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Just saying (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 16 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Where I live in Scotland about 73% of electricity generated come from renewables (mostly wind and hydro). I'm hugely in favour of this, but the bills keep rising.

I firmly believe the utility companies should be nationalised. I'm not against capitalism per se, but the current setup is a racket.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Water is essential to living.
    Electricity is mostly essential.
    Why these two utilities are privately owned is beyond me.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    To pay dividends to shareholders whilst you let the utility degrade to the point where the government steps in to bail you out anyway. Perfect investment.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I really should have started a monopoly, that is 0 risk 100% reward. I mean just take the money from the government, give myself a huge bonus, and then when there is no infrastructure upgrades done, say whoops, its too expensive, get more money from the government, rinse and repeat!

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Yeah honestly even if we were at 100% renewables, the price has been set and people are used to it now. No company is going to voluntarily start discounting unless more competition enters the market to start a price war. So far most of the energy "competition" has gone bust.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    You know why right?

    The grid is constraint and because of this it makes prices really high where the congestion is. Now the logical thing is to allow a different price where there is free energy like in Scotland verse where it is constraint.

    But! The issue is where it is constraint and that's south east England. And as everyone in the country knows no one gets anything in the UK unless south east England has more of it for less.

    So higher prices in SE England is not going to happen. If it was the other way around I'm certain the government would say fuck the Scots they should have more wind power if they wanted cheap electricity.

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