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Comment by lxe | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't sit right with me. If the goal is to reduce gasoline use by 2045, why is California also absolutely gouging people with the highest electricity cost in the country?

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California is a case study in gross over payment in utilities. From Enron, to eye-watering costs for nuclear plants, costs for fires caused by utility wire windfall, ... How about a sentence like "PG&E can decommission Diablo Canyon for $4 billion, $12 billion to keep the plant running until 2030, or $45 billion to improve and extend the life of the plant." Vast sums have been lost, both ratepayers and investors. That's one plant for one utility. There are six investor-owned utilities in California. Most states swapped coal out for natural gas, or installed wind power. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-08-25/should-...

California needs to just fully invest in nuclear. And regulate or use eminent domain to buy PG&E to socialize it. Costs would go down, executive pay would go down, reliability and issues related to forest fires would likely go down.

And they need to invest in better public transit. Imagine LA with SF-level public transit. Or SF with NYC-level public transit (or better).

LA county and the adjoining counties are roughly the same size as the Kanto Plain around Tokyo. The main difference is that Tokyo rebuilt their street car lines as heavy rail instead of turning them into automobile arterials.

And Tokyo does have highways and large streets, they just aren't in constant gridlock because people have other options (not to mention many other factors at play in Japanese car-ownership).

Tokyo was so relaxing. Greater Tokyo has the same population as the entire state of CA and yet was so quiet.

I’ve come to the conclusion that California just doesn’t want anyone to live there. Once all the people are gone, it’ll be a green utopia once again.

Incompetence is usually not intentional. For example Germany has shut down the nuclear power plants because it was important for the Greens. Instead they burn more coal now.

This is true, but Germany is quickly ramping up renewables. Recent figures show that wind and solar accounted for more than 50% of energy this summer. Winter will likely be a challenge though.

Actually, it was Merkel (CDU) who, after Fukushima, decided to shut down nuclear - in 2011.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel#Criticism

There is no gouging. Climate change and other factors have caused California to turn into a hellacious inferno in the summers due to wildfires. In response, they are burying a very large number of power lines, because they spark them. This cost is causing rates to spike, but in return, hopefully less apocalyptic summers.

What does cost structure look like? I'm sure wholesale power price is pretty similar in entire US. Californians are gouged by the distribution company, likely because overall labour cost in California.

Public transport exists.

True. Just not for the majority of the state at a usable level for the bulk of the population.

Maybe this price hike will encourage more people to ride, and the government will build more!

If we're blue skying ideals, I'd like some heavy rent control, to do away with ghost jobs and limit the time needed to interview a single candidate, remove paid lunch plans in public school system, regulate dating site algorithms, and offer an actually working rehabilitation clinic.

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