cheaper electricity. Electricity could drop to 6 cents a Kw/h tommorow but the carrier fees will rise considerably - why? Because they can do that - it's a function of the 'market power' of the Guild. One of the interesting and not of talked about revolutions which may be on the horizon is the possibility of a 'gridless' future for electricity - or rather - considerable less dependency on grids. Certainly with Hydrogen as a fuel source, or even less dependency on 'local grids' whereby you can talk your 'Household batteries' to a charging station every so often as opposed to having lines right to the house. This might make for a more efficient system which incentivizes truly competitive pricing on electricity and moves a monopolizing entity towards having less power. The gird is a 'single point of access' and it's therefore a very potent means for entities to extract all sorts of wealth wether it's private, public, Unions etc. so we should seek to avoid those dynamics.
claydavisss 6y ago
if you think the criticisms of PGE are just unjustified right-wing bashing, you're simply not paying attention
spaced-out 6y ago
>Everyone always thinks there is some grand nefarious plot in play out to fraudulently overcharge them ... but the system is really just the result of all the many demands placed on it by many different and frequently opposed interests I wouldn't call it a "grand nefarious plot", but instead a dynamic driven by the fact that PG&E's interests are not aligned with the citizens of California. In years when PG&E makes money, they distribute bonuses and dividends. When they lose money, or have to pay for significant infrastructure upgrades, they argue they need to raise rates because "somebody's got to pay for it". The solution is this "Public Utilities Commission", which besides accusations of regulatory capture, you now have citizens paying the commission board members to enforce regulations, and paying PG&E's lawyers (through their rates) to push back against that enforcement. The executives at PG&E know their job is to make money for the shareholders, so any way they can push expenses to rate payers or liability to the state (for example, the San Bruno pipeline explosion, caused by their negligence, yet they only paid for a fractions of the damages), just makes sense. Americans across the country are getting overcharged by their for-profit utilities, PG&E is just one of the most predatory.

jariel 6y ago

In Ontario, over 77% of 'Hydro One' (roughly equivalent entity) earn over $100 000, average pay is well over $100K for 'basically skilled labour'. They are paid nearly double market rates, tons of vacation, grate benefits, 0 layoffs and quite difficult to get fired. The intangible benefits are worth probably 10% extra. Many of these people live in more rural area where cost of living is 30-40% lower than otherwise. If that's not enough - they are paid glorious retirement benefits for decades after retirement - it's hard to fathom the 'net present value' of those benefits. With overtime, semi-skilled line workers can easily earn over $200K. Counting the cost of education and overhead and retirement package - if you live in a rural area, you're going to make more money doing 'semi skilled line work' for Hyro One than you will as a Doctor or frankly anything else. Have a look [1] While I think you are very correct in your concerns - Public Sector Unions have an iron grip over such infrastructure and they will seek as much profit as they can from their monopoly. They have no incentive to do anything other than the minimum and extract from their guild monopolization of that bit of infrastructure. There's no way we can make any significant progress with those kinds of institutional barriers so there needs to be progress there as well. [1] https://www.ontariosunshinelist.com/employers/pnfx https://www.ontariosunshinelist.com/employers/pnfx

dubcanada 6y ago
You're basically arguing against unions. There is nothing proven that unions result in "They have no incentive to do anything other than the minimum and extract from their guild monopolization of that bit of infrastructure." So most of what you said is purely speculation. There is incentive to do "anything other than the minimum", it's called a decent wage.
- jariel 6y ago
  First - it's not 'speculative' - we know what 'monopolies' are, and if a Guild or Union has a monopoly over a chunk of the economy, we understand at least some of the implications. Second - in this case, it's obvious that Unions are not 'about a decent wage' - rather '2-3x' the market wage for a given job. Is it going to work out if the guy at the 7/11 is getting paid $100K as well? Third - this isn't about 'Unions' (it never is) it's about power. I actually support most unions wherein they are trying to form, usually there's good reason for a union when it's trying to come into formation - but when Unions have more power over time, they are literally the 'owning and controlling entity that can extract most of the wealth' in a system. With respect to Electricity and other public utilities - these Guilds/Unions are actually the most powerful artifact in the equation, and to contemplate 'how to improve the system' without dealing with this issue is not going to work. The 'carrier cost' is now the primary charge on most electricity bills, i.e. you're paying for the transport fees as much as the the power itself - those charges will increase to offset any of the gains in cheaper electricity. Electricity could drop to 6 cents a Kw/h tommorow but the carrier fees will rise considerably - why? Because they can do that - it's a function of the 'market power' of the Guild. One of the interesting and not of talked about revolutions which may be on the horizon is the possibility of a 'gridless' future for electricity - or rather - considerable less dependency on grids. Certainly with Hydrogen as a fuel source, or even less dependency on 'local grids' whereby you can talk your 'Household batteries' to a charging station every so often as opposed to having lines right to the house. This might make for a more efficient system which incentivizes truly competitive pricing on electricity and moves a monopolizing entity towards having less power. The gird is a 'single point of access' and it's therefore a very potent means for entities to extract all sorts of wealth wether it's private, public, Unions etc. so we should seek to avoid those dynamics.

claydavisss 6y ago

if you think the criticisms of PGE are just unjustified right-wing bashing, you're simply not paying attention

spaced-out 6y ago

>Everyone always thinks there is some grand nefarious plot in play out to fraudulently overcharge them ... but the system is really just the result of all the many demands placed on it by many different and frequently opposed interests I wouldn't call it a "grand nefarious plot", but instead a dynamic driven by the fact that PG&E's interests are not aligned with the citizens of California. In years when PG&E makes money, they distribute bonuses and dividends. When they lose money, or have to pay for significant infrastructure upgrades, they argue they need to raise rates because "somebody's got to pay for it". The solution is this "Public Utilities Commission", which besides accusations of regulatory capture, you now have citizens paying the commission board members to enforce regulations, and paying PG&E's lawyers (through their rates) to push back against that enforcement. The executives at PG&E know their job is to make money for the shareholders, so any way they can push expenses to rate payers or liability to the state (for example, the San Bruno pipeline explosion, caused by their negligence, yet they only paid for a fractions of the damages), just makes sense. Americans across the country are getting overcharged by their for-profit utilities, PG&E is just one of the most predatory.