> Time for me to go research the early history of electrification. Yes. Electric utilities were at one time quite powerful, around 1900 or so. Read up on Samue

> Time for me to go research the early history of electrification. Yes. Electric utilities were at one time quite powerful, around 1900 or so. Read up on Samuel Insull [1], the early history of antitrust, the Utility Company Holding Act, and the history of public utility regulation. Many countries just nationalized the electrical power industry. The US didn't, but regulated it strictly for most of a century. As is typical, this followed a financial disaster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Insull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Insull