Eh, but we should not leave people without basics of civilization. Yes, it’s a subsidy, but benefits outweigh hoarding of wealth.
And I assume your food would be conjured magically?
Rural areas aren't just a farm all by itself. Farmers need schools, stores, supplies, workers, you know, rural areas.
As well, when we electrified our nations, most people lived on farms. At the start of the 20th, as an example, most Canadians lived in rural areas. The reverse is now true.
This conversation is absurd. Hydro Quebec runs power lines through areas far more rural than California, through weather more severe and wide ranging, over greater distances, with more wild land, and just as much danger of fire. It does so at the cheapest rates, shows a profit, maintaining its lines and clearing vegetation.
PG&E is a pathetic company, and if people look outside of California, you can see how cheap rural electrification is
Really, cities cost more to electrify. Burying lines is mega expensive, stringing power lines on poles os quiet cost effective. You can easily run miles of lines, for the cost of a crew digging up a street and repaving.
Lastly, rural people pay for hookups. Each house often pays thousands per pole.
It also has massive snowstorms, ice storms, which bring down vegetation, and ranges from -40F up to 100F yearly, depending.
We can nitpick on specifics, but by no means is California more rural, or more forested. Quebec is also far less populous, and has a far more hostile environment.
Hydro Quebec does well, because vegetation is cleared, maintenance is performed, and corners aren't cut.
Unlike PG&E.
Isn't this my point? It is practical to punch transmission lines through any place. It is much more difficult, risky, and costly to maintain a fractal distribution network to individual customers in certain places due to geography and climate. If you parachute randomly into Quebec you'd be walking for a month before you met anyone. Same is not true in California.
Less populous can also mean more rural, and that was my point.
You talk about houses in the middle of no-where, and Quebec has that in spades. And it's not expensive, it doesn't cost, it's revenue generating, and not part of the problem.
If Quebec can do it, generate massive profits, and have mega-low rates, and do rural far better than California, then "rural" isn't the issue.
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw?type=fdr&year=2024&mon...
Don’t make shit up. Quebec fire risk is much, much lower than California. Both companies have to maintain vegetation around the lines. HQ’s risk of vegetation outages is outages for some customers on a feeder. California’s is the state burns down. It’s just not remotely the same.
I’m willing to believe HQ does it better but the challenges ahead of them are wayyyy different