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> Even at 80k, the govt is still losing money. Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. If the government is g

> Even at 80k, the govt is still losing money. Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. If the government is going to insist on making money, then it should operate nationalised utilities, which provide a baseline service and cost, and if private enterprise can compete with that by offering a better product and/or cheaper service, then all the more power to them. Having a situation where a single commercial entity has a monopoly position seems to be the second-worst option, just above "no service at all".

newsclues 5y ago
Electric utilities in Ontario were public until the mid 90s when they started privatization.
zz865 5y ago
Its not about being run for profit. Its why should anyone build a house in the middle of nowhere and expect the govt to spend whatever it takes to get connected.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  This is how you destroy small farms.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Small farms presumably already have an electrical connection.
    - Ensorceled 5y ago
      True. This is a really a story of the "Fuck you, I got mine" generation. Power and phone was run for free pretty much everywhere. Now they want 80K for a line and a pole. This is the same story for internet access.
      - iso1210 5y ago
        In general I'd expect it to be far more cost effective to enact a massive project to wire every house, than wire a single house
      - boringg 5y ago
        Have you seen the deficits the governments run? Should we foot the bill for connecting every rural home because people wanted to move out of the city - increasing the urban sprawl? Maybe if there 5-10 people at a time in batches they could do it at cost. . but custom jobs for every individual homeowner, come on be realistic instead of entitled.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        So that's true, but also we don't need new small farms.
- karteum 5y ago
  > Its why should anyone build a house in the middle of nowhere and expect the govt to spend whatever it takes to get connected. But the article says "he expected to pay a few thousand dollars, given that the nearest pole was across the street, about 45 metres away. He was shocked to find out it would cost $80,000". So it's not the case of a house in the middle of nowhere...
  - taneq 5y ago
    Just playing devil's advocate here but maybe the whole line cost $400k and they could only charge the other 4 houses on the street $80k each. The fact that the line's already run doesn't mean it's already paid for.
    - ska 5y ago
      Shouldn't that be built into the service fee though? It's not like this is a one time purchase...
      - Gigachad 5y ago
        And then we would be reading an article about people going off grid because their power cost is 4x average.
iso1210 5y ago
The system should either break even (which it doesn't do), or cost money (which means taxpayers subsidise it), or make money (which means users subsidise other taxpayers) The question is to what extent should grid connections to new rural homes be subsidised by taxpayers, which is of course a political decision - just like to what extent roads, military, healthcare, education, oil production, etc should be subsidised. A better solution may be to allow the subsidiy money to be used to provide grants for off-grid. It may be better for the taxpyer to give someone $30k to sort their power out, than to spend $40k on an electric line to their house.
- neilwilson 5y ago
  "he system should either break even (which it doesn't do), or cost money (which means taxpayers subsidise it), or make money (which means users subsidise other taxpayers)" That assumes a fixed amount of money and a fixed amount of stuff. Neither of which is the case in a country with its own floating exchange rate like Canada. Government doesn't spend money, it spends people. What else were you proposing to do with the electrical engineer that is so much more important than maintaining electrical grid connections to citizens?
  - iso1210 5y ago
    You can of course print money instead of raising taxes but the principle's the same. Lets rephrase it then. How many hours of electrical engineer time should be spent hooking up a new home in rural Ontario? Why would an electrical engineer who lives in the Toronto suburbs want to do this? How much time and effort should a country devote to running and maintaining this connection? What does the engineer get in return? Either he gets more in return (thus "makes money"), gets less in return (thus "requires subsidy") or it's even (thus "breaks even") How much should the person who wants to live in rural ontario give for the engineer's time? It seems Canada decides they should give a little, but not the same amount of time the engineer gives (and instead the engineer should be compensated by time from the rest of the country) As to what that electrical engineer could be doing that would be better? Well how about fixing the electrics in a childrens hospital? Or maybe they could spend the day working on their garden, or watching netflix.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. Except when the service is being provided to people you don't like. (not sure if I should /s this since based on my observation this is what most people unironically want).
ChrisLomont 5y ago
>Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. People should likewise not be able to run up arbitrary high costs and expect the government (i.e., other people) to pay for it. You cannot run anything, including governments, forever at a loss. People pay for things in every case.
mitigating 5y ago
So people move to rural areas because it's cheaper and it's only cheaper because utilities are subsidized?
danans 5y ago
> if private enterprise can compete with that by offering a better product and/or cheaper service, then all the more power to them. In this case, going off-grid is exactly that: private enterprise offering a more suitable alternative for this use case. In fact, it's the correct solution, because the public should not be required to subsidize the choice of an individual to live in an area not well served by power distribution infrastructure shared across many homes. It's just like how the government won't pay for paving a long driveway (AKA road) that connects a rural house to the main highway. Government should only get involved in subsidizing these things when the goal is to scale access to millions, i.e: - High impact nascent and early stage technology (i.e. EVs, renewables) - Generational scale investments in human capital and infrastructure that private industry is too risk averse to undertake. Subsidizing rural home builders to the tune of 80K does nothing for anyone except that home builder. It would be undoubtedly nice for them, but that's not a justification for allowing it.
Teever 5y ago
> Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. Look, there's 'shouldn't be run for profit' and then there's 'Simply infeasible to do some things regardless of profit motive simply due reality.' Pull up a map of Ontario and pick some locations at random and then figure out the distance from those locations to the nearest town that likely has a utility tie in. Tell me the distance and what you think the cost per km would be in that kind of situation. Now tell me if the government should cover that kind of service for whoever wants it, whenever they want it, for free. You vastly underestimate the size of a Canadian province like Ontario and the costs of installing and maintaining infrastructure in a place with that kind of climate.
mdavis6890 5y ago
The key question is: Instead of what? When the govt spends money on something, it is asking/telling people to spend their effort on that task/product, instead of something else that they would/could have been doing instead. So if the govt spends $80k of people's effort on the rural line, what doesn't get done as a result?

newsclues 5y ago

Electric utilities in Ontario were public until the mid 90s when they started privatization.

zz865 5y ago

Its not about being run for profit. Its why should anyone build a house in the middle of nowhere and expect the govt to spend whatever it takes to get connected.

Ensorceled 5y ago
This is how you destroy small farms.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Small farms presumably already have an electrical connection.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    True. This is a really a story of the "Fuck you, I got mine" generation. Power and phone was run for free pretty much everywhere. Now they want 80K for a line and a pole. This is the same story for internet access.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      In general I'd expect it to be far more cost effective to enact a massive project to wire every house, than wire a single house
    - boringg 5y ago
      Have you seen the deficits the governments run? Should we foot the bill for connecting every rural home because people wanted to move out of the city - increasing the urban sprawl? Maybe if there 5-10 people at a time in batches they could do it at cost. . but custom jobs for every individual homeowner, come on be realistic instead of entitled.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      So that's true, but also we don't need new small farms.
karteum 5y ago
> Its why should anyone build a house in the middle of nowhere and expect the govt to spend whatever it takes to get connected. But the article says "he expected to pay a few thousand dollars, given that the nearest pole was across the street, about 45 metres away. He was shocked to find out it would cost $80,000". So it's not the case of a house in the middle of nowhere...
- taneq 5y ago
  Just playing devil's advocate here but maybe the whole line cost $400k and they could only charge the other 4 houses on the street $80k each. The fact that the line's already run doesn't mean it's already paid for.
  - ska 5y ago
    Shouldn't that be built into the service fee though? It's not like this is a one time purchase...
    - Gigachad 5y ago
      And then we would be reading an article about people going off grid because their power cost is 4x average.

iso1210 5y ago

The system should either break even (which it doesn't do), or cost money (which means taxpayers subsidise it), or make money (which means users subsidise other taxpayers) The question is to what extent should grid connections to new rural homes be subsidised by taxpayers, which is of course a political decision - just like to what extent roads, military, healthcare, education, oil production, etc should be subsidised. A better solution may be to allow the subsidiy money to be used to provide grants for off-grid. It may be better for the taxpyer to give someone $30k to sort their power out, than to spend $40k on an electric line to their house.

neilwilson 5y ago
"he system should either break even (which it doesn't do), or cost money (which means taxpayers subsidise it), or make money (which means users subsidise other taxpayers)" That assumes a fixed amount of money and a fixed amount of stuff. Neither of which is the case in a country with its own floating exchange rate like Canada. Government doesn't spend money, it spends people. What else were you proposing to do with the electrical engineer that is so much more important than maintaining electrical grid connections to citizens?
- iso1210 5y ago
  You can of course print money instead of raising taxes but the principle's the same. Lets rephrase it then. How many hours of electrical engineer time should be spent hooking up a new home in rural Ontario? Why would an electrical engineer who lives in the Toronto suburbs want to do this? How much time and effort should a country devote to running and maintaining this connection? What does the engineer get in return? Either he gets more in return (thus "makes money"), gets less in return (thus "requires subsidy") or it's even (thus "breaks even") How much should the person who wants to live in rural ontario give for the engineer's time? It seems Canada decides they should give a little, but not the same amount of time the engineer gives (and instead the engineer should be compensated by time from the rest of the country) As to what that electrical engineer could be doing that would be better? Well how about fixing the electrics in a childrens hospital? Or maybe they could spend the day working on their garden, or watching netflix.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. Except when the service is being provided to people you don't like. (not sure if I should /s this since based on my observation this is what most people unironically want).

ChrisLomont 5y ago

>Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. People should likewise not be able to run up arbitrary high costs and expect the government (i.e., other people) to pay for it. You cannot run anything, including governments, forever at a loss. People pay for things in every case.

mitigating 5y ago

So people move to rural areas because it's cheaper and it's only cheaper because utilities are subsidized?

danans 5y ago

> if private enterprise can compete with that by offering a better product and/or cheaper service, then all the more power to them. In this case, going off-grid is exactly that: private enterprise offering a more suitable alternative for this use case. In fact, it's the correct solution, because the public should not be required to subsidize the choice of an individual to live in an area not well served by power distribution infrastructure shared across many homes. It's just like how the government won't pay for paving a long driveway (AKA road) that connects a rural house to the main highway. Government should only get involved in subsidizing these things when the goal is to scale access to millions, i.e: - High impact nascent and early stage technology (i.e. EVs, renewables) - Generational scale investments in human capital and infrastructure that private industry is too risk averse to undertake. Subsidizing rural home builders to the tune of 80K does nothing for anyone except that home builder. It would be undoubtedly nice for them, but that's not a justification for allowing it.

Teever 5y ago

> Government shouldn't be run for profit, frankly it should pay for the entire connection. Look, there's 'shouldn't be run for profit' and then there's 'Simply infeasible to do some things regardless of profit motive simply due reality.' Pull up a map of Ontario and pick some locations at random and then figure out the distance from those locations to the nearest town that likely has a utility tie in. Tell me the distance and what you think the cost per km would be in that kind of situation. Now tell me if the government should cover that kind of service for whoever wants it, whenever they want it, for free. You vastly underestimate the size of a Canadian province like Ontario and the costs of installing and maintaining infrastructure in a place with that kind of climate.

mdavis6890 5y ago

The key question is: Instead of what? When the govt spends money on something, it is asking/telling people to spend their effort on that task/product, instead of something else that they would/could have been doing instead. So if the govt spends $80k of people's effort on the rural line, what doesn't get done as a result?