Maine's Radical Solution to the Energy Crisis
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- Maine residents will vote this November on whether to create the first statewide consumer-owned utility in the country.
They're facing skyrocketing electricity bills and frequent power outages, while the corporate utilities (CMP and Versant) that dominate the state brought in $187 million in profit last year. Both the companies are owned by foreign entities.
Residents are organizing to take power back into their own hands - literally. A ballot measure on the November ballot could create the consumer-owned utility non-profit Pine Tree Power, and put it under community control.
We talked with residents about what this would mean for them.
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Utilities should NOT be owned by multi national Corporations. Its a national security issue.
When you frame it like that, you suddenly convince a whole bunch more people why switching to a nonprofit co-op utility system is a good idea lol
@@goldenstarmusic1689Because those are tue only two options?
Excellent point. This is called nationalism, and I agree. I'm from Canada and we have many services, like healthcare, that are run for the public good ... but companies from the US and around the world are constantly trying to take these services over then run them purely for profit extraction. Sadly, this is the world we live in, where profit is paramount.
The issue is that the state regulators are allowing these fees there. My electric company is owned by a private company. They have fair pricing and all increases are scrutinied and public. Private utility companies live insid each states frame work... main needs to kick some people out of office because thats rediculous.
Ideally, you should have your own power generation. If not continuously, then at least as a backup.
I really want to see projects like Pine Tree Power succeed nationwide, but I fear they'll be sabotaged by corporate lobbying.
Some states allow voter referendums, where voters can sign a petition and if they get enough signatures then the proposal goes on a statewide ballot and gets voted up or down by all the citizens. The Red state that I live in does not allow referendums because our politicians don't care what we think or what we want. Our politicians got elected, so now they think they know what's best for us.
Or even worse...
I got that Feeling as well…
@@stevechance150let me guess. Texas?
Just remember if Pine Tree fails Maine taxpayers will have to foot the bill.
I live in a mostly rural state and our power is a co-op. We do great and pay WAY less than most people who have a company charging them. They even laid fiber internet so we no longer have to deal with Comcast and Charter. Honestly, it's been a win-win across the board for us. I'd HIGHLY suggest kicking the corporate assholes to the curb people.
What state if I may ask?
Co-op owned fiber internet is extremely cool and novel holy crap, where is that?
you do better because your electricity depends mainly on hydroelectric power...am I correct ? Are you in the southeastern area of the country ?
So my question then is, being a rural area I imagine the people lean heavily Republican, do the people now side with democrats, who are the champions of delivering better services at lower prices to consumers? Or are they so caught up in pointless culture wars to recognize that they are living in a liberal utopia?
What is fiber internet
Purple state or no, kicking out greedy corporations and taking responsibility for your state's own energy is something anyone can get on board with.
Purple state and everyone politically is after the same goal.
That Right Wing Tucker Carlson guy of all people did an “exclusive” hit piece against CMP , and promoted Pine Tree Power. Thats how you know even republicans are on board.
maybe things have changed in recent years but maine was never actually purple. the only red in maine is gun rights and thats because its a place where wild animals can screw alot of things up.
Until you fuck it up. Which Maine will.
Who is going to generate your electric then? The state? Name one thing that the government controls that works better. Bloated government pensions, in efficient labor and excessive costs under a state system will make it all even MORE expensive. Government has no benefit to make things cost/benefit efficient, infact it's to opposite. When the government brought out Obama care, medical costs doubled then went up from there.
It's Democrats that love outsourcing.
As a current employee of an investor owned utility, I can comfortably say this would be the best outcome. All investor owned utilities should converted into consumer co-ops, bar none. Tens of billions annually would be redirected to improving utility infrastructure.
As a current employee of a state-owned utility while I agree that a user/citizen owned model is better I'm a bit concerned about what they're promising and what their focus is given the state of generation in Maine.
With a bit of poking around you can find that Main imports a quarter of its power, Quebec likely being the big seller there. Of their in-state power there's roughly a quarter from hydro, natural gas, wind and biomass ( in order highest to lowest ). Additionally you can find that since 2000 Maine generates about half the power they used to. Alone this might paint a picture of the state coasting off into the sunset off existing infrastructure with negligible population growth an aging population and likely some de-industrialization, not an exciting prospect but a functional one.
Then you get to the clean energy bit and suddenly the infrastructure debt that was a serious issue but manageable just flies out the window and problems that were perhaps manageable before become a real problem. With their existing grid size they at an absolute minimum need to replace a quarter of their generation and unfortunately it's one of the more flexible parts, it's about 1.7 GW which for a comparable type of clean power ( dispatchable ) you're looking at tens of billions of dollars for either hydro or nuclear. Mainers may dislike their private utilities for skimming off a few hundreds of millions but it's just a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the big picture challenges facing electric utilities that want to play a positive role in climate change.
On top of that electricity isn't all energy but all energy needs to clean up, transportation and heating being the big ones that will have to move onto the grid and for Canada at least it's expected we'll need 2-3 times more generation capacity to keep up with load. This hits Maine in two ways, one is that it adds a huge challenge in expanding generation within the state and it ramps up the competition ( and thus price ) for Hydro-Quebec's exported power which is already a huge part of Maine's consumption. Already Quebec's average price obtained for export power has gone from 4.4 cents/kWh to 7.6 cents/kWh and nothing I've seen in the US northeast suggests that that price is going to decline for decades, quite the opposite. On top of that Maine is also making it challenging for transmission to be built through its state.
I'm all for getting the state of Maine taking charge of its utility, I have very severe doubts that it will live up to the pricing and reliability promises its making as the cost-cutting they're proposing limits their capacity to actually build anything on the generation side which is where the vast majority of the US North-East infrastructure debt lies. Companies ripping people off is just a small part of the challenges in the electricity sector, my 2 cents /kWh.
Yes, and we need the improvement.
Investor owned utilities are the worst! It's a Monopoly masquerading as capitalism. The public takes all the risks and pays all the debts. Investors just walk away with the guaranteed cash.
@@AmurTigerthanks for the insight
20% of America needs energy to live
CPS here in Texas. Abbott helped the grid owners instead of sanctions towards the companies that caused over 200 deaths here after the Tx freeze. Helped them and gave them perks. Let's also mention billionaires were made because of their monopoly and the storm.
Let's not forget all of the "power conservation notices" that went out to us lowly consumers to "reduce our energy use" because of the increasingly hot summer weather. Any bets on if the like of Jerry Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys and the giant power-sucking stadium in Arlington that's always kept at like 75F) got those notices for their corporate vanity projects?
Stop being morons. There is more than enough energy in Texas if yall would build more natural gas or coal or nuclear power plants
My prayers go out to sane Texans like you guys ❤
Abbott and his cronies are so mired in petrochemical revenues they will be the last to embrace cleaner energy sources. Ironically, much of Texas is moving to solar and wind energy, to the benefit of the grid. T. Boone Pickens, an oil tycoon, saw the future and helped make it happen.
@@nstark1066 dear blind person. Texas is reaching a saturation point. More solar will not solve the pinch points
It's time people get united nationwide and take control over utilities and insurance companies ❤
Nation wide is on your side
Think broader, think further
We did that here, Hydro Quebec has a monopoly( anyone making power has to sell excess to hydro, not sure for how much , I m not a power producer haha) , this give us an average price of 0.078 / kwh or 78 $ CAN a month for 1000 kwh.
Who are you going to blame then, the government?
If you want to know how the government handles insurance, just look at how they handle the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. You know, Social Security.
Many years ago America's electrical systems were run in a similar fashion. Then some bright guys got the idea they could convince Americans that Private Ownership could bring down prices. Measures were put on the ballot all over the Country, and almost all electrical systems were sold to private companies. Then... Gee... prices went through the roof. Gosh. Didn't see that coming. WE NEED TO MAKE ALL ELECTRIC COMPANIES CO-OPS AGAIN.
Same goes for prisons. "It will be so much cheaper for the tax payers for the private companies to operate the prisons". Now we get fines for not having enough people locked up and deny parole to people because we can't afford to not have enough bunks filled. They also have no interest in rehabilitation because repeat 'customers' are more profitable than turning people who screwed up into productive members of society.
Yep. It's called being bamboozled - the greedy gluttons have convinced our government to sell out to corporation's - heck, even America it's self is a corporation, 501C3 religious entities too (most people don't know that).....
#AlecExposed
Or maybe even just making all electricity publicly owned in this country.
@@SpeedyBlur2000how do you accomplish that without theft?
_"Many years ago America's electrical systems were run in a similar fashion."_
And they were a shitshow.
It makes no sense for a society to let a for-profit company hold them hostage over a basic necessity.
Yes. Like water. Food. transportation. medical care. Education.
Just noting.
But I heard that the free market system pushed innovation. Capitalism made for-profit companies were more efficient than the government.
Yeah I figured out that wasn't the truth when I was 8 years old. The city of Atlanta privatized its water and for the next 2 months the tap water tasted like Sprite... It was the extra fluoride used to cut purification costs. Luckily the city Atlanta has never tried to privatize again. Government-funded innovation has led Atlanta to return 80% of the water it takes back its source.
That's probably why I don't drink Sprite or tap water to this day.
I was having a hard time paying the bills, until I sold the title to my toilets - now I am on a pay-per-flush plan and spent all the money from the sale on Monster Energy drinks. I think I made an excellent financial decision and I no longer am responsible for cleaning it... but I still do since I can't wait for an appointment to get it clean.
Actually it's not a necessity I currently been living without electricity for 5 years now yeah I use solar to get on the internet but I don't need the internet or electricity I just choose to keep a small part of it around but I could do without it honestly society has gotten weak people Don't understand that all you really need in life is land water and food Nothing else matters bc everything else kills the world and its people on it just that simple 😊
@@brentx1940I'm glad you've found something that works for you. I'm going to have some air conditioning for me. If I could afford solar, and a battery system, I'd love to go off grid, but currently I can't afford that.
Fabulous! I used to belong to a public owned electric company, each year we'd get back a check for the extra they had in profits. I hope to see this in all states sooner rather than later.
I work for one and love what I do :) so great to give all our excess revenue straight back to the community, through low rates, energy efficiency projects, reliability projects, more transmission + cleaner energy mix. Our customers get a direct say and directly demand these priorities, and we see them through. What leaves a bad taste in my mouth, is the stranglehold many IOUs have simply by owning resources that should be a public right. They get richer and more powerful and can continue to consolidate that power through lobbying, having shittier standards for their power and maintenance of their equipment, paying their people poorly, etc. All while seeing 0 consequences bc there's not enough public backlash nor enough competition on the market.
There are various different ways that they can be set up, around here we don't get checks, but if they do have leftovers, it winds up offsetting against any future rate increases. We have public utilities covering electricity, gas and water service and for the most part it works out quite well. The things we don't have like public internet access are a hot mess though and far more expensive than can be justified compared with what it costs in other countries. Even if you account for the rural parts of the region.
@@Algormortis9 What state are you in?
As a Maine resident, It's very interesting to finally hear some positive coverage on pine tree power. I haven't looked too far into it myself but I've been bombarded with negative press about pine tree power, but I always have an immediate distrust of negative campaigns like this, all you gotta do is look up the campaign spending and its shocking, opposition campaigns have spent $27 million compared to only $800k for the supporting campaign. Our governor also just came out in opposition of pine tree power, I wonder why..💰💰👎
she is bought and paid for just like snow and the rest of them...
Thought the same only negative press and nothing explaining why voting no benefits you is a red flag, I doubt the majority of Maine voters are smart enough to understand this though. And will vote for whatever the tv told them to.
How about taking things into your own hands rather than being dependent just stuck deciding between which corporate entity will screw you less? *BIOGAS* is the answer. Maine is not very population-dense and is filled with forest. With seasonal foliage alone, there is more than enough organic material literally everywhere all over the ground for everyone living there to collect every fall and use with a biogas digester to generate gas for heating and running generators. Air compressor with a line-filter plus some old helium or propane tanks from the junkyard and you can store the gas long-term too.
Ask these questions. What happens to the Maine PUC? Why are we not taking over the MPUC? What impact on production(or generation) does PTP have? Will PTP have to pay the inflated prices for solar that the Governor has mandated?
@@PJMCG19 good questions. What happens to people who have solar and given credit on there bills?
It has been shown all over the world for decades that when utilities (electric, gas, water, sewer) along with highways and things like parking meters are privatized, costs go up substantially while improvements and service goes down.
I believe in public ownership of all public service utilities;
because if you do not own them, in time they will own you.
- Tom Johnson, Mayor of Cleveland, from 1901 to 1909.
Muni Power and Light - the light on the Lake! (Thinking of another Cleveland mayor....)
I cheered them from Cincinnati for years - just a tiny shred of Ohio pride available, not much. Oh well, you work with what you have. Yea Cleveland, and yea John Glenn!
This would be immensely helpful when we live in an age where corporations are striving to own all our basic necessities like water.
There’s nothing stopping anyone from starting their own utility company. It just cost billions upon billions of dollars and you need to get that money from somewhere.
To anyone buying bonds for Pine Tree ask the bond holders of WPPS for some advice.
Air will be next.
@@jharvey9898 i used to joke that they would strip the atmosphere saying it was for your own safety and that they would sell you tanks of air. mostly making fun of how cruel they are. im starting to fear it wont be a joke for long.
@@ehtresih9540 luckily stripping the atmosphere away is an impossibly huge task, poisoning it however...
As a Mainer I respect this very much. Im spreading this to family and friends who hopefully will spread it to theirs and get this out to afew more Mainers. Always loved our ability to take matters into our own hands and ill support it anyday.
So sad this failed.
I'm a Maine resident and so grateful to see this video🙏.
The corporate utilities up here started saturating social media and TV with attack ads to defeat the initiative last winter, so it's obvious they don't want their cash cow (i.e., Maine electric customers) to vote for the initiative.
CMP is horrible. They cannot keep power on even in minor storms, and they've raised their rates enormously in the past year. Like many people who can afford to, we have solar panels. Most of the year we are net generators and only pay a connection fee. It jumped from about $13.61 to almost $22.00 this summer.
Maine is going to renewable energy, so the power grid up here needs to plan how to incorporate many smaller generators of electricity. CMP has been woefully inadequate in maintaining the grid, not invested in upgrades, and simply pulled profits stolen from its customers out. They're crooks, and the corporate overlords aren't even American. They're owned by Quatar billionaires(!). Talk about ridiculous and against our national interests!
I've forwarded this video to many people up here and contacted those who are sponsoring the ballot initiative to volunteer to help get this passed. Fingers crossed that it will. Mainers deserve a decent utility and reliable power at reasonable cost. We don't have it under the current system.
I’m all for Solar but 1:1 net metering is not sustainable. It’s heavily subsidized by all the other rate payers.
I agree that CMP is a bunch of crooks but if government is in control of the grid that means the democrats are in control of the grid. I haven't noticed a lot of responsible behavior from this group in recent years and suspect they will want to purchase only the most expensive power available. So in the end we may be better off but not by much.
20 million in ads alone, eh? Thats alot of scratch that could have gone to improve services. I believe investor owned utilities suck at managing money wisely.
Live in Maine, CMP is putting on a full court press against this stuff. Hopefully people see through it
How is this polling right now?
I do brother, over in Downeast and spreading the word about Pine Tree.
CMP rep was in Saintjohnsville NY yesterday. It seems that they do there homework and hit the little guys . Giving numbers around $200 year per acre with 25 year lease . Farms that sold all the cows seem to be jumping at it . Plans are for solar . Just taking what they can get .
I don't know if you have noticed but the democrats are in charge of our state and they hate the thought of people getting cheap energy. I just hope if this passes we don't end up trading one bad thing for another.
Thank God for the people of Maine! I support them 100%. First the utilities of Maine, next We The People, need to take back control of our own country! We need to take back America from the corrupt politicians, THE RED ONES AND THE BLUE ONES!
My utility is owned by its customers and many are in Florida. Utilities should never be owned by for profit corporations where the customers are always screwed.
A quebecois commenting here, our province nationalized most electricity producing companies decades ago and uses its monopoly to promote strategic investments and exports. No system is perfect, but at least revenues stay in the province and contribute to our public healthcare and education systems among others. And with electric cars sales at almost 15%, we'll send less money to the Middle East and keep it here. Good luck to Maine.
I'm sorry but the phrase "my province nationalized" always makes me giggle. No they didn't. They consolidated, nationalized would be ALL of our provinces.
Quebec (K-Bec) considers itself to be a separate (National) entity. So a natural mistake by Monsieur/Madame Fparent! :) @@Fenthule
"we'll send less money to the middle east and keep it here".... maybe you guys could have bought oil from Alberta so you wouldnt be sending money to the middle east. Sorta funny that Quebec talks about all these nice social programs they have while taking in $14 billion a year in equalization payments while Alberta gets nothing back. You guys refuse to actually do anything that could take in large amounts of revenue since that would take away from equalization payments. So maybe Maine can do the same thing. Just complain enough till they get special treatment and become a welfare state that the rest of the country pays for.
Since we have a bunch of democrats in charge of our state that is probably what will happen.@@pin65371
I like this approach to utilities. Not only should we apply this initiative to electricity, but also to gas and telecommunications, both of which are known for the outrageous rates that people have to contend with.
Of course, the corporations are going to churn out their over-the-top propaganda to convince people to reject the idea, as it is something that is actually for the people, instead of sustaining one's profits. It also doesn't help that we already know that there will be politicians that will reject the idea because it's, "socialism". No matter what these enemies of progress say, the people must vote for something that is more beneficial to the interests of all, instead of a few.
We have cheap electric rates in the US. If you want more reliable power build more coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants
@@thedude5040the corruptocrats want the money flowing into THEIR pockets.
@@thedude5040 You DO realize how much natural gas the US is shipping to europe right? Like TEN TIMES what it was ten years ago. You really going to try to sell the shit that the US doesn't have enough natural gas?
In point of fact right now is the FIRST time since the sixties that power production has equalled consumption, which means prices should be lower and there should NEVER be outages, because usage has been static since the year 2000.
THis happens in EVERY privatized industry because like gas, the money and profit is NOT in supply and demand but in SPECULATION. And to make money in speculation you have to actually have variables. If you went to the horse races and every week was the same horse who you know run at the same speed then tere would be no gambling. And thats essentially what speculation is.
Go watch "Enron, Smartest guys in the room" to see how it played out AS California's energy market was deregulated. Most stable system in the world becaome one of the worst in under a year.
@mikearchibald744 hey slow down kid and reread. Where did I ever say we didn't have enough natural gas or coal? What we don't have enough of is burners to burn the coal and natural gas then convert that heat into electricity
Probably a good idea for railroads too and while Amtrak kind of does that the tracks it runs on are owned by private freight railroads
I wish the best for Maine. I hope they vote yes and this model is successful for them to show the rest of the nation how power should be provided in todays America.
their govenor is trying to stop it
All utilities should be public-owned. It's the only reasonable thing to do.
You own nothing if you have no money. The capitalism owns you instead. Meat to harvest!
Agreed, these companies usually have a government enforced local monopolies. When that is the case it should not be run by for-profit businesses. I don't really care if it is public or private, but it should be not-for-profit.
I have the position that if it is a natural monopoly, then it should be publicly owned and operated. Spreading out the pain through taxes does a lot to mitigate the cost, even though most of us aren't really aware of it - especially as US governments like to privatize everything.
But yes, election of boards should still be done by voters in the area. Our local hospital is owned by the city and we elect the board members. It's easily the best hospital I've ever been hospitalized in. The only way it could be improved would be if the nurses were unionized (fucking Right to be Fired AKA Right to Work state). And we don't even have to worry about Mercy swooping in and buying out our hospital and forcing us to go to Des Moines for ER services (like they did to Newton's Skiff Memorial Hospital).
or how about we let a bunch of companies all compete for our dollars.....instead of passing a law to appoint one company
@@007kingifrit That’s not how electricity grids work, my friend.
State run utilities used to be the way we kept those companies working in the interest of the public. *The problem began with sell offs and public private partnerships with multi state, then international companies.*
Good luck, Maine! Good luck, Pine Tree!
Former Mayor of Cleveland Dennis Kucinich lost his job over his refusal to privatize Cleveland Public Power (Municipal Light). It has since been regarded as a good decision.
International companies owned at the root by government entities! I mean, there were just two words spoken that tell us the entire problem. Qatar and Calgary.
Most privately owned public utilities are owned by shareholders. Any one can buy their shares and earn their share of the dividends.
Yo I've been trying to get more people on this for years, almost every state omnibus is corrupt af and approves rate increases even when wholesale fuel costs drop like a rock. The corporations are acting in insane and cruel ways and our governments are beyond corrupt and haven't been helpful. This is freaking awesome!!
The solution here is NOT to exchange one corporate entity for another. The solution is to take matters into your own hands. Invest in a decent natural-gas generator, setup a biogas digester on your property, collect all of the decaying organic material you can find (lawn-clippings/fall-foliage/etc.) to fill the digester, get a cheap air compressor with a coupler for pressurized tanks and an inline filter/gas-purifier, pick up some old helium/propane/etc. canisters/tanks from your local junkyard, let the anaerobic microbes get to work breaking down the organic material into methane, compress through filter/purifier into canisters/tanks, and then never pay a utility bill again.
If your heat is currently oil, then conversion to biogas is a bit more complicated, and you may be better off just trying to find local restaurants/mechanics/etc. with excess waste oil you can have for free and filter it really well then just burn that, but biogas is still great for generating electricity which is the primary concern here anyways.
@@MikeJones-mf2rt I'm sorry but this is unhinged. Not every individual can set up the entire industrial revolution for themselves to merely survive, most people are trapped as tenants for one, making any of this completely impossible, they pay these corporations or they get a bullet to the head from the local police. We simply can't all live in a collapsed disaster society where all the institutions are impossible to interact with for anybody but the upper classes.
We had laws in place that kept power bills reasonable - we still do, but corporate ad money, repeals of laws regarding local news funding, and corruption of local omnibus regulators work together to ensure that rate increases kept getting passed even as wholesale prices stagnated and even as they fell. This is criminal behavior. We can hunt down and end a handful of criminals and then *everyone* once again has fair prices for power, and right now building new unsubsidized renewable capacity is literally cheaper than keeping heavily subsidized coal plants running. I don't know why so many conservatives/libertarians and the like just assume corruption is literally impossible to fix, that it's somehow core to reality or good - it's not, it's an evil we can easily defeat.
Electric Cooperatives have helped light up the plains states... Electricity was under provided in the wide open West due to the lower profits because of the higher cost to lay more line. Coops help their members get what they need, not because it's super profitable, but because the need it.
There are some things that capitalism isn't good for. I don't want my water service to be provided by a for-profit company. And it seems like for-profit electricity is more expensive than not-for-profit electricity. Who knew?!
@@stevechance150I would argue that capitalism itself is not particularly good for anything; not that work for gains is bad but rather any means of instituionalizing in a profit centric manner will always lead to a reduction of creativity (or risk) in the marketplace, shady practices, and labor theft if not flat out attempts at creating new loopholes for bringing back serfdom (see "greedflation").
And I would argue that state ran economies would suffer simular fates, although with diffrent tragectories.
@@AnonymousAnarchist2I like what SpaceX is doing. I used to be a big fan of Elon but his actions lately have been questionable. The reusable rockets (especially the Starship) are game changers. No other company on earth will be able to compete with SpaceX.
@@stevechance150 Capitalism, despite its flaws, has historically encouraged competition and innovation. However, it may not do so as effectively as it once did. The problem with some alternative systems is that they can incentivize minimal effort for similar or even greater rewards in terms of effort and reward ratio. In my opinion, worker cooperatives (co-ops) represent a promising option within a capitalist economy.
@@IL_Bgentyl I am obviously a big fan of cooperatives, both worker and consumer, but I would say that they are not a realistic alternative within capitalism due to private property's gearing for capital bias. Firstly private property necessarily gives control to Capital owners not workers, so it's dependent on a certain level of the benevolent action in spite of the market rather than incentivised by the market.
Financing for cooperative enterprises is also difficult as there is an incongruity with the type of business plans that normal banks usually receive. Meaning that cooperatives usually have to set up cooperative forms of financing for the benefit of cooperative enterprises. This can mean getting funds from a credit union or establishing a cooperative that takes in funds from other cooperatives to help build more cooperatives like the Valley Alliance Of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC). This is why the establishment of social ownership in the abolishment of private property is important to the overall goal of Cooperativism. Here is a short piece on what I mean.
czcams.com/video/gyJrwe8LDYQ/video.htmlsi=8FPXo6pM7vFdmgdW
I really hope this works out for us. These scummy corpos need a wake up call that we're through being gouged
They had a wake up call. They price gouged on purpose. The citizens need a wake up call to start putting up a fight against shit like this.
I live in Maine and pray this passes.
Me too!
British Columbia, Quebec Canada as well as Tennessee all have the lowest KW/h rates in North America, all because they have Gov't and publicly owned utilities. Not a coincidence.
Um, Tennessee residential rates are 12 cents /kWh. Moses Lake, WA is 4.85 cents/kWh.
Same story here in New Brunswick. Certainly not because of how well run it is, thats for sure:)
@@ericakusske3321 interesting. THat's pretty low for an avg. COngrats. State ownership, cheap gas and cheap coal prices sure must help. Washington, although not Hydro powered appears to be a beacon for other sates to emulate
@dvd3553 WA is hydro powered though. 34 hydroelectric dams if I counted correctly.
@@ericakusske3321 Amazing! The internet was citing coal as the main reason for cheap WA power. That many Hydro power stations would make it very cheap indeed. May your state be a beacon on how to create affordable energy for the people.
Coming from Texas, our energy grid is telling us they can't handle the load when it's too hot or too cold...
I've always believed that anything that is a natural monopoly should never be privatized in the notion of a market because there is no competition...
These aren't natural monopolies. These are government enforced monopolies. A natural monopoly is Google where anyone could go and use Bing, but very few do. These are monopolies created by government not allowing others to lay their own wires or pipes due to the thinking it would be wasteful and they do not want a million wires being layered everywhere. Those are legitimate concerns, but that still leaves the problem that they are for-profit. Government backed monopolies should not be for-profit.
@evancombs5159
Go look up the definition of natural monopolies then maybe you could have dressed my statement through a thoughtful discourse... 🤦♂️
@@williammcfarlane6153 I went and look, I fail to see how that changes my response. A natural monopoly is one that due to size is able to out compete competition. Utilities therefore are not natural monopolies because it is illegal to compete. Do you understand the difference?
“Extracting wealth” is exactly it.
In Jacksonville, Fl, one of the reasons the Republican favorite to win the Mayor race lost was because he had ties to a scheme to sell our city owned power company.
Sounds like our SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility
District). Unfortunately, we (the next city over) tried to join SMUD, but they didn’t approve us. So we’re stuck with PG&E.
As a Mainer, I am proud to be a part of this. I hope against hope that it goes through. Even if it doesn't- we'll keep fighting!
I wish you all get it but our system is not for the people so I wouldn't get my hopes up even though it would be common sense for the people to be in control of basic needs sense they are the only ones that give a dam about their states issue but profits before people is the American way.
My state of Queensland Australia has always owned its electricity system.
It’s building the charging network for electric cars, so the money which used to go overseas for fuel now stays in the state.
If Mayne can get back control of their electricity utility everyone will benefit.
Sometimes governments can be more efficient than businesses and also save consumers money.
Private is often good at the rapid growth part of development, but once you get to sustaining existing infrastructure, investors still demand the kind of returns you only get from growth.
A municipal owned utility never needs to run at a profit.
It's also an issue of natural monopolies. Big infrastructure services like water, gas, electricity, trains, etc. can not provide a competitive private business model, simply because one company won't just build all that infrastructure again for choices.
It really doesn't need to be a public entity that runs things, it just needs to be a not-for-profit. If there is no profit motive all of that money is forced to be invested back into the service. At that point it doesn't really matter what kind of ownership it has.
I started watching this because people in my region gripe about how high our utility bills are, so when that one gentleman mentioned his bill being the the $200+ range...
😳 I almost choked on my coffee, that's about double what we pay.
But we're part of an energy co-op like they were talking about near the end of the video. So yeah, a project like Pine Tree Power could drastically improve rates in that region.
Me in Poland genuinely shocked how many basic things are “for profit” in USA
Your Next
@traybern ...as an American I can only laugh at how wrong you are.
Why are foreign entities, even from ally nations, allowed to own parts of our utilities? How is this a thing we are okay with? Just like foreign nations buying land... this should never have been allowed. I need to know where to go to join or start a cause to end this in my area.
State of Nebraska has public power and its awesome. OPPD & NPPD does a fantastic job communicating with its customers.
I live in Jacksonville and we have not seen the same power bill jump as the rest of the country. This is thanks to our power company JEA. JEA is a publicly owned utility. It basically part of the city government and it answers to the voters in Duval county. It makes money but that money mostly goes back in to the company or the city budget.
Pushing your local government to replace private utilities with publicly owned ones is another great option
Good for you Mainers! Wisconsinite here rooting for you!
For context, the main energy company here in WI is WE Energies and they have an effective monopoly on the market. Not as much as other places, but we paid $350 for electric in July AND August - up 100% from LAST YEAR. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!
Up here in Quebec we nationalized our electric grid in 1944. Our rates are the lowest in north America and hydro-QC generates billions in revenues for the state.
Hydroelectricity is the only thing underwriting your low energy bills. And the greens are at war with hydroelectricity. Quebec Hydro is resisting outside calls for more dam building, and they may soon force you to rip out your resistance electric heat and replace it with heat pumps to save on capacity.
@@gregorymalchuk272those low cost hydropower savings would not be passed along if a capitalist owned the plant, so hydropower is not the only factor.
@@gregorymalchuk272 heat pumps are a number of times more efficient than resistance heaters is almost all cases...and in cases where they aren't, every heat pump system I've ever seen (including ones down here in the notoriously cold Texas) is backed up by...an electric resistance heater. OOPS! Did your right-wing owners completely fail to mention that in their talking points? I wonder why...
@@TheViktorofgilead Low cost hydro would be passed down to various degrees regardless. But even regulated, vertically integrated public utilities (which prefer nuclear, hydro, and coal) are still for profit companies.
@@CyphDragon Heat pumps can work, but your comment isn't even a reply to my comment. My comment stated that Quebec Hydro is going to start jacking up electricity rates to force you to convert from ultra reliable resistance electric to heat pumps with high capital costs and high repair costs.
That’s pretty damn cool! Please keep us posted! This is exactly why we need ballot initiatives in all states if the federal and state governments are to busy being bought off by the corporations we the people will bypass them and take democracy into our own hands!
sadly a lot of red states noticed that and made it a lot harder to get ballot initiatives passed
Current employee of a public utility here - I’m proud to be serving the public directly and I don’t have to worry about my labor being exploited for profit. My labor directly helps my neighbors (or so I like to think).
I moved to Maine last year and was baffled having come from the notoriously awful Con Edison in Southern California to the even worse CMP. My husband and I have blackouts at least once a month, sometimes weekly. If measure 3 doesn't pass I will be so furious.
Thomas Edison will be infuriated at these conmen if he was alive today.
@@markarca6360 No, he wouldnt. He was ruthless in business and made a lot of money. More likely, he would be impressed with their expansion and monetization of the system Nikola helped him create.
Literally seizing the means of (energy) production!
that's how it should be....
Every time a nationalization happens, energy production collapses. We're seeing it now in Venezuela. In the Soviet Union, electricity cost 93 cents per kWh, double the cost of the other most expensive electricity on earth.
@gregorymalchuk272 uneducated public czars are worse than regulated corporations.
Thanks to the TVA, my electric company is a cooperative, electric bill has been around 120 a month on average
Same as mine from an investor-owned utility. I keep the temperature set at 73deg 24×7×365 no matter if its 110 or, -10deg outside or if I am home or not.
Strange to hear about these problems. Here in Norway power companies have always been publicly owned, both by municipalities and the sentral government
I would move to Norway in a second if I could! I have a friend with family there and she says just about everything is better there.
I've never lived anywhere where you don't have multiple options for electric companies that offer competitive rates.
@techtutorvideos aren't you only allowed to apply to jobs that have a shortage of available candidates in Norway? There's like a short list of jobs you can get a work visa for if you're not in the eu
Or am I thinking of denmark
The town where I live owns the local power and cable companies. I've lived here for 22 years and I've got to say our power has been MUCH more stable than the surrounding towns/cities that are on investor power utilities and our bills are lower too.
A while back there was a major snow/ice storm in the area and many local towns/cities were out of power for a week or more. We lost power for 36 hours and it was the longest power outage I have ever seen here. I don't think we've lost power for more than an hour at any other time, and that is usually due to a serious road accident taking out several poles and/or transformers.
In Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, there is Garkane Energy Cooperative which is a consumer cooperative that pays back the surplus every year. It's great! Consumer and Worker cooperatives need more love. Mutualism FTW!
I'm originally from Maine but I now live right over the border in NH (I can see Maine across the river in my backyard), and I get bombarded with the Versant-front ads. Groups with names like "Concerned Citizens Committee" or something like that keep running ads that feed on general distrust of government (as the lady mentions about 9 min into this video, Maine is pretty "purple" but I'd add that it has a strong Libertarian-ish streak, especially as you move north and/or east of Augusta) to claim that Pine Tree Power is a government takeover that will cause power bills to spike... and it's like... they're already spiking right now.
Always be careful when you see names like "Concerned Citizens" or "Protect the Children"! Red flag for BS from some faction that wants you to get angry and not think too hard...
Vermont Electric Coop another example. But when he brought on the climate cultist with her wildfire and other BS, makes you wonder how much the climate cult is involved. If they have your way, electricity prices will skyrocket and reliability will be non existent.
It’s mind boggling how most places in the US have private power companies. In East Tennessee (where I grew up) we have electric Co-Ops and all of our power is generated by TVA (governmental agency) in the form of hydroelectric dams and 1 coal plant that is on track to close and one nuclear power plant.
My power comes from a Co-op power company and I have never had blackouts. The only time I have lost power in 12 years was when a transformer blew bc it was struck by lightning. My rates are around the same as they have always been. I receive a check every year that reimburses me when they have a surplus of money for the year.
uh, Electricity, Water, and even Telephone are called 'Public' Utilities because when I was a kid ALL UTILITIES were owned by the Public. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt's doing. Edison was out of hand, water was unsafe, Bell was even more expensive than Edison with most communities having Party Lines (phones sharing a phone number). So, what happened? GREED. Politicians were bribed to sell the Public Utilities to private persons. Folks said NO DONT DO THAT! but.... bribe money has more rights than actual citizens.
If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? These companies sound really old. When did we have fully publicly owned utilities?
Man, America is crazy. I live in France at the moment, and I'm paying about 100€, (up from about 80) a month for electricity and water, and people are up in arms over the hike. The only time we ever get power outages is after a storm while workers clear the power lines of fallen trees. Lasts about a day at most and is pretty rare anyway. We're mostly on nuclear energy over here. And tap water is perfectly drinkable too, lead pipes were all ripped out and replaced by copper and plastic decades ago.
I greatly admire the revolutionary spirit of the French people, my fellow Americans seem to have completely forgotten ours.
issue is in the US alot of fear mongering around nuclear. Hopefully one day though.
@@IL_Bgentyl if only
@@logans3365 I guess that's down to the decades of red scare and anti-union propaganda you guys were exposed to over there. Not to mention actual anti-union laws, like that "Taft vs Heartly", is it? And the free for all of corporate money in US politics too. We still have some regulations around that kind of thing over here, thankfully. And the red scare stuff was never as intense or as effective over here, I'm a member of the PCF (communist party) and it's perfectly "acceptable". I mean no one bats an eye if you say you're a member of that you vote socialist. It's still normalised over here. The Unions are still strong too. But my home country of the Uk however... That's a very different story. Much more reactionary politically speaking, sadly. And so the country is off to hell in a hand-basket. They're literally in the middle of an anti-left purge over there. The labour party being lead by a rightist neoliberals who worked his way to the top against popular support for Jeremy Corbyn, the old leader, who he promptly expelled from his own party. Even though polls indicate him to be the most popular politician in the country by far. The corruption there is awful, it's getting out of hand.
@@IL_Bgentyl same in the UK. Hopefully people start to come around soon though. Green Peace recently changed there stance on nuclear energy I hear, after decades of being officially anti nuclear. A step in the right direction.
In the UK Thatcher privatised the water system in 1989. Look at the UK now, raw sewage is being dumped in rivers and the ocean. In the past 10 years, the companies have paid out £13.4bn in dividends and directors' pay has soared.
When I was a child, utilities were run as nonprofits, as municipal services. After they were sold to profit making companies, everything went straight downhill while prices skyrocketed. I would love to go back to public utilities.
The profit motive should be removed from so many areas of society, especially utilities. We should nationalize as much as we can.
This is NOT nationalization- it's localization. Nationalization is the practical opposite of local co-ops.
So you want some bureaucrat to decide what is to be available to you, and if you don't like it, you have no right to take matters into your own hands?
@@ladymacbethofmtensk896 I can see that being a problem, but at least we have voting rights and oversight powers over our government. They are accountable to us in ways that corporations are not. The status quo already uses "the market" to dictate "what is to be available to you," often in ways that are monopolistic or antithetical to the greater good.
I don't think nationalizing is perfect, but I think it beats the status quo by a long shot.
@@jackh3242 Have you considered that nationalizing industries would put those industries under the control of unelected bureaucrats who would have no reason to make anything better, and if the Trump Presidency has shown us anything, it is that it is nearly impossible to sack incompetent bureaucrats, because of how easily they can claim their dismissal was political in nature. Indeed, I would argue that we should bring back patronage in this regard.
Here in Nebraska we have 100% public-owned power by law. My bill last month was $135. In months where I dont have to run the AC, it is like $70.
Nice!
We stop asking. We seize the means. Solidarity in numbers is the most important thing to fight back.
I live in N.C. and have a co op electric power company (CEMC) a non profit company.
CEMC buys power from Duke energy and sells it to us cheaper than Duke power sells to their own customers. And at the end of the year CEMC distributes any left over operating cost back to its customers.
I am very happy with CEMC
From the Power Company's point of view, why should they spend money maintaining their infrastructure when instead they can put that same money towards increasing their CEO's compensation package. Am I right?!
...Shareholder value...🧟♂️🧟♂️🧟♂️
Now youre getting it
I hope this works and Mainers vote it in
Duke Energy here in Florida granted itself a 22.2% increase this year. I moved here from Oregon in 2020 and the electricity here was already double what I paid there. They claimed that Hurricane Ian did so much damage in 2022 that they needed this giant permanent raise for a storm that really only devastated one county, and once they had the problems there repaired we will go on paying this forever. Also, they carry insurance and have a fund to pay for PREDICTABLE weather events, this is Florida, there will be hurricanes. Also while they are going to state capitols and crying poor mouth to captured regulators that never said no to them in their lives they were reporting to Wall Street a 2022 record profit annual gross profit for 2022 of $18.71 billion. They claim their power rates are "competitive" and their reasoning is that per kWh charges are around 12 cents, which would be in the average range, but then there is a "fuel charge" that is even more than that. EXCUSE ME? Since when is a fuel charge for making electricity separate from the cost? Don't say it is for the delivery because there is also a base charge for that. And, the cost of their fuels has not gone up, one of the components has a little, oil, but nat gas has cratered to near all time record lows and adjusted for inflation is as cheap as it has ever been. Lies and gouging and theft, we need to nationalize the grid today! Just end private for OBSCENE profit electricity. You can tell capitalism is in its last days, it is killing itself with these insane money grabs that cannot reasonably be paid.
I feel for you... Oregon sends well wishes 🌲🍁🍂🍃🌳
@@thathobbitlife I dont. Anybody staying in Florida knows it is a craphole. Change your leadership or change your location.
Do to Mainers! Here in Florida our area is serviced by a citizen-owned company called withlacoochee River electric. We have some of the most reliable electricity in the state, and that's important during hurricane season. Let me tell you. Don't be afraid to go private. It's been done and it works.
This is called a co-op. We've been using them in rural areas for over a century, because the large corporations didn't think people in rural areas were worth the infrastructure to build out to.
So the folks in rural communities had to band together, and do it themselves.
People helping people, not billionaires getting richer.
I'm in Texas, my area gets electricity from a consumer owned electric cooperative. When you get a meter, you get a vote on the coop policies etc. Prices are reasonable. It's a rural electric cooperative that started back in 1939.
Maine resident here. The media (TV) blitz against the Pine Tree idea is INSANE! EVERY commercial break has one or more ads with that rather well-fed former CMP worker telling us how "Mainers can't afford Pine tree." and "Having politicians running your grid" is the worst thing in the world.
I was very happy to see this piece and wish you could play even a small portion on our local TV stations. Wake up fellow Mainers! Just look at your higher rates and realize that you are paying to make others in foreign countries even richer while they leave you in the dark and cold??? You know what you need to do: Vote them out!
Come to Michigan Pine Tree🙏🏼💙👍🏼! DTE is owned by shareholders here. Meaning Wall Street not Main Street . It is really disturbing that they can run ads lying to the customers. It should be fraud and liable in court👎🏼. Great news for you Maine🌎☀️💙
I live in rural Cass Co Missouri and our electricity comes from Osage Valley Electric Co- Op. I totally agree with this video. They have been very reasonable on charges, if any trouble they are right on it. So no complaints here. End of the year we even get alittle money back.👍👍
I pay more in "fee's" than what I use in actual electric cost.
Here in rural east texas, we have a member-owned coop providing power in a lot of communities. Our kw/h rates are only slightly less than the big players, but the reinvestment into the service and communities is great. All changes are decided on by elected positions amongst the membership. Honestly, compared to what we dealt with living in the metros, it’s pretty great.
I've been saying that energy should be publicly owned but we have a lot of heads to bust first
When will their greed and our anger clash? At some point this has got to end and my guess it isn't going to be pretty for the people who are ripping us off.
I think their greed and our anger does clash. On a daily basis. Every story we hear of people in mental health crisis being brutalized by police who have been called in to make someone's capital space more pleasant is an example of that clash. When we lash out, or run out of patience and discipline, and fall short of the demands of the rich we are punished for the small prick we inflict upon their margins. Their punitive measures are well in place and clash with every single inevitable moment of vulnerability.
So I don't think it's just that we're not angry enough. We're not organized enough, and therefore not powerful enough. Yet.
@@prismwing Great point. It is only a matter of time before people get organized. But how this all pans out is another matter. Clearly how we are living now is not working. We have got to change.
It doesn't though, a great example of this can be seen in Call of Duty fans.
Originally there was DLC, people warned of P2W and being sold content deliberately left out. Paying for new weapons were introduced and the games became less stable.
Then Loot Boxes came, while people spoke up and eventually the boxes left... things which originally costed 2$ now costed 20$ and the games were less stable still while reselling left out and reused content more and more. Despite as bad as Loot Boxes were Season Pass has driven people to wanting Loot Boxes back.
Despite this it is still making stupid amounts of money and able to ignore complaints due to this all while making things progressively worse and worse to make more money.
Great video! This is the same argument for community owned internet, and it works. This is also the same general argument for democratic socialism, but whatever you call it, I'm in favor of citizens being in charge of our future and not corporations. We've got a long hard fight ahead of us.
Utilities, medical services, internet, all should be nationalized.
Maybe you should move to Venezuela id you like socialism so much..
It's obvious you never had to rely on Medicare before. Nationalization guarantees nothing.
Venuzuela would be a great place to live if the US weren't funding coups there, and levying heavy sanctions on them.
Big Pharma funds the political campaigns of the politicians that legislate how Medicare operates.
There are never any downsides to central planning, nope. It will usher in the one true utopia.
My concern is simple. I like this idea a lot, but I'd like some ideas on how we can spread it in our own states. Petitions are fine, but have basically no power. And there don't appear to be options in other states similar to Pine Tree Power. If we could be told how Pine Tree Power started this (besides just mentioning the bonds) then we could start our own initiatives similar to Pine Tree Power, and ideally, send a message to PTP to work with them and co-ordinate efforts across the country. I think that'd be a lot better for us all.
The best way to do that is to help Pine Tree Power become a success.
Workers of America United!
You need to put pine tree power in the title si Maine natives will easily stumble upon this video.
Thank you, MPU.
I’ll be pissed if Maines people don’t seize this opportunity
We have the non-profit electric OPPD in Omaha, NE. So, when all these people started having these insane price hikes around the country, we only saw a 2.5% increase as the result of fuel prices.
We also have non-profit gas and water company MUD here, and I think my average monthly gas bill is under $25 throughout the year.
“When you don’t have a profit motive you can actually solve the problem of the climate crisis.” I totally agree.
Great video. My grandfather lived in Maine 1918 Roy Lancaster; does anyone remember him? My power bill went up 10 dollars a month here in Florida. But here is what we need to worry about. 33 trillion deficet or the 202 billion price tag per year for OBiden's open border policy. Illegals get FREE housing, FREE cash assistance, FREE education, FREE health care, FREE food stamps, FREE legal assistance. Paid for by U.S. tax payers who struggle to make ends meat. I'm disgusted with the current administration and political leaders today.
I agree it’s time for the government to step in ours is over 400 we are being extorted
How about we make sure that any investors have no connection to any government at all? How about Maine's utilities be taken by force from Qatar and Calgary and sold cheap to a Maine entrepreneur? Then let the entrepreneur get creative on making power more plentiful, cheaper, and reliable?
This is incredible! I wish them the best of luck!
Pine Tree Power looks like a no-brainer for Maine. Continuous upgrade of the electrical grid is absolutely essential to all consumers. We are faced with a accelerating need for safe and dependable electricity that average people can afford and as electric vehicles continue to increase in numbers, the future demand will be even greater. Unreliable access to electric power not only affects the household, but will be a major threat to transportation and people's right to mobility.
It truly sucks that foreign money bought the obeisance of Mainers. They could have saved themselves from their dark energy overlords, and instead succumbed to a deceitful ad campaign. Perhaps they need to restart this conversion to a ballot initiative about getting foreign investors out of the state, and take back the utility companies by eminent domain. Power to the people, quite literally. Viva la revolution.
Texas energy rates are increasing an average $50 per month due to the TDSP service fee increase state wide for "weatherization" starting September 2023 through March 2024. I did the math: 12,136,678 housing units in Texas times an average fee increase of $50 per home equals $606,833,900 per month. $606,833,900 times 8 months (Sept-March) equals $4,854,671,200 BILLION DOLLARS.
The energy sector donated $4.6 MILLION to Gov Abbott in 2021 after being found not liable for the the deadly freeze. Is this the fiscally conservative republican government in action? What happened to lowering utility costs, food inflation, and medical care?
(These numbers do not include private businesses, public/government buildings, hospitals, schools, et al. The increased TDSP fee (transmission and distribution service providers) will also apply to these places and easily push the total profit much, much higher. Our taxes pay for public building's air conditioning and electricity usage.)
PG&E in California might be the worst. Their poor infrastructure causes dozens of fires every summer/fall and yet they charge us double every year to collect more profit and make no upgrades to the infrastructure
Great report!
Thank you.
The city of winter park FL did this a few years ago and saved so much money they could afford to put their entire grid underground.
Another example of why capitalism needs to go away. We have an electric membership coop here, and while it has its issues, it is much better service for a more affordable price.
My electric and water combined was $530 for this month. I pay $25/month for 2 day a week removal. We only generate trash for only 1 removal every two weeks. But we still have to pay full price. $15/month for recycling removal. 1 day a week. We only generate recycling for 1 removal a month. Still have to pay full price.
My property taxes are $5200/yr. My homeowners insurance is $2900.
Our house is only 1700 sq ft. Our entire property is only 0.2 acres.
-Duval County, Florida
We don’t want to give our money away any longer.
We are renovating our home ourselves throughout the next 2 1/2 years and we are renting it out. We will be moving to rural Michigan.
I really want a concrete earth home. 😁 We’ll see if my hubby lets me have one. A girl can dream!
Great idea, just don’t come to Michigan. I live here and have for 33 years. They just keep raising prices of everything here including our utilities.
@@patb5923 Hi Pat! I grew up in Brighton and lived in Ann Arbor. Beautiful cities. My daughter just bought a home in Brighton. I can not believe how much it has changed in the last 20 something years that I’ve been gone! Can’t even buy a home in the heart of Ann Arbor for under a million. It’s unbelievable. But to be fair in haven’t lived there since the 90s.
My elders all retired from their car plants living in their modest homes. My 90yo Gma still living and in Westland, a cute home she had built up n the 60s backed up on to Hines Park. She nearly fell out of her chair a few years ago when she had it appraised for her Living Will.
We are actually looking for acreage in the northern lower. Closer to Otsego Lake/Gaylord area. But out from the city. We plan on doing the self sustaining homestead.
I have an 8 yo daughter as well and I would like her to learn to live this way. My eldest did and she’s so appreciative of this. She can handle her own. My 8 yo is Florida beach living which is fine but she’s more concerned for superficial things. I can’t blame her when that’s all that her peers in her environment are concerned for.
So there are many reasons to move back to Michigan. Most reasons are worth every dime that I’m already spending. 😆
Have a day nothing less than fantastic, Pat!
As a hostage of PG&E, we need this. In the long term, I think we need to ensure critical infrastructure is never solely in the hands of those driven purely by profit. We have very clear illustrations of the deadly results of that model.
I have a strong suspicion that PG&E's problems are not because of private ownership. Either it is owned mainly by some government entity, or Sacramento just won't let it do what it needs to do. I imagine that Sacramento environmentalists are the main reason Cali was so awash in dessicated brush that one spark was all that was needed for disaster.
In quebec, my most expensive power bill is usually in the winter months between November and January. It’s like 500 dollars, but that’s mainly because I live in a poorly insulated house. During the summer, I’ve had a power bill of 98 dollars for three months, even when I have air conditioning running 24/7. For all its flaws, hydro Quebec provides pretty good and reliable electricity.
Quebecker here too. Stupid american ideas about public/private should be blown out of the water. I m 63. Can almost count how many power failures in my whole life. Power was made public in 1963. It was taken for granted, by me anyways, but now we know this is the way to go
It’s tough up here. Last rate hike was 41% and it came only several months after another hike. They spend all the money on fights like the corridor no one wanted then hike rates for us to pay for their bad decisions and our fight against the project. Pretty sick.
Bet you wish you had Northern Pass sending cheap, renewable Canadian hydro to your home right about now…
Public owned public utilities. Who would have thought...
It's the same in the UK. Foreigners own the utilities, electricity and water and the costs to customers are crazy.
My utility is non-profit, and it's extremely reliable and reasonably priced. So I think this is a great idea. I hope that Mainers will ignore the idiotic lying commercials their utilities will slam them with - and vote in their own interest.
And shareholders shouldn't have this level of influence. This kind of thing is ruining just about every aspect of the US.