These are trivial questions.

The grid operator is obviously regulated– as a natural monopoly, its position has not changed just because it divests a generating operation if it has one.

Generators can charge whatever they like, and the competitive market will deal with that.

Who cares about the billing? The grid operator could do administration, of course, just like Amazon does with independent sellers. Not exactly rocket science these days.

Ok – I can see that.

How would you split the revenue the utility currently gets for both generation and transmission?

The new corporation of just transmission has to have revenue.

I suppose the utilities could determine that pre-split.

Would the transmission entity be regulated by the state like the utilities currently are?

Who does the transmission company bill – the generator or the customers getting the electricity?

There is no taking; there is just a splitting of the operation, as with any anti-trust action against excessive vertical integration.

If you own a transmission line and a generating plant, you spin off the generator as a separate corporation. And then you continue operation of the grid element under the common carrier paradigm.

Again, some version of this has been done in various places, for various applications.

Note to Wow: What is POTS?

They are chartered to do so like POTS. It would be *easier* if it were government owned? Sure.

“The utilities” only own generation. Indeed it’s most often the case anyway that the generator is owned by someone who doesn’t own the transmission.

See, again, POTS.

“I just thought most of the transmission lines were owned by the utility companies”

Ever bothered to check? Or just ass-pulled?

So government interference in private business and pork barrel funding. And a huge increase in the taxes to be raised.

Why not mandate every home gets free solar panels?

How does the transmission get to common carrier status?

Isn’t that going to be a taking?

I do see the concept (I think). Somehow take the transmission lines from the utilities and make them common carrier so any generator can use the transmission lines.

I just thought most of the transmission lines were owned by the utility companies and I was wondering how you planned to get the transmission lines to this common carrier status you are talking about.

I see it being done with carrots – money with strings attached.

Like the way the Federal Government got most states to lower the speed limit to 55 a number of decades ago.

There may also be tax credits involved to the utilities that build the plants on the property the states have identified they should be built on.

I appreciate that you put forward an actual plan. And also that you were willing to flesh it out in answer to my question.

If there is a carbon tax (or some other mechanism) to reduce the use of FF, then of course nuclear can become competitive, as long as that cost of using FF is raised high enough.

But my plan says, if that’s the case, why do you need the government to mandate construction of nuclear plants? Or, HVDC lines to transmit wind energy from Austin to Boston, as they say? Or anything else?

And the legislation isn’t about the government owning the grid– that sounds more like BBD. But there would be regulation that makes the various grid operators operate like a common carrier, meaning they can’t generate electricity themselves, and they have to give equal access to all generators and all buyers.

I thought this was clear from the many times I have said it– you can choose to buy from your neighbor’s solar panels, or from the nuclear plant. That way the market decides what the optimal mix is. Your local grid operator has no say in that, just like UPS has no say whether you buy a shirt from Amazon or from Walmart– they just deliver it.

Wrong.

The cost of using nat gas will rise, but the cost of nat gas itself won’t be affected by the tax. If it DOES change, it will reduce the price of natural gas so as to keep demand up and pay off the investment.

“Third, if 100 nuclear power plants are built (per my plan), the cost per plant will drop ”

No, it’d rise. The demand for that scenario far FAR outstrips the demand. Do the maths.

“Fourth, natural gas still emits CO2, while nuclear doesn’t”

Incorrect. Mining, refining, transport, decommissioning. Concrete too. Lots and lots of concrete.

” Why are people paying for electricity from these plants when they could get cheaper natural gas electricity?”

They have no choice. They’re part of the mix because the USA wants plutonium.