boutons_deux
08-02-2012, 04:46 PM
Corruption and Mismanagement See Much of the US without Power
Americans are now being told that keeping utility bills down means keeping maintenance of the country's dismal electricity distribution system to a bare minimum. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the entire system could collapse by 2020 without an immediate investment of $673 billion. Furthermore, experts say that brownouts and blackouts will end up costing more in the end than re-hauling the entire system.
The system cannot handle increasing demand, especially when the entire country is turning on the AC. Last week's brownouts and blackouts will become status quo.
In fact, as NPR quipped, "the basic principles of power delivery haven't changed much since Thomas Edison flipped on the first commercial power grid in lower Manhattan on Sept. 4, 1882."
According to the ASCE's engineers, more than 60% of the country's electricity transmission lines and power transformers are at least 25 years old, while 60% of the circuit breakers are more than three decades old.
This is to prepare Americans for higher utility bills in the future. But it also ignores the corruption and mismanagement that has allowed privately owned power companies to profit from bare-minimum maintenance and deregulation. There is no investment in infrastructure, no guarantees of service, and continually worsening standards of safety and maintenance.
the Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco), the utility company that provides power to Montgomery County, Maryland and parts of Washington, D.C. and which was rated last year by Business Insider as "the most hated company in America". Certainly, these past days and weeks have done nothing to help that rating.
According to OurDC, from 2008 to 2010, Pepco's profit earnings were $882 million, yet they paid no federal or state income taxes and instead received $817 million in tax refunds. At the same time, local authorities allowed Pepco to cut back on maintenance to save money.
There was an attempt last year to take Pepco to task, but the result was a very public slap on the wrist. An investigating commission found that Pepco was not conducting inspections of its sub-transmission and distribution lines even after storms. It also found that the company was about four years behind on the tree-trimming necessary to ensure that the local greenery is not interfering with power lines. Pepco was made to promise a 3% increase in reliability year-on-year (beginning only next year), and it was fined a one-time fee of $1 million for failing to fix problems that led to frequent outages.
Of course, no major changes were enforced and Pepco paid lip service to the situation by submitting a five-year plan for improvements that would cost around $300 million and be passed directly on to the consumer.
http://www.altenergymag.com/emagazine/2012/07/corruption-and-mismanagement-see-much-of-the-us-without-power/1935
Expect the same results from privatization of public-financed infrastructure, esp schools, where for-profit execs get paid $Ms while the students get screwed (eg, for-profit scams like Phoenix, Kaplan, deVry, etc where credits are not transferrable and 50% of the students don't graduate but do end tatooed with taxpayer-guaranteed debt for years).
Americans are now being told that keeping utility bills down means keeping maintenance of the country's dismal electricity distribution system to a bare minimum. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the entire system could collapse by 2020 without an immediate investment of $673 billion. Furthermore, experts say that brownouts and blackouts will end up costing more in the end than re-hauling the entire system.
The system cannot handle increasing demand, especially when the entire country is turning on the AC. Last week's brownouts and blackouts will become status quo.
In fact, as NPR quipped, "the basic principles of power delivery haven't changed much since Thomas Edison flipped on the first commercial power grid in lower Manhattan on Sept. 4, 1882."
According to the ASCE's engineers, more than 60% of the country's electricity transmission lines and power transformers are at least 25 years old, while 60% of the circuit breakers are more than three decades old.
This is to prepare Americans for higher utility bills in the future. But it also ignores the corruption and mismanagement that has allowed privately owned power companies to profit from bare-minimum maintenance and deregulation. There is no investment in infrastructure, no guarantees of service, and continually worsening standards of safety and maintenance.
the Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco), the utility company that provides power to Montgomery County, Maryland and parts of Washington, D.C. and which was rated last year by Business Insider as "the most hated company in America". Certainly, these past days and weeks have done nothing to help that rating.
According to OurDC, from 2008 to 2010, Pepco's profit earnings were $882 million, yet they paid no federal or state income taxes and instead received $817 million in tax refunds. At the same time, local authorities allowed Pepco to cut back on maintenance to save money.
There was an attempt last year to take Pepco to task, but the result was a very public slap on the wrist. An investigating commission found that Pepco was not conducting inspections of its sub-transmission and distribution lines even after storms. It also found that the company was about four years behind on the tree-trimming necessary to ensure that the local greenery is not interfering with power lines. Pepco was made to promise a 3% increase in reliability year-on-year (beginning only next year), and it was fined a one-time fee of $1 million for failing to fix problems that led to frequent outages.
Of course, no major changes were enforced and Pepco paid lip service to the situation by submitting a five-year plan for improvements that would cost around $300 million and be passed directly on to the consumer.
http://www.altenergymag.com/emagazine/2012/07/corruption-and-mismanagement-see-much-of-the-us-without-power/1935
Expect the same results from privatization of public-financed infrastructure, esp schools, where for-profit execs get paid $Ms while the students get screwed (eg, for-profit scams like Phoenix, Kaplan, deVry, etc where credits are not transferrable and 50% of the students don't graduate but do end tatooed with taxpayer-guaranteed debt for years).