Deregulation vs. electricity costs

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

Dear RADSAFErs,

Reading recent postings to RADSAFE I understand that "deregulation" has
caused prices of electricity in the USA to rise.

Maybe the concept of "deregulation" means something different in the USA and
in Europe, but what we call "deregulation" has lead to a dramatic decrease
of electricity prices in Europe. It means, that consumers can select their
provider of electricity freely. Until now this is only possible for
consumers of very large amounts of electricity (industry), but within one or
two years it will also be possible for households to select from different
electricity companies, which already now compete with respect to prices for
industry. Earlier the market was strictly regulated, the providers had their
geographic areas where they could sell their electricity. The price (at
least in Austria) was uniform all over the country and was set by the
government after consultation with the electricity companies. After
deregulation there is (and will be) an open market, allowing other companies
of the European Union to provide electricity.

French companies with their large production of electricity by nuclear power
plants is well off and plays a very big role. There is obviously
overproduction of electricity in Europe - from all kind of power plants -
which enables companies to compete. Old power plants with low efficiencies
will therefore be closed, power plants which have come close to their
lifetime are closed preferentially. "Rumors" say, that the phasing out of
nuclear power in Germany is nothing but a big hoax - the industry has to
shut down power plants of whatever kind anyway and they prefer to shut down
the ones which are politically unwanted - and they even get paid for it by
the government!

This sure is only a bad rumor in order to downplay the important victory of
the groups who want to save the world from the threat of nuclear power.

I wrote this several times and I repeat it again "Nuclear power is not a
scientific, but a political issue".

Franz


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