"If you're wondering why power costs are going up so much recently, it's last-mile infrastructure, poles, wires, undergrounding, and transformers."
I can't get to the article (paywall) but I wonder if it says anything about two things: how much these costs were deferred in the past and ratepayers are getting slammed with them now, and how efficient power companies are at spending money. Just as an example, PG&E has had numerous crews cutting back branches in my neighborhood, but it really seems like they've been coming back more times than the poles here would require. Additionally, they did an emergency shutdown of our neighborhood to replace two poles at 5PM until 1AM. I'm sure it ran up a huge OT bill, but both poles had been reported at least a year or so ago as in need of replacement, and they came to replace the adjacent pole at a regularly scheduled time last year. Neither was at imminent threat of falling AFAICT, and weather was pretty mild before and after the replacement.
Also, *snorts in solar*.
"Interesting idea from some families in Portland, Maine: they got landlines for their kids instead of cell phones."
VOIP service that's easy to set up for kids? Even more ideally, a dumphone with WIFI that has basic calling and texting via VOIP?
Doubtless inefficiency is part of it, but to some extent that's plausibly just part of the expected cost, that large centralized pieces of infrastructure can be maintained more efficiently than last mile stuff specifically because they're so bad at it.
Yea, setting up a voip number would be a clever idea.
"If you're wondering why power costs are going up so much recently, it's last-mile infrastructure, poles, wires, undergrounding, and transformers."
I can't get to the article (paywall) but I wonder if it says anything about two things: how much these costs were deferred in the past and ratepayers are getting slammed with them now, and how efficient power companies are at spending money. Just as an example, PG&E has had numerous crews cutting back branches in my neighborhood, but it really seems like they've been coming back more times than the poles here would require. Additionally, they did an emergency shutdown of our neighborhood to replace two poles at 5PM until 1AM. I'm sure it ran up a huge OT bill, but both poles had been reported at least a year or so ago as in need of replacement, and they came to replace the adjacent pole at a regularly scheduled time last year. Neither was at imminent threat of falling AFAICT, and weather was pretty mild before and after the replacement.
Also, *snorts in solar*.
"Interesting idea from some families in Portland, Maine: they got landlines for their kids instead of cell phones."
VOIP service that's easy to set up for kids? Even more ideally, a dumphone with WIFI that has basic calling and texting via VOIP?
Doubtless inefficiency is part of it, but to some extent that's plausibly just part of the expected cost, that large centralized pieces of infrastructure can be maintained more efficiently than last mile stuff specifically because they're so bad at it.
Yea, setting up a voip number would be a clever idea.