Comment on As electric bills rise, evidence mounts that data centers share blame. States feel pressure to act

• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a great experience with government run services. Government is better at owning and setting rules about things than actually operating them. If it’s possible to have competition, then the government playing referee seems to provide a better result.

  If a monopoly is unavoidable, then yeah, the government should be that monopoly. But as long as it’s feasible to have at least three competitors, it should be privately run.

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  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Would you prefer the police and fire department were privately run?

    It would be the same service, with the same employees and facilities.

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      No, because there’s not a reasonable way for them to compete. You can’t really have multiple police forces, and they’ll be motivated to generate profit instead of protect the people.

      You can have multiple electrical suppliers. You can have a coal plant, solar and wind, and nuclear all competing for customers so they’re motivated to make their electricity more appealing. If you pair that with things like carbon taxes, people will choose the more efficient option, and you can mix and match large and small suppliers. You need a central authority to manage the infrastructure, but you can reasonably have diversity in generation.

      Just think if the average person could sell their excess solar generation (possible in some areas), their EV as battery capacity at night, etc, more people would want to generate renewable power. If you have that type of check against larger players, they’ll have to keep their prices competitive.

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  • arrow74@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    My city owns all our utilities. Works the same, arguably more reliable

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