Utilities use money gathered from their captive customers to lobby against the clean-energy transition. I talk with a utility watchdog about the rules that allow utilities to get away with this and how to change them.
Having trouble keeping up with your output David, barely finished school buses yesterday, now I'm two behind!
You must be working like a one-armed paper-hanger, but how 'bout sparing five minutes for a manual post to Mastodon? Explain (I assume) that your Twitter->Mastodon app died, but you do (one hopes) plan to come back? Your prolific posting schedule was quite the draw. Not on Twitter, only joined Mastodon to see what the fuss was, and wondering about staying - if my favourite journalists are sticking with Muskville.
Could challenging in court the use of ratepayer money to lobby against ratepayers best interests become a Trojan horse for the Supreme Court to stealth strike down collective bargaining gains? There’s an affinity with the dues issue that periodically crops up
I agree about the problem but disagree somewhat about the solution. We need thinkers like Rob Harmon (of MEETS fame) to help develop a way to incentivize behaviors we want/need rather than punishing utilities for acting in their own self-interest.
You seemed surprised that utilities were fighting against both ends of the spectrum, trying to prevent decentralized production and regional transmission, but they know the current system and any change is going to cost them. It becomes a fairly easy task to approach a regulator or legislator and say "we're going to make a sizable contribution to you or your campaign and all we want you to do is nothing."
Maybe the solution is to swallow a bitter pill and pay the utilities to do these things. I know, I know it seems awful to pay the evil utilities to do something they should be doing for the benefit of their ratepayers, but we will spend far more trying to swim against the current on this and it will waste time we don't have.
I'm also convinced we've distorted NEPA and ESA and other well-intentioned environmental regulations to a disgusting degree. They served their purpose and need to be re-written for the modern era. I blame these laws, or at least our misuse of them, for the housing shortage and retarding the deployment of renewables. This is coming from someone who spent the last 20+ years writing EISs and BAs, and permitting infrastructure projects.
You guys didn’t even mention PG&E’s “dual-fuel” structural incentive to continue using CO2 polluting gas fueled power plants so its “Gas” division can sell fuel to its “Electric” division. If that isn’t corrupt, sociopathic self-dealing, pray tell what is?
PG&E is telling proposed commercial property developments appropriately zoned near the Sonoma County Airport, they’ll have to take a number, get in line, & wait 2 years for a new utility connection. They’re also telling remote rural property owners they should get generators & build their own microgrids. So, PG&E has basically adopted the Xfinity cable internet business model. They’re busy under-grounding their at-risk power lines & repairing their dilapidated distribution system. Monopolies are just inherently corrupt…..period. But, instead of getting angry, maybe it’s better to get even.
France has incentivized & mandated solar parking lot canopies, with integrated stationary battery storage & V2G chargers on ALL EXISTING large parking lots, WITHIN 5 YEARS! And State Senator Josh Becker has recently proposed similar legislation in California. In my town, you’ll find a large parking lot or two within a mile of anywhere, except up in the luxury hillside neighborhood. Is this “Instant Micro Grid” legislation? Inquiring minds want to know.
A question. In my country, electricity businesses are divided into generators (who own generation assets), distributors (who operate transmission and distribution networks) and retailers (who interface with the final customer). Is there any such division in the US? Do "utilities" do all of the above?
Having trouble keeping up with your output David, barely finished school buses yesterday, now I'm two behind!
You must be working like a one-armed paper-hanger, but how 'bout sparing five minutes for a manual post to Mastodon? Explain (I assume) that your Twitter->Mastodon app died, but you do (one hopes) plan to come back? Your prolific posting schedule was quite the draw. Not on Twitter, only joined Mastodon to see what the fuss was, and wondering about staying - if my favourite journalists are sticking with Muskville.
Could challenging in court the use of ratepayer money to lobby against ratepayers best interests become a Trojan horse for the Supreme Court to stealth strike down collective bargaining gains? There’s an affinity with the dues issue that periodically crops up
I agree about the problem but disagree somewhat about the solution. We need thinkers like Rob Harmon (of MEETS fame) to help develop a way to incentivize behaviors we want/need rather than punishing utilities for acting in their own self-interest.
You seemed surprised that utilities were fighting against both ends of the spectrum, trying to prevent decentralized production and regional transmission, but they know the current system and any change is going to cost them. It becomes a fairly easy task to approach a regulator or legislator and say "we're going to make a sizable contribution to you or your campaign and all we want you to do is nothing."
Maybe the solution is to swallow a bitter pill and pay the utilities to do these things. I know, I know it seems awful to pay the evil utilities to do something they should be doing for the benefit of their ratepayers, but we will spend far more trying to swim against the current on this and it will waste time we don't have.
I'm also convinced we've distorted NEPA and ESA and other well-intentioned environmental regulations to a disgusting degree. They served their purpose and need to be re-written for the modern era. I blame these laws, or at least our misuse of them, for the housing shortage and retarding the deployment of renewables. This is coming from someone who spent the last 20+ years writing EISs and BAs, and permitting infrastructure projects.
PURPA ended the monopoly electric utility, but we failed to tell them that. Maybe we should tell them now.
@David Roberts
How can I contact you privately (I don’t use the Twitter)?
You guys didn’t even mention PG&E’s “dual-fuel” structural incentive to continue using CO2 polluting gas fueled power plants so its “Gas” division can sell fuel to its “Electric” division. If that isn’t corrupt, sociopathic self-dealing, pray tell what is?
PG&E is telling proposed commercial property developments appropriately zoned near the Sonoma County Airport, they’ll have to take a number, get in line, & wait 2 years for a new utility connection. They’re also telling remote rural property owners they should get generators & build their own microgrids. So, PG&E has basically adopted the Xfinity cable internet business model. They’re busy under-grounding their at-risk power lines & repairing their dilapidated distribution system. Monopolies are just inherently corrupt…..period. But, instead of getting angry, maybe it’s better to get even.
France has incentivized & mandated solar parking lot canopies, with integrated stationary battery storage & V2G chargers on ALL EXISTING large parking lots, WITHIN 5 YEARS! And State Senator Josh Becker has recently proposed similar legislation in California. In my town, you’ll find a large parking lot or two within a mile of anywhere, except up in the luxury hillside neighborhood. Is this “Instant Micro Grid” legislation? Inquiring minds want to know.
A question. In my country, electricity businesses are divided into generators (who own generation assets), distributors (who operate transmission and distribution networks) and retailers (who interface with the final customer). Is there any such division in the US? Do "utilities" do all of the above?