Not really, I live in a country where green energy keeps going up but so does the electricity prices. You have to believe in Santa if you think the savings ever reach the consumer.
That’s called artificially inflated prices
Yes but how would the fascists get kickbacks and bribes then? That’s a big chunk of their income. Won’t someone think of the oligarchy???
Maybe Nuclear, given it can actually support the base load power, except they need to fully deregulate it first so Nimbys and lawsuits balloon the cost. It shouldnt cost more nowadays in inflation adjusted terms than France building them in the 70s.
That’s why republicans hate it.
It sounds evil and simplistic, and it is, but these are evil and simplistic people we’re talking about.
“Oh, new innovations in technology can help consumers pay less to power their homes? We can’t have that! It would affect the profits of my friends Oil Baron and Coal Baron.”
Would also be cheaper if the government owned the energy infrastructure and ran at cost.
but that’s communism!!!
Ikr? What else is it? A good idea that would benefit people broadly instead of specific people narrowly?
You want elected officials to be competent and follow the will of those whom they represent?
that’s woke nonsense
The UK is spending billions on green energy and has the highest electricity prices in the world.
Why are utilities privatized?
Our energy provider increased our rates, then reported record breaking profits the next year. :(
(US)
They should be nonprofits, independent, but strictly non profit
Nah, let’s privatize all the services you need to have a functional home. That way the companies can extract maximum value from the customers.
Brilliant.
better yet, let’s put them on the stock market so they obligated to squeeze their “customers”
Won’t anyone think of the shareholders!?
For real though, I had a job where the management team tried to motivate us by setting “shareholder expectations” or some such nonsense. Obviously this didn’t work. Also the company was small enough that pretty much everyone working there personally knew all the shareholders… Because they also ran the business. They were the managers.
The balls it must take to be a shareholder, and to be known as a shareholder then talk about shareholder expectations like those are for a different set of people that isn’t just you… Gotta be massive…
oof ya, unless they are doing profit sharing they can fuck right off with that
That’s so typical.
Source: also US
So government can spend the investment on schools and hospitals instead. (In the civilised world, obviously not America)
This has little to do with where you’re from. It’s just neoliberal rhetoric. Having a public energy sector would be beneficial in the long run and would reduce what we have to pay for it. Right now the earnings are privatized in most places.
My area privatized the publicly owned electricity provider and since prices started going up they then had to implement rebates to bring bills down a bit. Effectively a roundabout way to move public funds from paying for the actual infrastructure into subsidizing corporate profits instead
Exactly. Privatize the profits and socialize the costs. What a brilliant system. Unfortunately it benefits only a small handful while everyone else picks up the tab.
Having a public energy sector would be beneficial in the long run and would reduce what we have to pay for it.
A well-run public energy sector, certainly. Idk what we’d end up with given the most recent rotation of people in charge.
The state does have an incentive to keep consumer costs low in a way the private sector does not. But state officials also traditionally do a bad job of maintaining and expanding utilities to match consumer demand.
The end result tends to be low end user prices at the expense of reliable distribution and surplus volume.
It’s not rhetoric. It’s economics 101. Opportunity cost.
A mixture of private and public is best.
What opportunity?
Opportunity cost. If you spend money on one thing, it means you can’t spend it on something else
Thanks professor. Do you know private debt and state debt are hardly the same? Have you considered the opportunity cost of not having public energy, therefore losing potential “earnings” to private investors? Or are you telling me next that rich people are a necessity as well? Is trickle-down part of this course or do I have to wait for 201?
What a lot of shite you write. Where does the state debt come from genius?
Remember how now that countries have stopped recognizing US medial science we see cures for cancer coming out of the woodwork? Yeah…
Wut
Generally speaking medical research in the US has been scrutinized due to the incredibly profitable privatized nature of it, so much so that people believe solutions are actively suppressed in favor of more expensive options. In the last few weeks after the US left the WHO a whole bunch of cancer cures started coming up. While probably a coincidence, after the last few months of conspiracy theorists being proven at least to some degree right it’s getting hard to ignore that this may not be a coincidence.
So what you’re saying is - if the government spent more money, they would make less money off of us in utilities bills…. Makes sense
Solar is so cheap now, that some people can just build their own solar and battery setup themselves.
Yes, but at scale it is significantly cheaper to build larger and distribute it. It also means people don’t have to over invest in their own set up just to cover their peak usage. There is also a large amount of up front capital required to build with usually years before you get back what was invested. Its also almost impossible for renters or apartment buildings to do it themselves.
Yes I know all of that, I’m saying that solar is so much cheaper than coal power that even private individuals can buy it, so we shouldn’t be wasting money on new coal plants or gas plants.
Same for nuclear. U.S.-Americans are brainwashed on this topic.
First, they pay with their tax dollars for the subsidies that the private for-profit companies use to build the nuclear reactors. After that, they pay again, because the private company charges them extra on the electricity bill for the electricity generated by the very same nuclear reactor so that they can make even more profit.
It’s so stupid and they’re brainwashed to defend it to the teeth. They also always try to deflect from the fact that renewables are cheaper than nuclear and can be owned by them instead of a for-profit company, by pretending that everyone who opposes nuclear energy must be in favour of coal and gas. It’s mind boggling to watch.
Nuclear power is really cool, but my biggest problem with building new reactors isn’t even the money issues you pointed out, it’s the fact that I live in the US and I don’t trust any regulatory agency to build a new nuclear power plant correctly/safely.
Solar panels and wind turbines are monumentally cheaper AND they don’t potentially cause ten thousand year contamination problems.
If the electricity bill would be lower people would use more energy and switch to electric cars real fast. I’m sure some people would not change their habits, but I’m inclined to think a lot of people would just use more and care a bit less about trying to use it as efficiently as possible.
Just take cars as an example. Everyone wants low gas prices, but when gas prices are low, people are buying bigger cars that consumes more gas/energy. Another example are places with renewable energy powering the grid, having cheaper electricity, but also ending up using more per person.
The province of Québec is one of the biggest consumer of electricity per inhabitant in the world, behind Iceland and Norway. Source in French.
Those places have super high percentages of cheap renewable energy being generated, but they also consume much more per inhabitant. Sure, if we cover the earth in solar panels, reservoirs, tap geothermal, and have enough energy to waste for everybody, and every manufacture. But this takes resources, space, batteries, and ends up polluting too. The less we need, the better it is for everyone.
I’m not saying we don’t need renewable nor deserve lower bills. Just that the actual system of consumption cannot only be reduced to “more cheap renewable energy”. I’m in Québec and energy is mostly renewable and relatively cheap here. But we also can’t just continue to build giant reservoirs visible from space to quench our insatiable appetite for electricity. We’ll have to learn to use less energy too; be more efficient with what we have. Not just convert everything to renewable and call it a day.
We don’t just do it for cheapness sake. We mainly do it for sustainability. Cheapness and abundance is a bonus.
How does this article manage to say so many things about energy use in arctic tundras without even once recognizing that just maybe it takes more energy to heat a living space in an arctic tundra? Bafflingly stupid analysis.
Have you read it? Translated or in French? Because this is a list of facts, with a conclusion addressing what you are pointing out. It’s literally from the government of the province.
Le Québec, avec son climat hivernal rigoureux, connaît des besoins élevés en puissance électrique lors de périodes de grand froid, alors que toute la population doit se chauffer simultanément. Ces épisodes, appelés périodes de pointe de puissance, ne durent que quelques heures par année, mais exercent une pression sur le réseau.
Translated: The province of Québec, with its cold climate, has high energetic needs during the peaks of extreme cold periods, because the whole population has to heat their homes at the same time. Those periods, called power peaks, are only lasting for a few hours every year, but are putting pressure on the network.
Also, those places have summer. Most of the population in Québec and Norway don’t live in an arctic tundra.
I guess the issue I have is less the report itself, but the way you are trying to wield it to prove that the concept of induced demand which is not what the report is talking about at all.
Of the quicker way: the government nationalised all power companies, and sold electricity for cheap… Because it’s necessary… For society…
Both. Both is good.
Well, they could be cheaper.
Or the power company – the only one you’re allowed to do business with – could lower their production costs but leave your rates the same, pocketing the difference as profit.
Will they really though?
Have you looked at your power bill and seen how much of the bill is not power consumption?
We have also seen multiple times where the wholesale price of electricity is below zero yet consumers are still paying for power during those times.
It’s almost like utilities are a natural monopoly that do not fit within the economic ideology of “free market” capitalism…
People seem to be forgetting that unless green power or nuclear power are socialized projects they would by default have to find a way to capitalize their products by some means. Whether it would be by capitalization via consumption rates, maintenance fees, or even subscription, a private business would have to be able to make ever increasing profits.
Yep. Even the most liberal of thinkers agree that natural monopolies shouldn’t be for profit.
Have you looked at your power bill and seen how much of the bill is not power consumption?
Not in US, but after our power went private it literally doubled. The nice lady tried to convince me the “extra” charges were always there but not itemized, but while holding the previous bill with the same (within a few points) my usage was the same but the “fees” were as much as my power usage
Did she open the flaps on her shirt and start rubbing her nipples?
Now that you mention it, I think I did hear that velcro ripping noise
In the long run, yes. In the short term, the grid upgrades are quite expensive.
One form of government investment is subsidized panels for homes so you rely on utilities less.
It would be cheaper to just end most of the oil subsidiaries and move some of those subsidies to solar/wind/etc. refineries and processing and distribution, while profits are private, are heavily funded by public tax or tax breaks on profits.
https://www.fractracker.org/2025/03/fossil-fuel-subsidies-free-market-myth/
