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Very thought-provoking. I was always taught that the main rationale behind regulated public utilities was to 1) prevent the sort of chaos that emerged when competing entities all started stringing-up/digging-in redundant infrastructure, and 2) prevent consumers from being price-gouged. The common denominator appears to be when a service becomes "essential" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility .

Railroads were a capitalist free-for-all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania , literally propelling the Industrial Revolution, but also leaving tons of redundant capacity in its wake. It was largely nationalized, and then slowly privatized, with generally negative outcomes.

Telephony was a regulated monopoly (commonly owned by national post offices) for decades, and most were broken up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System , However, even though telephone and data backbone infrastructure has remained in flux, requiring continuous upgrades, the consumer is definitely better off than when a three-minute 'phone call from New York to San Francisco cost $500 in 1915. So positive outcomes.

In light of how badly privatization has gone in other regulated public utilities (as you point out, notably water), perhaps electricity generation is a special case. Could that be the result of a more developed and interconnected grid where the technology doesn't really change that much over the decades (other than needing more of it), which might more easily allow investments to be targeted at productive capacity ... even single generating plants?

P.S. I am currently also fascinated by moves on the part of "hyperscalers" now anticipating their massive future power requirements and deciding to invest directly in nuclear power plants themselves https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/ and this https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpowered-data-center-from-talen/ . "Screw it, we need our own power plant!"

P.P.S. If nuclear power hadn't been abandoned, Germany could've reduced emissions 73% 2002-2022 instead of just 25%, plus the "Energiewende" cost almost €700 billion (!), which could've been half that with the aid of nuclear in the power mix https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642#abstract . "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" indeed.

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yet, where do the consumers come out ahead? and all the other biz that depend on reliable power?

texas, with the rare test lab of running its own grid and pro-deregulation, had its population suffer far beyond lower prices.

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