Electric Vultures Selling Bottled Lightning

Starting in the 1980s a wave of "deregulation, competition and privatization" took over infrastructure industries. The "unbundling" of an underlying commodity from the "natural monopoly" assets is supposed to create market competition. For example, natural gas was unbundled from the pipelines and associated equipment that deliver it. This has failed for electricity systems. The overlooked basic reason for the failures is because the underlying "commodity", electrical energy, is by nature a public good, like streetlighting, radio, or satellite TV. When public goods are made to look like private goods, metaphorically bottling lightning in electricity's case, economic rents, windfall profits in plain language, are created. In Ontario the restructuring of the industry, to create a putative market, has created vultures, public and private, that feed on the rents of the carcass of the demised public monopoly, Ontario Hydro. In contrast, Ontario consumers have faced ever-increasing electricity bills. This book explains how Ontario consumers have been bamboozled and where their money has gone. Without understanding how consumers' money has been wasted there can be no corrective action.

Autorentext

Russ Houldin is a retired Ontario Public Servant. He worked on electricity policy as an advisor in the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Finance and was a staff member of the Ontario Energy Board. He has an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Master's degrees in Environmental Studies and Economics. He also teaches at the University of Toronto.

Klappentext

Starting in the 1980s a wave of deregulation, competition and privatization took over infrastructure industries. The unbundling of an underlying commodity from the natural monopoly assets is supposed to create market competition. For example, natural gas was unbundled from the pipelines and associated equipment that deliver it. This has failed for electricity systems. The overlooked basic reason for the failures is because the underlying commodity , electrical energy, is by nature a public good, like streetlighting, radio, or satellite TV. When public goods are made to look like private goods, metaphorically bottling lightning in electricity s case, economic rents, windfall profits in plain language, are created. In Ontario the restructuring of the industry, to create a putative market, has created vultures, public and private, that feed on the rents of the carcass of the demised public monopoly, Ontario Hydro. In contrast, Ontario consumers have faced ever-increasing electricity bills. This book explains how Ontario consumers have been bamboozled and where their money has gone. Without understanding how consumers money has been wasted there can be no corrective action.