Now Another Left Wing Country Rations Power

[Dauphin]

I guess no one here is old enough to remember California's electrical energy crisis about 10 years ago.

Dismissable, as California is on the left coast.

[notyoueither]

Alberta's power cost went through the roof with de-regulation. Find it funny that a study that's supposedly reputable would claim the opposite.

I think that is due to a lack of competition.

Whatever it is/was, it is a massive cluster****.

The generators have been a mix of private and municipal enterprises. I don't recall the GoA being in the business of generation or distribution.

[Asher]

Then why is the GoA spending billions to build the power corridor?

[notyoueither]

My impression is that the costs of the improvements for transmission will be passed on to consumers.

My suspicion is that the improvements are a forerunner for nuclear plants in Northern Alberta so that they will have transmission capacity to the US market. The boom/bust nature of the oil sands would make nuclear a poor choice if the generators do not have access to export markets.

[notyoueither]

BTW, this will be fine so long as the exports pay for their share of the capacity built for them.

[chequita guevara]

I seem to remember rolling blackouts in California produced entirely by the power corporations in order to extort money from the state.

[ricketyclik]

I seem to remember rolling blackouts in California produced entirely by the power corporations in order to extort money from the state.

There you go - completely efficient at making money for the shareholders. Never mind that pesky provision of service, that's for commies.

[Asher]

I was going to point out that one of the reasons a state-run power grid (and companies) make sense in China is to ensure that all of their citizens have access to power. Sometimes it won't be profitable to build reliable power distribution grids to remote areas, but they need it.

[GePap]

I find the continuing faith in the idea that totally unregulated markets are the most efficient after all that has happened to be quaint.

If we were to assume that all human beings are rational decision makers who make all their economic decisions based on that rational self-interest, then fine, its a great theory. But humans most certainly do NOT make all their decisions (hell, even most of their decisions) based on reason.

The free market can only be as efficient as the beings putting it into practice.....

[Kidlicious]

This time, it's China's turn. Tell me again about you socialism works?

You might as well join the crowd DF. Soon they will be rationing in the US =- Fact!

[MrFun]

I hate liberals . . . blah, blah, blah. I think all liberals are stupid . . . blah, blah, blah. I think I'm better than everyone else because I'm conservative . . . blah, blah, blah.

Seriously - find new material, okay?

[Felch]

The free market can only be as efficient as the beings putting it into practice.....

Ditto for an unfree market. Chavez is passionate and irrational. The advantage of a free market is that one man's irrationality doesn't have an undue influence. It's an acknowledgement of the failures of people and the desire to distribute the potential for harm.

How would you feel if you were one of those rare people that is capable of rational economic decision making, and you're constantly hampered by the petty bull**** of politicians?

The free market isn't perfect, it's just less likely to catastrophically collapse than central planning, and more capable of reacting to changes in the economic circumstances. Even when it makes mistakes, it is able to compensate for those mistakes and achieve equilibrium faster than any other economic model.

[ricketyclik]

Ditto for an unfree market. Chavez is passionate and irrational. The advantage of a free market is that one man's irrationality doesn't have an undue influence. It's an acknowledgement of the failures of people and the desire to distribute the potential for harm.

How would you feel if you were one of those rare people that is capable of rational economic decision making, and you're constantly hampered by the petty bull**** of politicians?

The free market isn't perfect, it's just less likely to catastrophically collapse than central planning, and more capable of reacting to changes in the economic circumstances. Even when it makes mistakes, it is able to compensate for those mistakes and achieve equilibrium faster than any other economic model.

In other words, a free market is good at finding local optima; what it's not so good at is the big picture.

Analogy: Crossing a river via stepping stones. Free market will be best at determining which is the best/safest/easiest stone to step on to next, but government will be the one say "No, we have to take these few hard steps in order to reach that series of rocks over there that will actually get us to the other side".

In other words, free market, while highly efficient, is purely reactive, with no real planning capability. This can lead up blind alleys and potentially get us in to serious trouble, vis GFC, global warming.