Your Views for May 18

Golden geese

I applaud Pradeepta Chowdhury’s call for action to lower the exorbitant cost of electricity here in Hawaii (Your Views, Tribune-Herald). However, I am not sure that the “avoided cost” contracts which he describes are the whole reason for the situation that consumers are in at this time.

It is my opinion that the basic reason for the high cost of electricity here is that the electric utility companies are investor-owned monopolies, which are operated to produce a nice profit for the investors. There is also the Public Utilities Commission, which is there to protect this profit even if electricity sales go down.

The PUC has made this perfectly plain by promulgating their policy called “decoupling,” which separates profits from power sales (see the Sept. 2, 2010, Tribune-Herald).

Thus, the desperate consumer may try to conserve on their use of electricity but will inevitably see their rates go up. If the consumer installs a photovoltaic system by investing money up front but remains on the grid, the consequences are complicated and even worse.

However, the utility companies will continue to lay their golden recession-proof eggs for the investors. It would be interesting to know who the major investors are. Could it be our very own legislators, who are not helping us? Don’t expect the PUC to help us. That is not their mission, apparently, since they have an office of the Consumer Advocate, and that tells you right away that the PUC itself is not advocating for the consumers.

What to do? The vast majority of electric utility companies on the mainland are not privately owned by investors but are owned by municipalities, and their rates are very low compared to what is happening here. If we had a dictator in power perhaps HELCO, MECO and HECO could be “nationalized” and the rates brought under control.

Geothermal energy should have been exploited more fully years ago, and its current proposed expansion is just in the talking stage and thus years away. I can’t think of any other route other than a consumer revolt!

Adrienne S. Dey

Hilo

Turn to private sector

Thanks to the County Council … the wasteful transfer of trash from one side of the island to the other will be halted.

It is going to the mayor’s desk for signature or veto. Guess what he will do?

There are private companies that are willing to manage the trash at the landfill, but the mayor is nixing this because it would be employing (people outside of county government), where we pay the wages and the benefits.

Let’s get on the stick and do what is best for the residents of this county, and not what is best for the mayor and the overbearing amount of government workers.

Bob Dukat

Pahoa