If prices are rising, the return on investment to build out more generating capacity also rises.
Slight correction: "If revenue is rising
What _WILL_ cause our prices to go through the roof is when all these AI services fold and close up shop. Then, all the grid investments will have to be paid for by somebody. And that somebody will be the last person to unplug their toaster. See Whoops.
businesses use that tracking to decide whether or not you're committing fraud or not.
"Hey Mr Businessman! I just bought this brand new PC/Tablet/Cell phone and I'd like to buy that really expensive product I saw on your web site. Of course you can't track me. Because I only just turned on this brand new machine this morning."
Do you really think they'll turn you down? Once the credit card has been approved and the transaction completed, I'll just spin up a clean copy of the VM running my browser. And then next week: "Hey Mr Businessman! I just bought this brand new PC/Tablet/Cell phone
On the other hand, my bank does this. It's a good idea in that they can catch unrecognized machines trying to log on as me. And make me step through some additional authentication steps. It's a bad idea because they only recognize one machine per user account. Switch between my office (home) machine and the kitchen laptop and I get the whole third degree interrogation again.
This doesn't break the website it prevents you from completing a purchase.
What purchase? In a few cases, I can't even view informational web sites; being presented with the "Looks like you are using an ad blocker". From some outfit with the URL freestar.com. Including a link with instructions on how to disable it.
But I'm not actually blocking ads. I just have Enhanced Tracking Protection set to "Strict". I'll actually put up with your stupid ad banners and video clips*. I don't care. Because I don't buy stuff from people who repeatedly annoy me.
*Except where I get a popup telling me to enable DRM. Really? You're afraid that I'm going to steal your precious 15 second ad clip for some product to improve my bowel movements?
I think I have already left enough hints.
Where do people think data pasted into a web page form goes? Never mind the AI part, being able to read simple queries will give outsiders some intelligence about the kinds of projects and technologies your organization is working with. A foreign intelligence organization posing as an on-line seller can buy the right set of ad words and really go fishing for some interesting information.
They don't like the competition.
It doesn't matter if it is investor owned or publicly owned.
Probably not in California. Investor owned companies pay taxes into the system to help keep public utilities cheap. In return, they get favorable regulations to keep revenue up, competition out and taxes rolling in. As long as they don't squeal too much under the thumb.
It's really a merger of state and corporate power.
"All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing agaisnt the state."
Isn't Reddit enough?
Yes. Welcome to public power. Move to an investor-owned service area and utilities political power is much less. Because capitalism and free markets. With publicly owned facilities, "We decided" to do X. So there's no backing out on an individual basis. Even if "We" is an elite group within the government.
The utilities lobbyists will see to that.
This.
It works in Africa because there are no incumbent producers whose market is being threatened.
It could happen in the USA, but for the structure of the utilities' capital financing. You may _think_ you are paying so much for a kilowatt-hour. In reality, a good chunk of utilities costs are fixed. And the rate structures are designed to recapture those, concealed as energy rates. Now here come the micro solar and wind producers, expecting to use the grid as their marketplace. Buying and selling energy across it and hoping to break even or possibly squeeze out a profit. But that won't pay for the system, so the utilities will rewrite their rate schedules to get people to pay for the infrastructure they use. Which means that your solar buy/sell rates drop to near zero. And most of your bill becomes a fee to connect to the system, independent of which way the net power flows.
Now calculate your ROI on solar panels.
To get back to the article no this is not how infrastructure is going to be built over the next 50 years. Most countries wouldn't allow China to do what they're doing to them. Those loans aren't coming from inside Africa they ultimately track back to China and the African nations are going to end up with a metric shitload of debt that will be leveraged in order to get obedience on a wide variety of issues.
I don't think you read the article at all as none of this is due to loans from China. It's people acting in their own economic interest because these products replace more expensive alternatives. Part of it is funding through carbon credits which is a separate sort of idiocy, but the companies involved have built a viable business model around supplying something people want in a way that they can afford. The only involvement China has is that they manufacture much of the hardware and it's not some government directed effort on their part. To them Africa is just a customer buying what they're selling and both sides are engaging in commerce out of their own benefit from it.
Unless you have some direct evidence to refute the claims in the article, you're just talking out of your ass.
Chemistry professors never die, they just fail to react.
