Bernie Sanders Calls To Seize the Means of Electricity Production

[Uncle Joe]

A year after a neglected Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) power line sparked a wildfire that tore through northern California, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday visited Chico, Calif., where many who fled the fire made a new home. He held a town hall the same day he released a new climate plan, in which he declared that the days of investor-owned utilities—with their profit incentives to underinvest in the electric grid and double down on fossil fuels—have to end.

(snip)

The for-profit companies that reign over our energy system now have shown no meaningful sign of being willing to transform our energy system; they are much more interested in shareholder gains and business as usual. Together, for-profit utilities and fossil fuel companies have created powerful political-economic machines across the country to solidify the status quo of extraction and extortion. In contrast, democratic public ownership of our energy system could prioritize community benefit over profit, paving the way for a just and equitable energy system.

(snip)

His plan comes as public power ownership campaigns mobilize across the country. California’s movement took off after the state’s largest for-profit utility, PG&E, requested a bailout after the fire forced the utility to declare bankruptcy under the weight of liability claims. Communities across the state are now demanding public ownership, and the company’s hometown of San Francisco has begun looking into municipalization.

In New York, in the midst of a July heat wave, Con Edison sacrificed low-income communities of color in Brooklyn by cutting their power to avoid a larger blackout. Residents responded with outrage, and Mayor Bill de Blasio, another presidential contender, called for kicking out the utility in favor of public ownership.

(snip)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/22025/bernie-sanders-calls-to-seize-the-means-of-electricity-production-climate

[brooklynite]

1. What do they call it when the State owns the means of production?

There's a word, but I can't put my finger on it...

[Uncle Joe]

2. Tennessee, Nebraska and more.

(snip)

Sanders’ plan envisions harnessing and expanding the four already-operating federal Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), as well as creating a fifth PMA, to build out renewable energy. It would inject $1.52 trillion into renewable energy expansion and $852 billion into energy storage, working particularly with publicly or cooperatively owned utilities. By 2035, this plan would essentially decommodify energy generation through the federal authorities. Unlike the TVA of the past, designed largely for the benefit of white men in search of work in the South, the entire plan is based on the Jemez Principles of environmental justice that focus on bottom-up organizing and including all people in decision-making.

At the municipal, district and state levels, Sanders explicitly commits to supporting the growth of public and co-op utilities. Already, public and cooperatively owned utilities serve 49 million people in the United States, at lower costs and with generally more reliable service. In fact, the entire state of Nebraska runs fully off of public power after the state expelled the for-profit utility in the 1940s because of its extortionist rates. Unlike their for-profit counterparts, these entities are ultimately beholden to the public and any profits are reinvested into the community’s schools, parks and public services. This plan would help this sector expand its reach and invest more in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and much more.

It also provides express assistance to states and municipalities so they could start their own democratically owned utilities—ones driven by the public interest and a climate-resilient future. This could be key for places like New York or Chicago that are starting the process of taking over their utility, seeking guidance and expertise throughout the process. By taking energy utilities into public ownership, we can catalyze renewable energy deployment at the same time we redistribute wealth and power.

Sanders’ plans for public ownership don’t stop at electricity. He would also allocate funds to massively increase public broadband projects to give people access to a new and necessary public good: the internet. An estimated 19 million people, largely located in rural America, still do not have access to broadband. He offers a vision for integrated and effective local public transportation systems with high-speed rail connections. He stresses the importance of building high-quality, low-carbon-footprint public housing, as well as weatherizing already-standing homes to end energy poverty. The plan reinstates the federal Civilian Conservation Corps jobs program to restore our public lands. It invests dramatically more in public regional development agencies like the Appalachian Regional Commission. It even creates spaces for cooperatively owned grocery stores to facilitate local agriculture not held hostage by monopolies like Monsanto.

(snip)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/22025/bernie-sanders-calls-to-seize-the-means-of-electricity-production-climate

[NNadir]

12. Bernie Sanders represents the ONLY state...

...in the Union that produced sufficient electricity for its own use without the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

This is no longer true and Sanders thought this was a good idea, to generate this awful state of affairs.

Now, like the rest of the country, Vermont's electricity is generated by burning dangerous fossil fuels and dumping the waste directly in the planetary atmosphere.

Dogma doesn't work. I note that Sanders plan calls for more wires, more interconnects, more land use and more dependence on natural gas.

This would not make California or any other place on the planet safer. The opposite is true.

What Bernie Sanders knows about energy and climate change is roughly equivalent to what Bill Barr knows about protecting equal opportunity under the law, essentially zero.

[thesquanderer]

16. re: "Sanders thought this was a good idea, to generate this awful state of affairs."

This is news to me, do you have a link to support that?

[NNadir]

19. It's not news to me.

I spend most of my free time when not engaged in family studying energy and the environment.

[thesquanderer]

20. I'm asking for any evidence that Sanders supported moving to fossil fuels in VT. (nt)

[NNadir]

21. Google is your friend.

Google Bernie Sanders and Vermont Yankee.

Doing so will show Sanders glee at making Vermont dependent on dangerous fossil fuels.

[thesquanderer]

37. Thanks, I would not have known to google "Vermont Yankee." That said...

...this shows that Sanders was in favor of closing the nuclear plant. It does not say he supported increased use of fossil fuels. (His own text on the matter supports other alternative energy sources.)

I don't think it is fair to paint every opponent of nuclear power--or of a specific nuclear plant--as a proponent of burning fossil fuels, even though there may be a relation between the two things.

I also did not find "Sanders glee at making Vermont dependent on dangerous fossil fuels." Maybe I didn't hit the right link, but I checked a few of the top hits.

[NNadir]

38. To be against nuclear power is coterminous with being in favor of...

...the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

There are NO exceptions.

[thesquanderer]

39. Not everyone is as dogmatic about that correlation as you are.

I don't think you should automatically bash any Dem who is against nuclear power. There are quite a few of 'em.

And certainly, being gleeful (or even merely happy) about closing a nuclear plant, does not mean one is gleeful about using more fossil fuel. And some nuclear plants pose a greater risk than others (based on things like the age of the plant, the density of surrounding population, and viability of evacuation routes). So one can even be for closing SOME plants but not ALL of them.

[NNadir]

41. I wouldn't call 30 years of spending many hours in academic libraries studying energy and...

Last edited Thu Aug 29, 2019, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

...the environment being dogmatic.

For the record, before I was a scientist, I actually believed the bull Bernie Sanders is handing out, but I changed my mind.

I'm a scientist, and as a scientist, I just don't generate my opinions on what is popular in a group with which I otherwise agree, in this case, the Democratic Party, but am cognizant of facts.

I may contrast this with Bernie Sanders, who has been repeating the damn same thing for at least half a century without ever, not once, opening a science book.

There may have been Republicans once upon a time who were caught up in issues of military preparedness and free market economies (the latter once included Elizabeth Warren) who spoke to their fellow Republicans to protest creationism in schools. These people demonstrated some integrity.

If my party is right, I'm ready to stand up and cheer, and about many (but not all) things we are right, although less so than we used to be. But the task is not to engage in lock step rigor to stupid ideas, even the majority of members of our party embrace them. A classic example of bad thinking is the "Bandwagon fallacy."

Do you know why I support Elizabeth Warren? It's not because she's embraced nuclear power, or any other policy with which I agree, and it's not because she has announced policies that I also endorse.

It's because of her demonstrated capacity to look at the facts, and do so with raw intelligence, and change her mind.


The anti-nukes in this party are committing a crime against all future generations. Whether they do so with good intentions, reality is reality and what they are doing is destroying a future that did not belong to them, this out of ignorance. Anti-nukism kills people, since people die in heat waves, and seven million people die every year from air pollution.

Now let's talk about so called "renewable energy."

We have, in the last 10 years, spent over two trillion dollars on solar and wind. (See the link below.) This is more than the GDP of India, a nation with more than a billion people in it. How's it working out?

We hit 415 ppm of CO2 in the planetary atmosphere this spring. In the 20th century the average rate of increase in the dangerous fossil fuel waste was as follows:

1961-1970: 0.898 ppm/year on average.
1971-1980: 1.339 ppm/year on average.
1981-1990: 1.554 ppm/year on average.
1991-2000: 1.541 ppm/year on average.

In the age of the rise of anti-nukism beginning with Germany:

2001-2010: 2.038 ppm/year on average.
2011-2018: 2.418 ppm/year on average.

Are we tired of so much winning yet? Do we care a shred for the planet we are leaving behind for our children, our grandchildren and their great grandchildren?

Elizabeth Warren is an outlier in my generation, she thinks, she studies, and decides on who she is based on what she sees as facts.

Sanders, on the other hand, simply repeats the same slogans, year after year after year after year.

Are you sure you want to lecture me on dogma?

More reality, as opposed to repeating the same rhetoric over and over and over again:

In this century, world energy demand grew by 164.83 exajoules to 584.95 exajoules.

In this century, world gas demand grew by 43.38 exajoules to 130.08 exajoules.

In this century, the use of petroleum grew by 32.03 exajoules to 185.68 exajoules.

In this century, the use of coal grew by 60.25 exajoules to 157.01 exajoules.

In this century, the solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy on which people so cheerfully have bet the entire planetary atmosphere, stealing the future from all future generations, grew by 8.12 exajoules to 10.63 exajoules.

10.63 exajoules is under 2% of the world energy demand.

2018 Edition of the World Energy Outlook Table 1.1 Page 38 (I have converted MTOE in the original table to the SI unit exajoules in this text.)

I'm sorry but facts matter.

In science, if the experiment gives a different result than what the theory predicted, we don't repeat the experiment over and over and over and over, at any expense, hoping we'll get a different result.

I generally direct people to my journal here with references to the primary scientific literature, but I was recently informed that it's too rich and too thick to wade through, a valid complaint. Nevertheless, it contains hundreds upon hundreds of references to the primary scientific literature on energy and the environment.

I don't blather slogans. I work.

Since my journal is thick and desultory, I will instead direct you to a writing on another website I did some years back. It's a little dated, and some of the links in the references have died, but it reflects what I believe is a serious and studied view on energy and ethics:

Current Energy Demand; Ethical Energy Demand; Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come

Since I have worked very, very, very hard, on my own time to understand energy, and started with the absurd idea, as a political leftist, that so called "renewable energy" was a good thing, but changed my mind because of results and study, it is probably ungenerous to describe what I think as "dogma."

Here's a clue for Bernie Sanders, not that Bernie Sanders is interested in anything but repeating what he said 40 years ago, when he was young enough to be naive and clueless: So called "renewable energy has not worked; it is not working and it won't work.

It's not renewable; it's not sustainable; and as such, it represents a crime against all future generations because they will not only have to clean up our garbage in the atmosphere and on the land and in the seas, but they will have to do in conditions of poverty because resources have been squandered.

I'm not interested in being popular; I'm not interested in ideology and marching lockstep on paths that are wrong and develop momentum on their own, such momentum that they cannot be questioned.

Climate change is not a joke to be addressed "by 2050" or "by 2100" or any other "by such and such" that politicians and airheads at ignorance organizations like Greenpeace hand out with contempt for future generations, blithely claiming that our grandchildren will gladly and blithely do that which we had no proof we could do ourselves.

It is the most serious risk to humanity not just in our times, but in all times. The seas are dying; the air is dying; the land is dying and we're asleep at the wheel, they on the right with denial, and we on the left with mindless wishful thinking.

The link on the money squandered on so called "renewable energy:" The UNEP Frankfurt School Report, issued each year: Global Trends In Renewable Energy Investment, 2018

The link on the deaths associated with air pollution while we all wait for the renewable energy nirvana that never came, is not here, and will not come:

The most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.

I produced above the link to the World Energy Outlook, a publication of the International Energy Agency.

To find out about the acceleration of the rate of decay of the atmosphere, the following graphic from the NOAA Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory says it all:



The absolute numbers can be discerned by calculating from data on the Mauna Loa website's data pages:

CO2 Observatory Data Pages

[George II]

45. People would be shocked to learn, or refuse to accept, that nuclear power is....

...the most efficient, cleanest, least expensive, and SAFEST power production methods of all.

[thesquanderer]

46. None of that counters the fact that sometimes it makes sense to close a nuclear plant...

...and that doesn't have to make you gleeful about possibly using more fossil fuel as a result.

Or are you saying it never, ever makes sense to shut down a nuclear plant?

[NNadir]

50. It is a crime to shut a functional operative nuclear plant by appeals to ignorance.

Vermont Yankee was licensed to operate for decades after it was shut by appeals to ignorance.

It was licensed to operate until 2032. It shut in 2014.

I also note that Bernie Sanders wants to shut every nuclear plant in the United States. This is an abysmal position that would, if enacted, kill people with air pollution and climate change.

It would be interesting to compare the number of deaths attributed to the operations of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, which began operations in 1972 and operated for approximately 42 years and the number of deaths from air pollution in Vermont from burning "renewable" wood over the same period.

Vermont Government Site On Wood Burning and Health

A little less than half of the seven million air pollution deaths worldwide each year are from the combustion of "renewable" biomass.

There has been a considerable effort in Vermont to improve the quality of the stoves sold there, but they are still sources of dangerous pollution. Of course, there is a lot of wood in Vermont, especially because so many mountain roads have been cut through the forests to make access roads for trucks servicing all those wind turbines that will be rotting and useless hulks in less than 20 years, when the trucks may come and haul them away.

The nuclear plants in the United States, which have been saving lives for decades, were all built on 1950's and 1960's technology. It is a tribute to the engineers who built them that they served so well, this in an atmosphere of mindless caterwauling by people who despise science and engineering. They were built largely without routine access to advanced computational analysis. Of course, many of the initial designers were Nobel Laureate quality people, not people who got their educations reading placards at anti-nuke demonstrations.

(It would be interesting if Bonnie Raitt were as inclined to listen to Glenn Seaborg's thoughts on playing the slide guitar inasmuch as she feels she could talk down to Seaborg about his Nobel quality work and his work on bringing nuclear power to the United States.) I note that Raitt's anti-nuclear concerts with other scientific geniuses like say, Jackson Browne, feature amplifiers burning tens of thousands of watts of electricity, often at night when all those solar cells that were supposed to save us are inoperative.)

Since Bernie Sanders knows exactly zero about engineering, he certainly doesn't recognize any of the advances made in nuclear engineering since the 1960's. He doesn't care. He claims he knows everything there is to know. (I wonder if he knows how to play the slide guitar?)

Contempt for science and engineering will not save the world.

[thesquanderer]

56. I never defended closing Vermont Yankee (I don't know anything about it)

My points are:

* sometimes it can make sense to close a plant (not commenting on whether it made sense for VY)

and

* closing a plant for whatever reason (good or bad) doesn't mean one is gleeful about burning more fossil fuel. One can be promoting other sources of energy. One can be, as you suggest, misinformed about the danger of nuclear (whether at a specific site or in general). There is no automatic equation between wanting a plant closed and being happy about using fossil fuels. Even if closing a plant does result in burning more fossil fuel, as in many things in life, people often choose (rightly or wrongly) what they feel is the less bad of two bad options.

You posted a lot of interesting info, though, thanks. I'm just sensitive to disparaging any of our candidates with motives or perspectives that they have never actually put forth.

[NNadir]

70. I agree with your first statement, but in the case of the second...

...if Mr. Sanders was gleeful about closing Vermont Yankee, and he had zero information where the energy would come from to replace it - it produced more than 70% of Vermont's electricity in a single small building - one follows from the other.

Ignorance, even massive ignorance, is no excuse, particularly when it's deliberate ignorance.

If Mr. Sanders were interested in energy, if he were interested in climate change - he's neither - he would look into it.

If I fire a gun indiscriminately and claim that I didn't know that it would land in someone's lung tissue, am I innocent?

He cannot, should not, be excused.

[thesquanderer]

71. If you fire a gun without expecting to hit someone, and you end up hitting someone...

...you can be unhappy about hitting someone, even if you were happy about firing the gun.

One can be happy about a plant closing without being happy about burning more fossil fuels.

Regardless of any of this, the reason it closed was because it was no longer profitable. See:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/entergy-to-close-decommission-vermont-yankee-221304391.html

So I'd say that anyone being happy or unhappy about it is besides the point. That is, it was going to close regardless.

[Tiggeroshii]

51. Nuclear power creates enormous amounts of dangerous waste that we still don't understand how to

properly dispose of. MOre nuclear power plants also created enormous environmental and ecological disasters that we have still been recovering from for decades. Nuclear power is not conterminous with being in favor of the use of fossil fuels. Goodness!

[mr_lebowski]

57. I can almost guarantee that NNadir's next missive will explain to you how there's no such thing

as 'nuclear waste'.

Be prepared for another dense read ... I tend to believe he knows what he's talking about, myself.

[NNadir]

63. Really? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't air pollution waste?

Which kills more people, dangerous fossil fuel waste, air pollution, or used nuclear fuel.

19,000 people will die today from air pollution.

How many people have died from the storage of used nuclear fuel over more than half a century.

I know far more about nuclear fuel than any member of the Sanders camp, since I regularly open science books and because facts and human lives matter to me.

[TexasTowelie]

59. Yeah.

I've kept up with current events so that I knew that you were referring to Vermont Yankee.

[NNadir]

69. From what I see, you keep up with a lot of things.

It's impressive.

[George II]

44. Vermont even "imports" electricity from Quebec.

[RandiFan1290]

3. Like Norway? nt

[oasis]

6. "Seize"?

That's a word that won't go over well in certain quarters.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I agree, private utilities which for all practical purposes are monopolies

have been seizing precious resources from the states and people they're purported to serve while under investing in their own upkeep, no doubt because they believe the federal or state government will bail them out if things get too bad.

Essentially in most locations they are "too big to fail" holding the people by the short hairs.

[ehrnst]

14. It'll be a gift to the GOP, though. (nt)

[FoxNewsSucks]

23. Might want to look at the article.

The word "seize" appears only in the title. There's no quote provided where Sanders uses that term.

I agree that monopolistic utilities that are necessities should be publicly-owned.

[FoxNewsSucks]

24. Check the article.

There's no quote of Sanders using the word "seize". It's only in the sensationalistic title.

One can only wonder what the slant of the author might be. . .

[oasis]

28. No doubt the use of that particular word is a subtle dig at Bernie.

I guess that's the breaks An old poet put it this way:

"The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. And all your piety and wit can't call it back to cancel half a line...nor all your tears wash out a word of it".

[crazytown]

62. Seize-The-Plant

[oasis]

66. Ouch! nt

[TheFarseer]

35. Amazing that my idiot state (NE)

Thinks that public utilities are awesome but government is bad and can’t do anything right At least anyone who proposes selling the utilities is quickly shouted down.

[George II]

43. I don't know....let me think about it too. Oh wait, maybe this guy can tell us:

[DBoon]

54. You mean like municipally owned electric utilities in Los Angeles

and many other cities?

It was called "progressivism" in the early 20th century and was a very popular political position.

Do you have a problem with the many government owned utilities in this country?

[ancianita]

4. Nationalizing. As in the not-for-profit overall good of the nation.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Public utilities would have a much greater interest in investing in their communities

and energy efficiency rather than the for profit models beholden to disconnected shareholders, primarily interested in making profits.

I believe public utilities are and would be more beholden or accountable to the people they actually serve.

[ancianita]

9. Their neglect of proper equipment safety maintenance has caused too much public catastrophe. It's

time for the public to run its energy and take responsibility for its safety.

Corporations never serve. Corporations offer something. Sometimes what they develop is a public good. Sometimes the "service" becomes a public necessity, like with food, and corporations forget the public good in favor of their own.

Food, energy, education and health systems do the greatest good for the greatest number.

Public ownership of deteriorating systems increases its autonomy, which is a good thing.

[luvtheGWN]

11. Absolutely correct, Uncle Joe.

When the goal is to make enough in order to pay for repairs, updates, new methods of power generation etc., and NOT to line shareholders' pockets, then everyone wins. My province can attest to that.

[FoxNewsSucks]

25. I moved to a place with a municipal utility

3 years ago. My bill is a lot lower, and customer service is a lot better than any place I've lived before.

[yardwork]

5. Seize?

[betsuni]

10. Dramatic!

[ehrnst]

13. Yes, that'll be all over GOP attack ads. (nt)

[oldsoftie]

15. Bad ideas & terms are the gifts that keep on giving.

Dont HAND it to them.

[dalton99a]

36. +1

[Eric J in MN]

33. He didn't say that.

Bernie’s plan: “The Department of Energy will provide technical assistance to states and municipalities that would like to establish publicly owned distribution utilities or community choice aggregation programs in their communities.”

https://berniesanders.com/issues/the-green-new-deal/

[ehrnst]

17. Interesting that he puts the plan out the day after Inslee, the 'climate candidate" drops out.

https://medium.com/johnhickenlooper/governor-hickenloopers-bold-global-plan-to-combat-climate-change-ab47df798792

[betsuni]

22. Seven minute abs habit.

[Demsrule86]

18. That is just disastrous...he should never say anything like this ...never never and never.

Seize as in take as in communism.

[Eric J in MN]

32. Bernie didn't say that.

The headline writer is using communist terminology, not Bernie.

Bernie’s plan: “The Department of Energy will provide technical assistance to states and municipalities that would like to establish publicly owned distribution utilities or community choice aggregation programs in their communities.”

https://berniesanders.com/issues/the-green-new-deal/

[yardwork]

34. Perhaps the OP would consider a correction.

[Turbineguy]

26. Souinds like he's now

trumps new best friend.

[stonecutter357]

27. wow

[NYMinute]

29. This is what communist countries do

He already wants to "seize" banks and insurance companies. Now utilities. Pretty soon the tech industry, the auto industry and retail. Seize, seize, seize.

GOP is cheering with joy saying "Go BS, GO!"

[RandiFan1290]

30. Like Norway?

[NYMinute]

31. USA is not Norway

Comparing them is ludicrous.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

53. Norway didn't "seize" the means of its oil production.

The country originally owned the rights to the oil under its waters in the North Sea, and the government authorized the creation of an exploration company in the '70s. The government now owns about two-thirds of the stock in Equinor, the oil exploration company, and the rest is publicly traded. The company was privatized and became a public limited company in 2001, further reducing the government's percentage of shares and listing the stock on the Norwegian and New York Stock Exchanges. It's actually quite a capitalist endeavor.

[RandiFan1290]

60. Cool story

Bernie didn't say "seize" either

[jalan48]

40. The Government stole the means of production here in the Northwest decades ago-hydro power-

and the citizens have been loving it ever since.

[NYMinute]

42. How long before we have rationing of electricity and gasoline?

[floppyboo]

47. It already is being rationed. The publicly owned Hydro of British Columbia is sold to the US

And so is the publicly owned water, going all the way down to Palm Springs.
And gasoline used to be shipped into the US from Venezuela to cities suffering privatization.

Don't worry!

[NYMinute]

49. It is not being rationed at all

Just because American companies are buying water and power doesn't mean they are rationing their product.

Meh

[floppyboo]

58. I consider a for-profit control of these natural resources rationing.

Guess we have a different way of looking at it.

[NYMinute]

61. Yes ... I am pro Free Markets

In free markets, people have abundant supply.

I have experienced socialist economies where there are bread lines, milk lines and chronic shortages of basic essentials.

PS -- Norway, Sweden and Denmark are free market economies where there is robust capital formation and revenue growth. They are not socialist. Nothing is rationed in Scandinavia.

[DBoon]

55. We have had municipally owned electric utilities for over a century

so far none have resorted to rationing.

Maybe we should wait another century just to be sure.

[George II]

48. That business about Con Edison "cutting" power in Brooklyn to avoid a larger blackout....

...has been proven false. They reduced power in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx AND affluent neighborhoods of Manhattan to relieve the stress on the system. "Brownouts" have been used all over the country for decades to reduce stress on the system during peak usage periods.

Any blackouts in any of those neighborhoods were due to power failures, just like the big one in Manhattan. NONE were intentional.

These facts are easy to find within moments on Google.

[Joe941]

52. Bernie makes a good point. Thanks for the story.

[Uncle Joe]

65. Thank you Joe.

[ecstatic]

64. Those companies are supposed to be regulated,

monitored and tracked. Wouldn't any issues be due to California's public service commission not doing its job properly? Which also implies it wouldn't be run that much better under state control?

[LincolnRossiter]

67. How about no.

NT.

[Politicub]

68. Good. I'm tired of being gouged by the electricity providers

And I would like to see a national authority mandate use of solar and wind as replacements for fossil fuel.