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If God wanted us to have free energy he would have put a nuclear fusion reactor in the sky
Under socialism, your utility bill would just be a massively subsidised token price you pay because housing and everything related would not be treated as a means of extracting profit…
To preface: Scotland does not have socialism.
But, water here is controlled by a quasi-publicly owned company and paid for via general home taxation (known as council tax). There is no meters tracking usage, we’re free to use as much as we wish.
I never have to think or worry about usage. If I need water I get water. It’s paid for as part of my general taxation, as you put it, a token price.
As an added bonus to being quasi-publicly run, as opposed to privately for profit, we’ve had very few of the water scarcity or quality scandals that have plagued England for years now. Resulting in national headlines, political campaigns, and court cases.
If the same were offered for other utilities I would be delighted.
I’m posting this comment so that people have real life examples they can refer to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Water
Note: businesses still pay per usage, this setup is only for home use
Now try to implement that in Las Vegas. Pay per use is the way to go anywhere with constrained water supply, regardless of whether is a public or private utility. (I should definitely be public.)
If only America were the richest nation on the planet and humanity had invented some kind of tube that can transport water from places rich in water to places scarce in water…
If you’d given the example of Nouakchott or Timbuktu then I’d perhaps understand your point but your example has more than enough resources to achieve socialised water. The thing preventing it is political will, not economics or technical inability.
You really know nothing about the water situation in the American southwest. Good luck piping enough water (from where exactly?) when the entire Colorado River is being used up and aquifers are approaching empty. And that is with usage metered water.
'Member when the USA was capable of feats of world class engineering?
'Member when building pipelines across continents was easily achieved in the middle of the 20th century?
'Member when you used to actually build shit in your country?
'Member when you weren’t defeatist cry babies that went “wahhh, it’s too difficult to provide basic necessities to our population at a price that doesn’t financially cripple vast swathes of the population 😭”
In the richest nation on earth, with huge tracts of land, consisting of multiple varying biomes and geographies…
The transport of water was figured out hundreds of years ago. The Romans built impressive viaducts. I’m sure the world’s foremost industrial and economic superpower of the last 100 years can figure out how to move water across state lines.
Blah blah blah, from where?
Mississippi can’t spare it, not without creating an ecological disaster anyways. Great lakes? I live 40 miles from Lake Michigan which puts me on the other side of the water table so we aren’t allowed to use it for similar reasons.
The only ecological answer for the southwest is conservation. Pumping water in is the kind of fantasy only an immature silicon valley billionaire should be dumb enough to think would work.
And who said the price should financially cripple anyone. There are plenty of ways to tackle that without making water free at the point of use. Of all the financial burdens people in this country face, nobody is being crushed by their water bill. Not unless it’s the last straw in a giant bale.
The state isn’t there to lower utility bills for the “people”, it’s there to grow, protect capital (and subsequent expansion of exploitation) so it can compete with other states in the global market. You’ll only see mass renewable adoption after bourgeois state prices everything in and decides that it’s best course of action for capital growth
Before ai I was wondering what cool stuff could be done with excess power from cheap solar if it surpasses battery charging for overnight use
