ArbitraryOrder t1_iwq3sa4 wrote
Reply to comment by owwwwwo in Eversource customers could face another rate hike as utility tries to lock in new contract by netnothing
Eversource's biggest thing fucking us over was the net metering thing about Solar Panels in 2015. And the biggest energy project which would have lowered prices throughout New England and made us less dependent on Oil/Gas, the Northern Pass, was rejected by the State of New Hampshire while supported by Eversource.
The rate hike is also done because of who supplies energy to Eversource, not because of them. Eversource makes money to transmit energy, and is just the company who collects the sale of that energy on behalf of the energy producers. These rates are also negotiated between Eversource and the Energy Producers for 6 month contracts February 1st 2022- August 1st 2022, and August 1st 2022 - February 1st 2023, and etc. This winter there is going to be a massive shortage of Oil and Gas available because of Russia invading Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on Russian Oil and Gas, which is 13.12% of global output in 2021, or 10.11 Million bbl/day out of the world's 77.04 Million bbl/day. (bbl is barrels) In Wikipedia form.
>You still didn't address Eversource making $100 million in profits over last year according to their own financial disclosures.
According to the data I found they had Net Income much higher than that, but it is across the whole of New England so keep that in mind when I show these numbers. For reference I also have Crude Oil Prices over time linked here as well.
The Data shows that even with the rate hike this isn't even close to their largest profit gain in just the last 4 years, which they made in 2020 when Oil and Gas prices were much lower.
2019:
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Eversource Net Income: -12% YOY ($0.909B)
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Eversource Operating Income: -6.44% YOY ($1.59B)
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Inflation: +2.3% YOY
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Crude Oil Prices (Avg/High/Low): $56.99/$66.24/$46.31
2020:
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Eversource Net Income: +32.57% YOY ($1.205B)
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Eversource Operating Income: +25.04% YOY ($1.989B)
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Inflation: +1.4% YOY
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Crude Oil Prices (Avg/High/Low): $39.68/$63.27/$11.26
2021:
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Eversource Net Income: +1.27% YOY ($1.221B)
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Eversource Operating Income: +0.23% YOY ($1.993B)
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Inflation: +7.00% YOY
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Crude Oil Prices (Avg/High/Low): $68.17/$84.65/$47.62
2022:
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Eversource Net Income: +17.34% YOY ($1.391B)
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Eversource Operating Income: +8.78% YOY ($2.149B)
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Inflation: +7.70% YOY
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Crude Oil Prices (Avg/High/Low): $96.82/$123.70/$76.08
The Net Income increase for this year is closely tracking with Gas Price Inflation.
>The fact that we sell our energy to our enemies before buying it back is a silly system.
If you don't sell Gas and Oil internationally you get cut off from imports, which creates supply crunches if something goes wrong. We don't have enough supply to take on OPEC+ singlehandedly in a supply shortage, let alone normally. Even if the United States can survive itself, that would really keave our allies in NATO and Asia out to dry and hurt our ability to hold our enemies accountable.
>But if I were to suggest something like nationalizing our domestic production, and creating a nationalized plan for updating our infrastructure you would also be against that.
Oil and Gas are traded globally, if we increased production, OPEC+ would just decrease it leaving us with no net gain. I don't see how nationalization of the Oil and Gas industry solves that problem. The United States only produces 14.5% of the Oil and Gas worldwide, not enough to yank down prices the way OPEC+ can raise them with their 81.5% share. Most of that OPEC+ production is owned by governments, who have the same incentive to jack up prices and increase profits just as our private companies do. They just do it for Tax Revenue rather than Shareholders' Dividends.
I supported the Infrastructure bill in Congress which for energy specifically increased building of power lines, Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Hyrdo, and Natural Gas production and leases.
>Let's be real dude. You only care about energy prices as far as it doesn't collide with your ideological predilections.
I don't see how being real about what causes prices to rise and fall is being biased. I want cheap energy as well, but we cannot get there if we don't acknowledge the conditions that make it more expensive.
owwwwwo t1_iwqm0g1 wrote
Right, we're talking about two different things here.
You believe a private, for-profit company should be allowed to keep making $100s of Millions in profits, while jacking rates up on their customers.
I think their profits (which come after expenses as you know) shouldn't be that high at a time when inflation is so high.
Since private companies have one goal, maximizing profit, their interests are at odds with their consumers who seek to have heat and electricity so they don't die.
As I said, I would nationlize our industry. That doesn't mean we pull out of OPEC. We could still participate.
But we would stop allowing private oil, gas and energy companies to hold our citizens hostage.
We already subsidize all drilling costs. These companies aren't doing anything a publicly-run utility couldn't.
As for forward-looking policy, I was thinking of ways to become truly energy independent which definitely includes renewables, but also new investiture into nuclear.
I don't care about gas prices. In fact, one of the only ways to get normal people to adjust their lifestyles would be perpetually increasing price. Which is a certainty based on the nature of the substance being non-renewable, and the way in which we go about extracting and selling it.
ArbitraryOrder t1_iwqv69m wrote
>You believe a private, for-profit company should be allowed to keep making $100s of Millions in profits, while jacking rates up on their customers.
The rates are going up because Oil and Gas supply is low which increases the costs paid by Eversource to the Power Plant. That cost is passed onto the consumer and doesn't go into Eversource's pockets.
>I think their profits (which come after expenses as you know) shouldn't be that high at a time when inflation is so high.
You realize this makes those "sky high profits" are worth less to them too, inflation hits both ways. They haven't increased the transmission charges by a large amount, which is what they profit from, so I don't see how it is all on them when both the total cost consumers pay and the change in costs are both dominated by the Power Plants and not the Utility company.
Profit motives are what drive capital investment, the goal should be to create better infrastructure, not to scare away investments and let the systematic rot. Utilities are a Rivalorus Non-Execludable good, meaning there is a limited supply but no one is excluded from practicing in it's use. Such use of Common Goods when monetary incentives are taken out become subject to the Tragedy of the Commons. Price is used to prevent overuse and shortages, to prevent the Tragedy of the Commons.
>Since private companies have one goal, maximizing profit, their interests are at odds with their consumers who seek to have heat and electricity so they don't die.
You seem angry that profit and private industry exist at all. Need I remind you that even the successful left wing countries don't nationalize most things, at most they create public-private corporations. Profit incentives are what drive investment, and that is what supplies Tax Dollars as well. You also seem to prefer shortages to high prices, which is the trade-off.
>As I said, I would nationlize our industry. That doesn't mean we pull out of OPEC. We could still participate.
First off, we ARE NOT an OPEC member. OPEC is a cartel of nations whose wealth is predominantly controlled by Oil and Gas profits, there incentive is the same as a private company, but with large militaries enforcing their will in addition to profit motives.
Second, did you not see the production numbers? No, we couldn't make a fucking dent. 81.5%, what OPEC produces, is so significantly more than the 14.5% the United States produces that we alone cannot lower Oil and Gas prices.
>But we would stop allowing private oil, gas and energy companies to hold our citizens hostage.
No we wouldn't, we we just move that power and more to Saudi Arabia's Aramco instead.
>We already subsidize all drilling costs. These companies aren't doing anything a public utility couldn't.
You are correct a government own corporation could do the same thing, but if you run it at a net loss then austerity measures hit those less well connected first.
>As for forward-looking policy, I was thinking of ways to become truly energy independent which definitely includes renewables, but also new investiture into nuclear.
I argued for this but yes it is good. It doesn't change the economic structure of Utilities.
>I don't care about gas prices. In fact, one of the only ways to get normal people to adjust their lifestyles would be perpetually increasing price. Which is a certainty based on the nature of the substance being non-renewable, and the way in which we go about extracting and selling it.
They only affect the price of food, shipping, electricity, chemicals manufacturing (medicines, plastics, electronics, etc.), phosphates for farming, etc. Oil and Gas are critically important even beyond burning for electricity and your flippant nature towards that shows your lack of practicality and obessesion with being an ideologue.
WikiSummarizerBot t1_iwqv7l0 wrote
>In economics, the tragedy of the commons is a situation in which individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use, act independently according to their own self-interest and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action. The concept originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist William Forster Lloyd, who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land (also known as a "common") in Great Britain and Ireland.
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owwwwwo t1_iwr1cgl wrote
> The rates are going up because Oil and Gas supply is low which increases the costs paid by Eversource to the Power Plant. That cost is passed onto the consumer and doesn't go into Eversource's pockets.
Right, but they have a responsibility to provide returns to their shareholders, making reduction in their profits impossible. Even if it were in the best interest of the consumer. I'm agreeing with you.
>You realize this makes those "sky high profits" are worth less to them too, inflation hits both ways. They haven't increased the transmission charges by a large amount, which is what they profit from, so I don't see how it is all on them when both the total cost consumers pay and the change in costs are both dominated by the Power Plants and not the Utility company.
I agree. We should take control of power plants. I would prefer a cooperative-ownership type model which have been proven to be more stable in their decision-making (as consumers have a say), and responsive to the needs of their communities, rather than the detached wants of stock-owners.
>You seem angry that profit and private industry exist at all. Need I remind you that even the successful left wing countries don't nationalize most things, at most they create public-private corporations. Profit incentives are what drive investment, and that is what supplies Tax Dollars as well. You also seem to prefer shortages to high prices, which is the trade-off.
I am not a Communist. I'm not in favor of the State running everything. But I am in favor of the State running things that all humans require to live, and providing for the basic needs of our citizens.
I am okay with companies selling widgets or lamps. I'm not okay with middlemen profiting off the disabled not being able to heat their homes.
>First off, we ARE NOT an OPEC member. OPEC is a cartel of nations whose wealth is predominantly controlled by Oil and Gas profits, there incentive is the same as a private company, but with large militaries enforcing their will in addition to profit motives.
Excellent attempt at a dunk. I never said the US was a member. I said we participate in the system. Which we do, as we purchase oil (as you mentioned) from that exchange.
>Second, did you not see the production numbers? No, we couldn't make a fucking dent. 81.5%, what OPEC produces, is so significantly more than the 14.5% the United States produces that we alone cannot lower Oil and Gas prices.
You're highlighting the issue, not producing a solution. Energy is going to continue to get more expensive. We can either create more of our own, use less, or buy more from elsewhere.
I see it likely being a combination of all three, with a gravitation toward the first two over time.
>No we wouldn't, we we just move that power and more to Saudi Arabia's Aramco instead.
It's funny you mention this, because Aramco is owned by the Saudi royal family, is it not? They own 100% stock I believe. And they have created a Saudi-centric energy policy. Why wouldn't we try and do the same for the US?
>but if you run it at a net loss then austerity measures hit those less well connected first.
I'm confused. Austerity as in 'removal of subsidies'?
>They only affect the price of food, shipping, electricity, chemicals manufacturing (medicines, plastics, electronics, etc.), phosphates for farming, etc. Oil and Gas are critically important even beyond burning for electricity and your flippant nature towards that shows your lack of practicality and obessesion with being an ideologue.
I'm well aware of the amount of products oil creates. Thanks for the insult though.
Many alternatives are being found to replace most of these uses, as we continue to develop new technologies.
You sound like the guy that is angry about the steam engine being put out of service.
Well guess what, we still use those too, just in different ways.
ArbitraryOrder t1_iwrjjp5 wrote
>But I am in favor of the State running things that all humans require to live, and providing for the basic needs of our citizens.
More oversight sure, but government runs Farms sound like a disaster waiting to happen. And it still doesn't protect from the main issues of supply side shortages. The reason private industry does a ton fo this stuff is because they are quicker to react because of the monetary consequences if they don't.
>I never said the US was a member. I said we participate in the system.
You said:
>>As I said, I would nationlize our industry. That doesn't mean we pull out of OPEC. We could still participate.
The United States cannot "pull out of OPEC" if they were never a part of it.
>I said we participate in the system.
We are not part of the cartel, we trade internationally but that is a tenuous "part of the system". Whatever, you probably just didn't type it how you meant to.
>I see it likely being a combination of all three, with a gravitation toward the first two over time.
Energy demand isn't going down, it's build baby build to prevent power outages. Pil is a National Security risk beyond environmental stuff
>It's funny you mention this, because Aramco is owned by the Saudi royal family, is it not? They own 100% stock I believe
It's owned by the Sovereign Wealth fund, not the family directly, but close enough. Profits fund Welfare for the citizens and infrastructure projects.
>And they have created a Saudi-centric energy policy. Why wouldn't we try and do the same for the US?
Because what benefits revenue for them doesn't meet your goals of cheaper energy.
>I'm confused. Austerity as in 'removal of subsidies'?
I meant Austerity for social services which rely on the revenues from Oil and Gas sales. My bad for not making that clear.
>Many alternatives are being found to replace most of these uses, as we continue to develop new technologies.
Not when it comes to phosphates, which is a critical fertilizer so that people don't starve from poor crop yields.
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