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Why? Electricity is so easy to generate that a monopoly is impossible.
by rowanG077 3y ago
Why? Electricity is so easy to generate that a monopoly is impossible.
- FuckButtons 3y agoNot in Northern California.
- aprilthird2021 3y agoI 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 3y agoSo 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 3y ago[deleted]
- Shendare 3y agoSo... 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 3y 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 3y agoWhat exactly are you proposing goes in this generator?
- JumpCrisscross 3y 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 3y agoSo we're back to buying fossil fuels from a third party
- JumpCrisscross 3y 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 3y agoYes that's basically the definition of not beeing able to becomes a monopoly. Any old joe can compete with you.
- aprilthird2021 3y agoI 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 3y agoSo 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 3y agoEither 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 3y agoThere are lots of government-enforced monopolies