Saturday, December 01, 2012
A bit of sanity
NPR contrasts two NJ towns that got similar destruction from Superstorm Snooki. Summit was "served" by a for-profit electric company, and Madison is one of the few remaining cities that maintain a municipal electric utility. Madison recovered quickly because....
Madison Mayor Robert Conley says the operation is tiny, but it does have some advantages over crews from bigger utilities who may never have worked in the area before. "[Our crews] work on our four square miles on the sunny days," Conley says. "So when the storms come, they know our territory inside and out. They know where the trouble spots are. They know exactly where to go to."This is one of Polistra's favorite points. Separate municipal utilities not only work better, they used to bring in significant revenue for cities. Many Midwest cities didn't have to charge any taxes because their electric utilities were profitable. Share-based electric companies only care about maximizing share value. Toward that end, they minimize trivial stuff like employees and wires and poles in order to put all their effort into buying subsidies from CongressMart. Localize! Decentralize! Close the loop!
Labels: Heimatkunde, the broken circle
¶ 3:51 AM
