I hope you good folk will excuse me for going over some history that most of you likely know, but there may be a few readers that are not aware of the history of Utility Regulation in the US. Please put up with me and excuse an old mans ramblin's.
In the past the various Utilities, Power Companies, were granted a monopoly in a given area but in return, the rates they charged were based on a guaranteed rate of return on their investment. They were told that they would make a certain percentage of profit based on what they invested in infrastructure and in return, they agreed to provide service to everyone in the area.
The result of that policy was that service was extended into rural areas where the density of customers was actually too low to make it economically feasible, because that cost simply went into the "Investment" and they were assured of getting the same rate of return on ten miles of plant that served one customer as the ten miles of plant that served 100.
The only way that the Utility could generate additional revenue though was by investing in infrastructure. Plant, infrastructure, power lines, generating stations, sub stations, transformers, all were a profit center. The more plant, the more redundancy, the newer the equipment, the more the Utility made in absolute dollars.
Then came deregulation. Suddenly the source of revenue changed from the investment in infrastructure to the number of customers. Infrastructure was moved from being the source of revenue, to a cost.
The result has been a sea change in attitude regarding infrastructure. In the past it was advantageous to have as over engineered an infrastructure as possible. Today the attitude is that infrastructure needs to be just good enough to get by.
Returning to time changes.
Today the US infrastructure (not just power but also roads, railways, bridges, dams, waterways and others) is simply marginal. We no longer have the advantages we once had. We are very close at all times to breakdown. If changing the time can make even a very small change, say 1%, it might well mean the difference between the system continuing to barely make it and catastrophic failure.
BUT...
the time change is just addressing the symptoms. It is NOT addressing the problem which is the steady deterioration of the US infrastructure.
Aslan is not a
Tame Lion
™ Version 4.2
