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Damn, maybe we should get rid of "electricity neutrality" too. Would be great if we just charged extra to all these bitcoin miners and marijuana grow farms so I

Damn, maybe we should get rid of "electricity neutrality" too. Would be great if we just charged extra to all these bitcoin miners and marijuana grow farms so I wouldn't have to subsidize their electricity use.

rglullis 5y ago
Honest question: is there any place in the US where electricity is subsidized or has discriminatory pricing?
- mpalczewski 5y ago
  California, sort of: They figure out what sort of place you own, pigeon hole it with other "similar" places and charge you more per kilowatt hour if you use more than they think you need. It's a procrustean bed approach.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Electricity is routinely subsidized for large companies building new factories such as the GigaFactory Tesla is building in Nevada. You can also look up "name of area / state" and search for electrical tariffs.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Ok, but these subsidies are not based on a specific group. Some might think to be bad to subsidize Tesla, but would there be such a thing as subsidies for weed farmers? The reason I am asking: unless there are such subsidies, it would mean that people pay proportional to their usage, so OP's joke about "electricity neutrality" would not only be wrong, it would be against net neutrality as well.
    - JaimeThompson 5y ago
      By way of example some states have discounted rates / special rates for cotton gins. Here is one. https://www.epelectric.com/files/html/Rates/TX_Tariff_Schedules/TX_Sch_No._34_Cotton_Gin.pdf https://www.epelectric.com/files/html/Rates/TX_Tariff_Schedu... Such things are complicated to figure out fully, the subsidized power might not be subsidized directly by the power generators / power distributors. In some cases two bills are generated for the duration of the power subsidy so the subsidized part only sees the subsidized rate.
- jyrkesh 5y ago
  A lot of electricity in the US is charged differently during "off-peak hours". I know some EV owners who take advantage of this by scheduling when they charge their cars.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Thanks, that's a more relevant example of discriminatory pricing. I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..."
    - jyrkesh 5y ago
      Probably not many, but you're probably not going to have much luck changing the minds of people on net neutrality. Judging from your comments, you and I probably agree on the issue, but I think technical folks in particular have pretty well-entrenched opinions on the topic.
    - nybble41 5y ago
      > I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..." Probably not, as it has nothing to do with where the electricity is coming from or how it's being used. Having different rates for different times of the day which still apply to all users and all services is not generally perceived as a violation of neutrality.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        Suppose there was a broadband provider charging more for data transmitted when the network is congested, don't you think it would be a violation of net neutrality?
        nybble41 5y ago
        No, not as long as they charged everyone equally for the same service during the congested times without regard for how the bits were being used. The point of net neutrality is that ISPs should ignore the content, source, and destination of the packets they carry when it comes to prioritization and pricing. QoS is fine as long as it's under the subscriber's control (for example, via DSCP tags), but it can be an issue if it leads to the ISP one subscriber's traffic over another's based on the services being accessed. Tiered services (paying for higher bandwidth, lower latency, etc.) are also fine so long as the tiers assigned to each class of traffic are chosen by the subscriber and not tied to specific protocols or peers. Consider the USPS as a model of neutrality: they offer various grades of service from bulk package deliveries to Priority Mail but everyone paying for the same service gets (more or less) equal treatment.
- Qworg 5y ago
  Definitely in WA state - certain counties with hydro plants sell power locally at ~$0.02 and sell outside the county at ~$0.2. They changed the definition of local after crypto miners flooded in to limit exploitatiom and boom/bust speculation.
ComradePhil 5y ago
This is already done in sensible parts of the world to some extent where consumer electricity is priced differently from electricity for business purposes... but yes, a more fine grained control would lead to better prices for most users.
Dma54rhs 5y ago
Industrial usage rates and rules are different in every country I believe if you use huge amounts. At least here in Spain I pay more for monthly fees because I tend to use more for hearing with electricity. So it's baseline kwh a month consumption. Also different contracts when you want to use a lot of current at the same time.
elcomet 5y ago
You pay electricity by usage. We don't have "unlimited" electricity plans. This is why you do not subsidize Bitcoin miners.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  How much does it cost (in energy or materials) to transmit and route 1GB of data?
- thomasahle 5y ago
  Internet companies are free to offer internet plans other than "unlimited" for people who don't want to stream a lot of video. On mobile most plans are already "limited", but that hasn't given us net neutrality on mobile.
- newaccount74 5y ago
  That's not the full picture. Electricity prices are dominated by supply vs. demand. There are many sources of electricity available, some of them being very cheap (hydro) some of them expensive (currently gas). When demand for electricity goes up, the cheap power sources are going to be running at capacity, and utilities will need to buy more expensive power. This increases the marginal cost of electricity for everyone. So just because Bitcoin miners pay for electricity, doesn't mean we aren't subsidising them. We are subsidising them by paying more for imported power even though our needs could easily be covered by cheap, local power sources. The way to fix this would be to charge progressive prices depending on usage, ie. every person gets to use 1000kWh at the cheap local hydro power price, then the price increases gradually, and any electricity usage beyond 10000kWh/person/year you need to pay the full market price of electricity.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    What you are describing is merely competition. Everyone pays the same marginal amount per kWh for a given amount of electricity—ignoring minor details like connection charges and time-of-day pricing. Yes, having more aggregate demand will tend to raise prices for everyone, but that doesn't amount to a subsidy. Internet access is typically billed as "unlimited" so those who use it very little pay a high rate per bit transferred, while those who use it a lot pay a low rate. Some of this is due to the base cost of providing service (fixed last-mile connection costs incurred whether the line is used or not) but the rest is a subsidy from low users to high users. How much of each is debatable; the costs of home internet are largely concentrated in the last-mile connection costs rather than bandwidth and data centers, yet the bandwidth still isn't free.

rglullis 5y ago

Honest question: is there any place in the US where electricity is subsidized or has discriminatory pricing?

mpalczewski 5y ago
California, sort of: They figure out what sort of place you own, pigeon hole it with other "similar" places and charge you more per kilowatt hour if you use more than they think you need. It's a procrustean bed approach.
JaimeThompson 5y ago
Electricity is routinely subsidized for large companies building new factories such as the GigaFactory Tesla is building in Nevada. You can also look up "name of area / state" and search for electrical tariffs.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Ok, but these subsidies are not based on a specific group. Some might think to be bad to subsidize Tesla, but would there be such a thing as subsidies for weed farmers? The reason I am asking: unless there are such subsidies, it would mean that people pay proportional to their usage, so OP's joke about "electricity neutrality" would not only be wrong, it would be against net neutrality as well.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    By way of example some states have discounted rates / special rates for cotton gins. Here is one. https://www.epelectric.com/files/html/Rates/TX_Tariff_Schedules/TX_Sch_No._34_Cotton_Gin.pdf https://www.epelectric.com/files/html/Rates/TX_Tariff_Schedu... Such things are complicated to figure out fully, the subsidized power might not be subsidized directly by the power generators / power distributors. In some cases two bills are generated for the duration of the power subsidy so the subsidized part only sees the subsidized rate.
jyrkesh 5y ago
A lot of electricity in the US is charged differently during "off-peak hours". I know some EV owners who take advantage of this by scheduling when they charge their cars.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Thanks, that's a more relevant example of discriminatory pricing. I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..."
  - jyrkesh 5y ago
    Probably not many, but you're probably not going to have much luck changing the minds of people on net neutrality. Judging from your comments, you and I probably agree on the issue, but I think technical folks in particular have pretty well-entrenched opinions on the topic.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..." Probably not, as it has nothing to do with where the electricity is coming from or how it's being used. Having different rates for different times of the day which still apply to all users and all services is not generally perceived as a violation of neutrality.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      Suppose there was a broadband provider charging more for data transmitted when the network is congested, don't you think it would be a violation of net neutrality?
      - nybble41 5y ago
        No, not as long as they charged everyone equally for the same service during the congested times without regard for how the bits were being used. The point of net neutrality is that ISPs should ignore the content, source, and destination of the packets they carry when it comes to prioritization and pricing. QoS is fine as long as it's under the subscriber's control (for example, via DSCP tags), but it can be an issue if it leads to the ISP one subscriber's traffic over another's based on the services being accessed. Tiered services (paying for higher bandwidth, lower latency, etc.) are also fine so long as the tiers assigned to each class of traffic are chosen by the subscriber and not tied to specific protocols or peers. Consider the USPS as a model of neutrality: they offer various grades of service from bulk package deliveries to Priority Mail but everyone paying for the same service gets (more or less) equal treatment.
Qworg 5y ago
Definitely in WA state - certain counties with hydro plants sell power locally at ~$0.02 and sell outside the county at ~$0.2. They changed the definition of local after crypto miners flooded in to limit exploitatiom and boom/bust speculation.

ComradePhil 5y ago

This is already done in sensible parts of the world to some extent where consumer electricity is priced differently from electricity for business purposes... but yes, a more fine grained control would lead to better prices for most users.

Dma54rhs 5y ago

Industrial usage rates and rules are different in every country I believe if you use huge amounts. At least here in Spain I pay more for monthly fees because I tend to use more for hearing with electricity. So it's baseline kwh a month consumption. Also different contracts when you want to use a lot of current at the same time.

elcomet 5y ago

You pay electricity by usage. We don't have "unlimited" electricity plans. This is why you do not subsidize Bitcoin miners.

netizen-936824 5y ago
How much does it cost (in energy or materials) to transmit and route 1GB of data?
thomasahle 5y ago
Internet companies are free to offer internet plans other than "unlimited" for people who don't want to stream a lot of video. On mobile most plans are already "limited", but that hasn't given us net neutrality on mobile.
newaccount74 5y ago
That's not the full picture. Electricity prices are dominated by supply vs. demand. There are many sources of electricity available, some of them being very cheap (hydro) some of them expensive (currently gas). When demand for electricity goes up, the cheap power sources are going to be running at capacity, and utilities will need to buy more expensive power. This increases the marginal cost of electricity for everyone. So just because Bitcoin miners pay for electricity, doesn't mean we aren't subsidising them. We are subsidising them by paying more for imported power even though our needs could easily be covered by cheap, local power sources. The way to fix this would be to charge progressive prices depending on usage, ie. every person gets to use 1000kWh at the cheap local hydro power price, then the price increases gradually, and any electricity usage beyond 10000kWh/person/year you need to pay the full market price of electricity.
- nybble41 5y ago
  What you are describing is merely competition. Everyone pays the same marginal amount per kWh for a given amount of electricity—ignoring minor details like connection charges and time-of-day pricing. Yes, having more aggregate demand will tend to raise prices for everyone, but that doesn't amount to a subsidy. Internet access is typically billed as "unlimited" so those who use it very little pay a high rate per bit transferred, while those who use it a lot pay a low rate. Some of this is due to the base cost of providing service (fixed last-mile connection costs incurred whether the line is used or not) but the rest is a subsidy from low users to high users. How much of each is debatable; the costs of home internet are largely concentrated in the last-mile connection costs rather than bandwidth and data centers, yet the bandwidth still isn't free.