this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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The article is rather one-sided but this isn't actually as silly as it sounds. Utility company expenses don't go down to zero if people stop using electricity because power plants and electrical grids cost a lot of money just by existing. It's also possible that these efficiency improvements don't actually decrease peak loads much in which case utility companies might not even be able to shut down power plants. I think it's common for utility companies to add a constant fee just for being hooked up to the grid to cover such costs (for example, that's what California is doing) and because these companies are so heavily regulated, they need government permission to do that.
Wow it's almost like running vital utilities as private for profit companies is a terrible idea and they should be nationalized
But people hate taxes, they'd rather be forced to pay a larger amount to a private company so shareholders get some of their money for free
I don't think that's self-evident. In practice private companies can often be a lot more efficient than the government, but there's a more fundamental objection too: taxpayers can choose to invest the money they save from paying lower taxes into the private utility company and by doing so they get the same amount of "free money" that they would have saved by paying more taxes upfront for a government-owned utility. In other words, if owning a utility company is so great, you can do it yourself via the free market rather than via the government.
More efficient does not equate to cheaper for consumers, it just means more profits for the owners. A private company will always maximize those profits at the expense of the consumer. A public consortium has no need for profit and can spread costs evenly across all users based on usage.