RE: PG&E will shut off power for nearly 800,000 customers starting Wednesday
10-10-2019, 06:59 PM
10-10-2019, 06:59 PM
(10-10-2019, 05:58 PM)robkelk Wrote: You mean like in Ottawa? (The city gets a decent dividend from the power company every year, which helps offset property tax increases. Of course, it helps that Hydro Ottawa owns a hydroelectric plant on the Ottawa River.)
I've seen worse systems.
Same with the ESB here. Although the actual generation, purchasing and selling of electricity is open to private competition. The grid is still owned, managed and operated on a local by the state company -the ESB - which began with the Shannon hydro scheme a century ago. On a national level, another state company manages the high voltage grid - Eirgrid
Compared to the Omnifuck that is the HSE - the ESB is remarkably effective at what it does.
Effectively, the State owns the marketplace and sets the rules, while ensuring power can be transfered. The State also buys and sells on the marketplace itself - the ESB owns a lot of generation. There was a time when it was a State monopoly. It even once had a network of almost Soviet-style shops to sell appliances which could be paid off interest-free on your electricity bill.
It still regularly makes a profit for the State.
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.