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Having lived through this here in Dallas and California's post-Enron adventure back in the day, it gives me strong priors against deregulated utilities, but I d
by nonameiguess 6y ago
Having lived through this here in Dallas and California's post-Enron adventure back in the day, it gives me strong priors against deregulated utilities, but I don't think this is a super strong argument against it. 60% of the population of Texas is about 17 million people, and dividing $28 billion over 17 years equally between them is about $98 a year, so did we get $98 a year better service? I have no idea how to answer that, but I don't think you can just see a higher price and say it's automatically worse.
I will say my biggest complaint as a consumer of electricity has nothing at all to do with who sells me the power. It's the fact that our power lines are all above ground and the city does nothing to keep trees trimmed, so in an area with consistent high winds, my power is going out all the damn time because the lines are constantly getting cut. Reliability in this case is downstream of the utilities themselves. The energy company doesn't own the transmission lines or the trees. I have no idea what prevents the lines from getting buried. Seemingly just cost, but avoiding excess costs at the price of crappier service is common to regulated, unregulated, and direct government providers alike.
- bradstewart 6y agoThis. The biggest problem with deregulation is the lack of incentive to build in redundancy and maintenance costs.
- CivBase 6y agoWhat is the incentive for utilities and public providers? Just the fact that they can spend whatever they want and pass the bill on to the end user because they have no choice in the matter?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 6y agoThe same as the incentive for a slumlord... you minimize capital expenses and maximize return on equity. You can milk capital assets for a long time. The partners and shareholders yield higher dividends, and somebody (taxpayers, insurance, new investors, ratepayers) gets stuck with the bill when things go bad.
- adamc 6y agoPretty clearly we didn't, since even before the latest disaster, we had frequent brownouts.
- solarhoma 6y agoIt is beyond incredibly expensive to bury 138/345/720kV transmission lines. Orders of magnitude more expensive than running structures. With that said the vegetation surrounding the lines should be trimmed.
- carlob 6y agoI don't think OP was talking about high-voltage lines: in most of Europe high voltage is way higher than most vegetation and within cities lines run underground.
- hippich 6y agoI recently built a house and had to work with power company to bury the cable instead of running it on poles (for the view mostly, not reliability). From what I hear - they prefer to run low voltage (keep in mind, we run 110V vs 220V in Europe) up-to 150ft. From there it is either a significant voltage drop or expensive thick cable. Hence all these wires on these wooden poles - they are actually high voltage. I lived in ex-USSR country where 220V were distributed through the street over steel (and corroded) wires on poles. Running a stick welder meant lights flickering for the whole street. Flickering to the point where TVs and computers would restart. (With my current setup, with high voltage running within 75ft off the meter, I can run up to 400 Amps without affecting anyone around me.) And yeah, it cost me total about $15k for a total of 300ft of the high voltage line to be buried. Vs. $2,400 for two poles of overhead lines.
- formerly_proven 6y agoThis is a misunderstanding due to a mix-up of terminology. In power distribution "high voltage" means >50-100 kV. Extra high voltage is everything >200 kV. Low voltage is everything below <50 kV. Low voltage is what is delivered to neighbourhoods and then stepped down to the end user voltages (230 / 400 V). The power lines that run in streets are never high voltage in the sense utilities use that word.
- Spivak 6y agoI think this is one of weird shitty things about modern society which is that even if you're "well off" as an individual (say top 10% of household income) you hit an absolute wall when it comes to affording something like this. At $dayjob we get buried lines run without much fuss but the cost is more than any one employee's salary (more like 5 but still). As an individual you're basically dependent on gov't to get something like this done with no real way around it.
- metalliqaz 6y agoIn my state, the utility owns the power lines and is responsible for trimming the trees.
- geerlingguy 6y agoSame here. Every spring it's fascinating seeing the variety of systems our utility uses to cut back vegetation, varying from bucket lifts to helicopters with literal dangling chainsaws!
- foobarian 6y agoMy favorite is a giant sideways facing "lawnmower" mounted on a small utility truck.
- altcognito 6y agoI don't know why the city would be the ones responsible for trimming the trees. They have no expertise in trimming trees near powerlines which comes with special concerns and risks. Using trained personnel for powerlines probably gives them a chance to do inspection on powerlines to insure that they are in good condition. It seems those companies which are profiting or engaging in business should be paying some sort of fee to whomever does maintain the lines. If they aren't trimming, then maybe they aren't paying enough. Which is exactly how the entire situation with not winterizing came about in the first place. I imagine those people who bought and traded electricity on the market balked at paying maintenance fees.
- exhilaration 6y agoI can tell you that in New Jersey, all the trees on the sidewalk are "town trees". You aren't allowed to cut them down and your municipality is responsible for trimming them. They've got staff and equipment to handle it. Having said that, I've seen the local power utility trimming those trees as well, so they'll take action to keep the lights on.
- Spooky23 6y agoThe utility has an easement for the lines and have the right to maintain trim trees, etc. The family farm I worked on had a easement/right of way for a pipeline and power lines... they actually maintained a road at their expense to access a valve.
- caseysoftware 6y agoIn Austin here, behind our house there are trees growing up and ivy growing onto the lines. We called every week last spring, the City had no interest in trimming it. We finally got all the neighbors to call in on dedicated days so they were getting a call almost every day. Still, they haven't trimmed them. With the ice last week, I'm shocked the lines didn't come down.
- tzs 6y agoI'm in western Washington and there are so many trees that it is hard to not have power lines go through them. Here's my power line and my Comcast cable [1]. They are do deeply in that tree that it is in essence an extra pole for them. Just watching the power lines while driving around, I see zillions of places like that here. From what I read, if the power company expects the line to end up in trees (or purposefully routes a new line through an existing tree) they use a line with a special insulation designed to handle the abrasion from rubbing against the tree. Lines that are not meant to go through trees do not have that special insulation, and if they end up going through a tree it can abrade the insulation which can be quite dangerous. [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/G8eDOgQ https://imgur.com/gallery/G8eDOgQ
- Spooky23 6y agoIn New York, utilities trim branches a few feet from lines periodically. They do this because they have service quality standards set by the public service commission, and it’s cheaper to trim and maintain rights of way than to be fined or denied rate increases for electricity delivery. (Electric supply is based on variable market rates)