Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Maine's Radical Solution to the Energy Crisis" video.

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.
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@kennethmoses4900 We could put the maintenance of the lines up to competitive bidding and pair that with stiff penalties for failing to perform. It's the model that Hong Kong uses for their subway system. The government built the system and a private company handles the actual running of it and maintenance. There are stiff penalties for even minor outages and roughly 95% of trips end within a few minutes of when the time table says they should.
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@007kingifrit That works for the internet, but only because of how the system works. Power companies route power from whatever facilities are generating it to the customer. It can be extremely expensive to build new generation capacity.
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@nobodyimportant2470 The way it's currently done makes more sense. The electric company buys power from other companies if they are short, which means that areas that can generate more power can sell the surplus to other areas. As long as you're not in Texas, in which case, you're basically screwed if they don't have enough because they aren't connected to anybody else.
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The same reason that Rupert Murdoch was allowed to own a media conglomerate, corruption.
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In the US, it depends where you are, around here the city owns the electric company and while rates have been going up a lot, it's mostly to fund modernization efforts and deal with the dams that are being torn down to help rehabilitate the fisheries.
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There are different models, but a lot of that has to do with the way the privatization is handled. There commonly aren't a lot of restrictions or tools put into place to ensure that price gouging doesn't result.
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@gregorymalchuk272 This isn't a large enough portion of the US for that to be a risk and with the exception of Texas and Hawaii the rest of the states have some sort of connection to a power grid outside their area where they can buy electricity if they aren't generating enough. Plus, from what I can tell, the residents aren't getting the service that they paid for as it is.
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@ThisIsATireFire Yes, although they have been in the process of decommissioning some of them to help with the salmon. But, the state does commonly export electricity to other states.
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