5 ms·

Doesn’t work if you’re in most of California unless you have solar. Price fixing oil is bad, but you can switch to electricity for some uses. If everything is

Doesn’t work if you’re in most of California unless you have solar. Price fixing oil is bad, but you can switch to electricity for some uses. If everything is electric and electricity is a monopoly, it’s the worst possible situation.

rowanG077 2y ago
Why? Electricity is so easy to generate that a monopoly is impossible.
- FuckButtons 2y ago
  Not in Northern California.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  I live in California. Most people's electricity bills have tripled in the last 2-3 years. There's no alternative electricity provider. So, if everyone switches from oil, guess where the price gouging and collusion will move to?
  - rowanG077 2y ago
    So make or buy your own generator. Or better yet startup an energy supply company. That's the point of it never beeing monopoly. The market is ripe for entry.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Shendare 2y ago
      So... the electric company can't become a monopoly because you can spend the money and effort to create your own electric company? How can that not be said for anything anywhere that becomes an obvious monopoly?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > How can that not be said for anything anywhere that becomes an obvious monopoly? I can't hook up my own ISP or manufacture my own prescription drugs quite as easily as I can put up solar panels or buy a generator.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        What exactly are you proposing goes in this generator?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > What exactly are you proposing goes in this generator? Whatever fuel you have access to that's cheapest. For most people, that will be natural gas or propane.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        So we're back to buying fossil fuels from a third party
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > we're back to buying fossil fuels from a third party If we ignore the non-fossil fuel solution mentioned, yes. The point is it's a weak natural monopoly due to multiple alternatives.
      - rowanG077 2y ago
        Yes that's basically the definition of not beeing able to becomes a monopoly. Any old joe can compete with you.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      I think there are legal prohibitions on just putting up solar panels and going off the grid in CA. Like I said, it's the same cartel behavior over a different resource. You cannot start an energy supply company in California, only PG&E can supply power to people in California
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    So fix California's absurd energy policy. They "deregulated" by giving PG&E a monopoly, paid Enron an absurd ransom when Enron did what should have been considered fraud and made Californian's pay the state back, routinely harm individual solar owners, and refuse to give PG&E any reason to actually maintain their century old infrastructure that sits in a dry forest etc. People repeatedly point at California fucking up "X" and then say "look how bad X is" ignoring that the other 48 states in the union (Texas also likes to find innovative ways to fuck things up) are doing various amounts of "alright" to "quite well actually" at "X". For example, Maine also "deregulated" it's electricity sector in the 90s, and is only recently facing problems from the state sanctioned monopoly doing bullshit, and they have an actual excuse that we haven't built out new generation capacity since deregulation, and climate change means we have had an entire year of windstorms destroying the grid, including multiple storms taking out distribution to 1/3rd of the state.
- cameldrv 2y ago
  Either you generate it yourself or you pay. PG&E is not paying the third party electricity suppliers exorbitant rates, they're just charging enormous amounts for distribution. Without a political change, electricity will continue to be monopolized and extremely expensive.
- ultrarunner 2y ago
  There are lots of government-enforced monopolies
cortesoft 2y ago
That is why I have solar and batteries. Don’t have to worry about energy costs.
dpc050505 2y ago
There's a state monopoly on hydroelectricity in Québec and we pay the lowest rates in North America while Hydro-Québec pumps a billion dollars into provincial government coffers every year.
- sn0wf1re 2y ago
  Same with BCHydro. Not the cheapest, but still cheap. Much better than being at the whims of shareholders.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    I’m not sure of the other two provinces mentioned, but in Ontario we pay artificially low rates for hydro (aka electricity) because the rates are subsidized. I always thought it to be a ridiculous policy; show people the true cost of their usage and stop hiding taxes all over the place for everyone to make up the difference. You can brag about low rates via monopoly, but someone else might be paying for em
    - sn0wf1re 2y ago
      As best I can tell[1], BCHydro isn't subsidized, unless you count the land usage grants from the province (but the water flow stability is useful for irrigation, so it has other benefits) [1] https://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/BCHydro/customer-portal/documents/corporate/accountability-reports/financial-reports/quarterly-reports/bchydro-f23-q3-report.pdf https://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/BCHydro/customer-portal/...

rowanG077 2y ago

Why? Electricity is so easy to generate that a monopoly is impossible.

FuckButtons 2y ago
Not in Northern California.
aprilthird2021 2y ago
I live in California. Most people's electricity bills have tripled in the last 2-3 years. There's no alternative electricity provider. So, if everyone switches from oil, guess where the price gouging and collusion will move to?
- rowanG077 2y ago
  So make or buy your own generator. Or better yet startup an energy supply company. That's the point of it never beeing monopoly. The market is ripe for entry.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Shendare 2y ago
    So... the electric company can't become a monopoly because you can spend the money and effort to create your own electric company? How can that not be said for anything anywhere that becomes an obvious monopoly?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > How can that not be said for anything anywhere that becomes an obvious monopoly? I can't hook up my own ISP or manufacture my own prescription drugs quite as easily as I can put up solar panels or buy a generator.
      - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        What exactly are you proposing goes in this generator?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > What exactly are you proposing goes in this generator? Whatever fuel you have access to that's cheapest. For most people, that will be natural gas or propane.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        So we're back to buying fossil fuels from a third party
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > we're back to buying fossil fuels from a third party If we ignore the non-fossil fuel solution mentioned, yes. The point is it's a weak natural monopoly due to multiple alternatives.
    - rowanG077 2y ago
      Yes that's basically the definition of not beeing able to becomes a monopoly. Any old joe can compete with you.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    I think there are legal prohibitions on just putting up solar panels and going off the grid in CA. Like I said, it's the same cartel behavior over a different resource. You cannot start an energy supply company in California, only PG&E can supply power to people in California
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  So fix California's absurd energy policy. They "deregulated" by giving PG&E a monopoly, paid Enron an absurd ransom when Enron did what should have been considered fraud and made Californian's pay the state back, routinely harm individual solar owners, and refuse to give PG&E any reason to actually maintain their century old infrastructure that sits in a dry forest etc. People repeatedly point at California fucking up "X" and then say "look how bad X is" ignoring that the other 48 states in the union (Texas also likes to find innovative ways to fuck things up) are doing various amounts of "alright" to "quite well actually" at "X". For example, Maine also "deregulated" it's electricity sector in the 90s, and is only recently facing problems from the state sanctioned monopoly doing bullshit, and they have an actual excuse that we haven't built out new generation capacity since deregulation, and climate change means we have had an entire year of windstorms destroying the grid, including multiple storms taking out distribution to 1/3rd of the state.
cameldrv 2y ago
Either you generate it yourself or you pay. PG&E is not paying the third party electricity suppliers exorbitant rates, they're just charging enormous amounts for distribution. Without a political change, electricity will continue to be monopolized and extremely expensive.
ultrarunner 2y ago
There are lots of government-enforced monopolies

cortesoft 2y ago

That is why I have solar and batteries. Don’t have to worry about energy costs.

dpc050505 2y ago

There's a state monopoly on hydroelectricity in Québec and we pay the lowest rates in North America while Hydro-Québec pumps a billion dollars into provincial government coffers every year.

sn0wf1re 2y ago
Same with BCHydro. Not the cheapest, but still cheap. Much better than being at the whims of shareholders.
- adamomada 2y ago
  I’m not sure of the other two provinces mentioned, but in Ontario we pay artificially low rates for hydro (aka electricity) because the rates are subsidized. I always thought it to be a ridiculous policy; show people the true cost of their usage and stop hiding taxes all over the place for everyone to make up the difference. You can brag about low rates via monopoly, but someone else might be paying for em
  - sn0wf1re 2y ago
    As best I can tell[1], BCHydro isn't subsidized, unless you count the land usage grants from the province (but the water flow stability is useful for irrigation, so it has other benefits) [1] https://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/BCHydro/customer-portal/documents/corporate/accountability-reports/financial-reports/quarterly-reports/bchydro-f23-q3-report.pdf https://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/BCHydro/customer-portal/...