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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

I would gladly pay double for the price of electricity (or more precisely double for the transmission component of the bill), maybe even triple if you give me a hard sale. The past few falls I've been breathing in air that's more polluted than Chinese air. The reason is because PG&E doesn't have enough money to invest in infrastructure because the rates are kept low by state regulators who only see "cheap power" as their mandate.

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>that's more polluted than Chinese air.

What city is this? The US doesn't have a single city in the top 500. China makes up about half of the list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-polluted_cities_b...

Maybe parent was in LA during the forest fires last summer? It can get up there even if only for a few weeks.

They said the past few falls though.

SF during the recent wildfires caused by faulty PG&E infrastructure (local power utility) had the worst air quality index in the world, far beyond any Chinese (or Indian/Pakistani for that matter) city.

If PG&E didn't start the fire something else would have.

The past few falls though?

Bay Area power is hardly cheap. In the highest tier I'm paying $0.50/kWh base rate is about $0.20/kWh. The US average is $0.12/kWh. So I don't think the problem is PG&E offering electricity that is too cheap.

I mean, if you have the income to cover for double the electricity rate, than you would likely be required to pay more in taxes or other costs to ensure that your less fortunate neighbor can afford it and to ensure that the factory that employees 300 employees can remain competitive by giving them electricity grant. I also hope that you can get the whole neighborhood to buy into the idea for the sake of improving the air quality. As you can see, there is a lot of other variables that have to be accounted for, although I agree that we should strive for better air quality.

My monthly electricity bill is $25-$30 a month. Heck, my cellphone bill is more than this. I’m not sure what the price of clean air is, but paying a multiple of this amount doesn’t seem like something that would break the bank.

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