Why is my Electric Bill Going up?

In California's PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) region (a large fraction of the state), you can add the cost of poor maintenance causing forest fires.

Yes an added tax burden on the consumers...

..."Data shows California spending more and more each year from an emergency fund set aside for large fires. The fund's costs are projected to reach an all-time high of over $1.2 billion for the most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection."Aug 12, 2021

https://www.redding.com/story/news/local/fires/2021/08/12/how-much-california-spending-put-out-large-wildfires/8099097002/

Power line maintenance issues have been implicated for a few of the many fires, but a larger number have other causes. Beyond that, the severity of the fires is directly attributable to decades of official mismanagement policies that characterized all fires as bad and in need of complete extinguishment. The few voices, particularly from the experienced Indian tribal members, that spoke for controlled burns have been stifled. Because of climate changes and the looming droughts any fire will now become a catastrophe.

Add to this our penchant for building combustible homes in close proximity to forests and even grasslands. A few decades ago, one homeowner in the Berkeley Hills had been ridiculed for his concrete home construction. After the destructive fire that left only his home standing his neighbors all asked his advice on how they could rebuild. It seems we have not learned from this example.

--JMM

Agreed on all points!

I live in one of those combustible houses next to 20+ acres of brush/forest that has had zero maintenance during the 52 years I've lived here. Ditto for about half an acre on the other side. I spent over a month last winter clearing a ≈50 foot swath adjacent to my property of the brush on that small plot (with permission of the owner), And have kept a similar clearing between me and the large plot for many years. Still, If a Major fire were to occur in that large plot, my house would be in real danger.

Fortunately, that plot is uphill from me, and I do have a fire hydrant (which I and one neighbor paid for) within about 60 feet of my house.

My grandfather and others of his generation used controlled burns in the spring to reduce scrub in the wooded land,and as a result had no runaway forest firs.You could easily walk through the forest without an scrub brush to hinder your path.

Baxter Black,a cowboy poet,suggested using sheep to control undergrowth.That way,"Only ewes could prevent wild fires."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWGeJES7uRs

I read recently where they are considering this idea with sheep or goats in California

It may succeed if the 9 spotted,triple winged,6 legged flying doo doo bug is not threatened by destruction of it's habitat by the grazing and browsing.

In the UK, livestock is used in various areas to control vegetation & to stop invasive species from spreading.

I understand companies are emerging where they use goats, to clear land of vegetation.

Goats are good browsers,and they will eat almost anything green,and rough terrain does not bother them at all.As a matter of fact,they love to climb.They will even climb leaning trees blown over by storms.Given time,they will eliminate and manage the underbrush if a sufficient population is used.They can be easily moved and contained by electric fencing,but if you have one escape artist among them,you must get rid of him immediately.He will show all of the others how to get out.

Yes,I have heard of companies that rent their goats for land clearing.A win win situation.The goats eat free,and the land gets cleared non destructively.

My brother had Pygmy Goats… they’ll eat anyth8ng and would literally eat themselves to death.

In the UK we all pay a premium on our fuel bills to subsidise the cost of renewable energy.

If it were cheaper, it would already be done that way. Just sayin'.

I wish! Politics and special interests sometimes delay or prevent adoption of better or cheaper...

If you hear “We’ve always done it that way,” watch out for llama dung.

https://www.edn.com/beware-llama-dung/

Er, why does sunlight cost anything?

Sunlight & wind are freely available but there's a lot of profit to be made in converting them to useable power.

Sunlight and wind are no less free than oil, gas, or coal..... they all demand the infrastructure, land, equipment and people to extract that energy...

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/11/europe-natural-gas-prices

Very true. I guess that infrastructure is just s little less obvious for renewables. Solar, wind & water energy have also been romanticised to seem less invasive.

Excellent point. But you forgot to mention that once the infrastructure investment is made the fuel inputs stop.
We have many thousands of miles of shoreline with high tidal power potential, much of it located in topography conducive to pumped storage where the ocean itself can be used as the lower reservoir?
We hear far to little of the tidal energy potential.
I am sure NP "too cheap to meter" is "just around the corner." That is one thing that hasn't changed in the power industry in my lifetime.

I don't know about in the US but in the state over here the government owns the generators though they say that they are autonomous bodies running the stations.

So they subsidise solar and wind with money they have to find from somewhere, the poor old electricity consumer. Then they want to phase out coal powered stations with nothing to replace them for the party in power, not supplying the power has an ideologically aversion to nuclear so the price goes up and the lights almost go out.

Then there is the flirtation with batteries, yes that is going to work. Pumped Hydro can be used when there is an excess of generation which used to be supplied by base load stations during the night, oh but wait the sun doesn't shine at night and here nor does the wind, what a climate lie problem.

To pirate a slogan Black Lights Matter!

Countries with hydro power must be laughing at us.

What has happened to your tidal power projects?

Like all government fluff and flummery the tidal projects were just water under the bridge, and the worry about being swamped by the non rising ocean levels. Besides tides only happen twice a day like in and out, shame about neap tides and the variables around the moon cycles.

To have hydro there is a need to have a fall in a river or a dam, but wait the mongoloid frog lives there you can't build a dam.

Coal seam gas is extracted by the boat load but sold overseas. An attempt was made to burn the coal underground in a pilot plat locally and extract the gas generated but that was stopped by the green element for fear of leachate reaching PPB.

Uranium waste could have been returned to the mines where it was dug but that didn't suit the greenies either, polluted ground is polluted ground right!

Just pay up and shut up, after all con is the start of continues!

All in the wind...

When the People understand the cost (paying their utility bills) of the New Green Deal, you can bet they will let their representatives know of their displeasure.

Let's hope ....So many people have been greenwashed they don't seem to realize this is just the beginning, and things will get much much worse, we are becoming a third world country...I don't think people realized what they were signing up for...

As P.T. Barnum is credited have said,… “there’s a sucker born every minute”, is an understatement.

EV's are going to work well for some people. If I lived in the city and never had to drive very far, I would give it good consideration. And there is the aspect of transferring the emissions of EV's outside the city to where the effects are not as concentrated.

But what might work well for some people in the city probably does not translate well to the high plains of Montana.

The trouble is when the electoral masses in the cities believe that their "solution" must be the "solution" of the land.

From a reason story about an electric truck going in a road trip… that would be burdensome.

John Deere is messing around with electric combines et al… this is what is the problem… they need to understand the needs of the farm…

Its not ready yet…

Well they could eventually get to "green" energy generation as the main supply, but the costs will be tremendous, the electric cars will cost twice as much and last half as long as petrol, and the cost of electricity will go up x10, passing parity with gasoline, and a whole new set of problems will be created, recycling hazardous battery waste, securing reliable materials for making those batteries, charging infrastructure maintenance and repair...and then fuel cell cars will become the next thing...but we don't have to worry about running out of hydrogen...

Expectations vs Reality

frankly I’m waiting on the DQ’s to come out of the shadows with a denigrating remark and no other input with any value value… with the exception of may be bragging how they go out of their way with reducing their own carbon foot print, (Based on Expectations)

"electric cars will cost twice as much and last half as long as petrol"

The cost will depend mostly on batteries. An electric powertrain can be vastly more simple than a petrol one, so should be considerably cheaper to produce at volume, and should last longer. No oil changes required, (or forgotten) on many electrics. Since they use dynamic braking, the wear on the braking system is vastly reduced. For those who get a new car at 200,000 miles or less, they may never need a brake job.

Ford is raising the price of their electric trucks due to material and ‘other costs’

Used 2022 Ford F150 Lightning w/ Max Trailer Tow Package

$116,915

And considering the the time they spend8; the charging in stations…

it seems only that would own one are the more progressive and ahead of the curve liberal minded people would own one as it stands.

It's the green plumage of a rich liberal peacock...

Maybe a contractor that never drives more than 10 miles to a job site?

Certainly not an RV'er pulling a monstrous fifth-wheel across the spacious skies of the fruited plains with amber waves of grain. For that, I want a big honkin' cast iron diesel with a ten-minute "re-charge" if you use the high speed pumps at the truck stops.

1970 Chevy C-10 pickup

$35k

Predicting the future---and you asked me who was going to win the 2023 Super
Bowl?

Predicting prices will go up in the future, is a gimme...

When nuclear was introduced in the 1950's it was going to be "so cheap you didn't have to meter it." The cost of dismantling a nuclear plant is nearly the same as building it, and the currently used technology (U235 fission) has very long-lived waste we have not even started to confront. Other nuclear technology with other isotopes may be better.

Coal lost favor because of its high pollution but lost market because fracking led to comparably priced methane.

We are addicted to consuming energy, among many other social addictions we have. We want the convenience of unlimited power on demand on our own personal schedules, and this is not sustainable in the long-term. Nor is it cost effective because we need to meet the maximum demand on a minute's notice. Technology is worshiped as a god, but conservation is better.

--JMM

the currently used technology (U235 fission) has very long-lived waste we have not even started to confront.

I want to modify your parenthetical words to "U235 thermal fission." Thermal nuclear reactors do have lots of long-lived waste, but the newer designs, the Generation IV "fast" nuclear reactors are around 100 times more efficient. Meaning that they use 90-some % of the uranium instead of less than 5%. This results in much less waste that is short-lived in comparison to the thermal reactor waste. It does this by fissioning the transuranic actinides to produce more energy. Fast reactors can also use thorium as a fuel--it transmutes to U-233 which then fissions in the fast neutron spectrum. It can also use U-238 (depleted) uranium. We have lots of Th and U-238 on hand. Fast nuclear reactors do not need a pressure vessel, because they are cooled by a liquid metal (or use a fluidized bed, etc;) but they do need a containment shell for safety.

Lehman57,

I appreciate the thoughtful reply and correction to my post. For years I was firmly opposed to any new nuclear power plants. However I am becoming much more open to the types you describe. I still am concerned with the handling of the radioactive waste (both current as well as future), as that seems to be a sticking-point. Do you have data on the longevities and quantities of the radioactive waste from the fast reactor designs you mention, as compared to the traditional thermal reactors. You mention that it is much less and shorter, but spreadsheet data will be instructive.

--John M.

There should be no fiscal concern regarding waste. That cost is borne by the taxpayer, not the producer. It is the only way it can work.

Without looking it up! I think the fast reactor wastes have to be isolated for hundreds of years instead of hundreds of thousands. But I don't remember any details on the radiation intensity. (Playing catch-up after a weekend vacation with 91 (I heard) fire engines.)

Have you heard that the coal-burning generating plants liberate into the environment 7 tons of thorium and 5 tons of uranium per gigawatt capacity. That should increase our interest in nuclear power.

I wish they would stop using the term "renewables." Instead, use "zero carbon."

It's that whole entropy thing.

Quite. The <...they...> clearly doesn't understand the Laws of Thermodynamics.

GA

We're switching to natural gas for energy production because of environmentalists, but now they are choking off the supply through regulations...

https://fortune.com/2022/05/03/us-natural-gas-production-why-is-it-slowing/

Your answer suggests that you think the environmental concerns related to pipeline construction are worthless. I disagree. Long-term we need to be off all fossil fuels.

--JMM

Balancing the short term with long term goals is where the problem lies.

And maybe, just maybe, one of the many political present and future investigations and home evasions will stick, not necessarily true…

You don't get rid of critical supplies before you've got the replacements ready...Slowly squeezing off the life's blood of a nation is cruel and effects the poor dramatically while those responsible are virtually unaffected...Nobody in their right mind would think this is a good idea...Poverty will kill more people than global warming ever will....

"Poverty will kill more people than global warming ever will...."

That depends on how long global warming continues and how rapidly it occurs. If the last few years are any indication, and we don't do anything about it, global warming just might exterminate the rich as well as the poor.

I don't expect to live long enough to see that happen, but the next generation or two might.

People adapt, this change is so gradual nobody will probably even notice....When I moved from up north to Florida I thought it was hot, but after a few years it's not even noticeable...A few degrees one way or the other you wouldn't even notice...A few degrees over the course of 100 years, if in fact the predictions come true, and that is not certain, is much ado about nothing....People already live in the most extreme climate conditions now with no problems...

"People already live in the most extreme climate conditions now with no problems..."

People do indeed live in extreme conditions. I'm not so sure about the "with no problems..."

I clearly remember the first time I rode in an air-conditioned car (the summer of 1957 or '58). We stopped for gas in Bakersfield, CA, when the outside temperature was 123°F. I couldn't believe what I felt when I got out of the car, and I still can't understand how/why anyone would ever choose to live in such a place!

Within limits, people do adapt, but there definitely are limits. Apparently, I don't adapt as well as many others. The main feature that made me choose the house I bought in 1970, and still live in, was that it had air conditioning, because I don't handle heat well. Amazingly, that original A/C, installed in 1967, is still running just fine. In fact, today is the first day in several weeks that we didn't turn it on for at least an hour.

The hottest places are not likely to get hotter, I think it's more the cooler places will get warmer, this perhaps will moderate the winters and reduce peak energy demand, as air conditioning uses less energy than electric heating....So who up north wouldn't want winter to be a few degrees warmer....I'd rather sweat than shiver...

this perhaps will moderate the winters and reduce peak energy demand, as air conditioning uses less energy than electric heating..

True for individual homes and in some climates. However in large areas of the USA the peak electrical use is in the late afternoon of summer, when people have come home, cook, turn on the TV and set the air conditioner temperature down. To combat this the utilities: 1) offer large customers a reduced rate for allowing the utility to cut off service during peak hours of the day, and 2) are installing demand-shaving controls on the circuits of cooperating customers to automatically (via signals over the power line) cycle air conditioning loads or set back the thermostats.

Regarding hotter places or cooler places I believe we are seeing much more complex and unexpected changes in the local climates.

Regarding rather sweat than shiver, I agree with the the statement by my parents--you can always put on more clothes when cold but can't take off enough clothes when hot.

Temperature and climate changes will cause the complete melting of the Greenland ice cap and a nearly complete melting of the Antarctic ice sheets. The result will be sea level rises of over 100-feet (30-meters). This will displace about one half of all humans. How soon--not in your or my lifetimes, but within a few centuries. Related changes in diseases, food supplies, economics, other resources, etc. are certain. Our limited willingness to plan and act for the long term, along with our "me-first" and "the future will take care of itself" attitudes are--unfortunately--not going to change soon enough.

Are you ready for a Florida that will be over 60% under water? Are our institutions resilient enough for the disruptions to come? I have doubts. Geological time has included sea levels more than 100-feet above the current ones (no glaciers anywhere) as well as more than 100-feet below the current ones (ice-ball earth). In all of these, life has continued. It will in the future, but who or what survives is unpredictable. Neither will "me first" survive.

Wow, you fancy yourself quite the visionary, do you really think you can predict the future? OK, I'll give you an easy one...Who will win the Superbowl 2023? ...Admit it, you can't predict what will happen tomorrow, much less 100 years from now...

How do you know that the rising sea won't be mitigated by desalination plants and hydrogen production? Maybe we need increased water just to maintain the present levels...Why do those that profess to know the future, always predict doom....and are always wrong...

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/50-years-of-failed-doomsday-eco-pocalyptic-predictions-the-so-called-experts-are-0-50/

SE,

I don't see any significant link between sea level and either desalination or hydrogen production from water. My earlier comments about ancient sea levels being as much as 100-feet higher and lower than current levels is based on an interesting book that looked at the oceans and climate over the last couple billion years. It was a local library checkout, but unfortunately I do not have its title or author at this time.

Your cited video was worth viewing. The presenter is certainly right in pointing out how easy it is to massage data and predict trends and results that are not valid.

Beyond questions about climate, I advocate for energy conservation from the social viewpoint of equality of access and benefit for all, not just the relatively few in the developed world.

--JMM

Well the existing desalination plants are already said to be lowering the sea levels by a few millimeters every year, if we start producing hydrogen for our energy needs from the oceans as well, it seems sea level rise would actually turn out to be necessary...so sorry no doomsday for the coastal areas either....

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9552/pdf?version=1629966802#:~:text=Sea%20level%20rise%20can%20be,be%20prevented%20by%20desalination%20plants.

I have read the article and commend their evaluation of:

• economics, costs of sea level rise vs costs of building desalination plants, and
• technology, different methods and their history.

I see four major faults in their study:

1. The assumption that technological advances to decrease the cost of plant operations will continue at the same rate in the future as in the past. This leads to plant operating costs per unit of desalinated water less than 15% of today's costs.
2. Their total failure to consider the availability of locations for storing the desalinated water. If we assume 5% of total land area is available, use their projected 1.3 meter sea level rise, and land area is about 1/3 of the ocean area, we need a reservoir/lake storage of about 80 meters average depth. Lakes and reservoirs all have bottom topographies that vary from 0 to maximum. The Great Lakes in North America cover about 245,000 km² and contain about 23,000km³ water. This is an average depth of about 90 meters. Lake/reservoir storage may be do-able, but I am skeptical.
3. They suggest electrolysis into unspecified gases and assume that these in use or storage will have a very long-term before return to the ocean. I disagree.
4. They do not consider the possible siting of desalination plants and competitive land uses in these locations--although this is a significant factor it appears to be beyond the scope of their study.

They mention the problem of discharging water with a higher salinity but did not consider that nearly all the water that creates sea level rise is ice melt and thus very low in salt content. I believe that ocean salinity will not be an issue.

Overall, the goal of providing sufficient fresh water for all domestic and agricultural uses is commendable and even necessary, with desalination being an important and possibly critical source. Using this with lake/reservoir storage as an answer to global sea level rise is at best a "false flag" that would divert us from the necessity of reducing CO₂ production and avoiding NH₃ release.

--JMM

Hydrogen production from seawater will be additive to sea level decrease...

..."There are approximately 16,000 operational desalination plants, located across 177 countries, which generate an estimated 95 million m³/day of freshwater.^[1] "...

..."A net-zero world 'would require 306 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year"...

..."Using water's density and relative atomic populations, it is estimated by a mass balance that approximately 2.38 gallons of water are consumed as a feedstock to produce 1 kg of hydrogen gas, assuming no losses"....Sep 20, 2007

306,000,000,000 kilograms of hydrogen = 728,280,000,000 gallons of water

+ 95 million cubic meters per day of desalinated water = 25,096,344,974 gallons per day *365 days per year = 9,160,165,915,510 gallons per year + 728,280,000,000 for hydrogen production = 9,888,445,915,510 total water gallons per year

We would probably need to double this amount to around 20 trillion gallons of water per year for both fresh water and energy production....rising to 200 trillion over time...

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/2/3/034007/pdf

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/a-net-zero-world-would-require-306-million-tonnes-of-green-hydrogen-per-year-by-2050-iea/2-1-1011920

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24529-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination_by_country

Not to mention not only the increase of salinity in the water in hydrogen production but also in the desalination plants.

Humans are a relatively small,volume wise inhabitant of the Earth.All humans could fit easily into a 1 mile cube,with plenty of elbow room.

The waste we produce,however,is immensely larger,as are the resources we consume to feed some of the population.

All the creatures of the Earth will breathe a collective sigh of relief when we humans migrate to other worlds,or become extinct by our own hand.

Extinction is a natural process of nature.Of all the species that have ever existed on Earth,only one percent are here now.

Nature keeps trying to produce a species intelligent enough to preserve itself and the planet,but all species have a clock running before the next global cataclysm resets the clock.

In that respect,the survival of the fittest,the viruses and bacteria are at the top.

Humans are somewhere near the bottom,far behind the dinosaurs and insects at this point.

It is hard to see from our current position whether we will succeed or become just another sediment layer to be pondered by some future scientists.

...said the slow-cooked frog!

Biden Freeze on Oil and Gas Leasing Is Reinstated for Now

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/biden-pause-on-oil-gas-leases-on-public-land-reinstated-for-now

Our energy is being squeezed from both ends....Putin on one side and Biden on the other...Is this Russian collusion?

There are a number of influences here…

• Resources
• poor politics
• demand
• demographics

A company where I had worked, this was back in 2017ish… we made liquid smoke, and one of our by products was charcoal. Coal fired plants would buy our charcoal, the. They stopped. At the time, they could no long produce when they could by power from the grid from else were that were using NG fired plants.

and now,… NG is no long cheap and neither is coal…

as far as politics, our drama queens are silent, compared to 4 years ago. Thought they’d like to weigh in on this.

Congress passed law that bans sale of solar panels made by forced labor, seems that was the source...Who's going to blink first?

..."A large quantity of solar panels have been detained by US customs under enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Philip Shen, managing director of ROTH Capital Partners said an industry contact reports as much as 3 GW have been held since the law has been enacted.

As much as nine to 12 GW of solar modules could be prevented from entering US markets by the end of the year, said Shen.

The Xinjiang region of China, which is home to 50% of the global supply of polysilicon, an essential material in conventional solar modules, has come under scrutiny for its human rights abuses and the forced labor of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China. Beijing has repeatedly denied allegations of forced labor.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said developers across the United States plan to install 17.8 GW of capacity this year. However, through six months, only 4.2 GW has been installed and brought online as module supply challenges led to cancellations and delays. Ongoing module supply challenges may continue to hamper deployment.

The UFLPA was passed last December and first enacted this summer. The law bans all imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang unless the products are determined to not be connected to forced labor."...

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/08/15/over-3-gw-of-solar-panels-have-been-held-in-us-customs-under-forced-labor-law/

That seems a bit odd given the large number of products manufactured officially within the American prison system.

Modular office furniture by FPI (Federal Prison Industries), company I worked for had them do it, and the GSA gave points on bids if you used it, the clause, if FPI couldn’t keep up, which it couldn’t, the company can do it them selves.

Minnesota Prison System manufactured Farm Implements at one time…

..."How many prison laborers are there in the US?

"There are over 870,000 inmates working full-time in American prisons. Their median wage in state and federal prisons is around 20 and 31 cents an hour, respectively. In Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas prisoners are forced to work for free."...

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0c81132a46c64d3ba412b588c21cd578

Check out these diamond batteries:

They put out power for thousands of years,albeit slowly.So why not parallel and series thousands or millions of them to get practical power output? I am thinking of diamond dust.1 gram can produce only 15 Joules per day,but can output power for many thousands of years.

Initial cost is high, but no as high as disposing of radioactive waste,and they generate no radioactive waste,and they self-generate the power..no charging required.

Think long term results,not immediate gratification and quick payback.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/12/09/radioactive-diamond-batteries-making-good-use-of-nuclear-waste/?sh=2eb87fd2a044

..."As Michael Shellenberger, a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment”, recently wrote: “Had California and Germany invested $680 billion into nuclear power plants instead of renewables like solar and wind farms, the two would already be generating 100% or more of their electricity from clean energy sources.” Correct, but the disturbing issue of long-term nuclear waste produced by conventional, uranium based, nuclear plants still remains.

In the early 1990s, Carlo Rubbia, Nobel prize winner in physics (1984) and then CERN’s director general, launched a small experiment applying cutting-edge accelerator technologies toward energy production. The First Energy Amplifier Test (FEAT), funded by the European Commission, successfully demonstrated the principles of a clean and inherently safe process of energy production, based on widely available thorium. Since then, numerous experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of a large scale-up for industrial use. They also demonstrated that existing long-term (240,000 years or more) nuclear waste can be “burned up” in the thorium reactor to become a much more manageable short-term (less than 500 years) nuclear waste."...

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/destroying-nuclear-waste-to-create-clean-energy-it-can-be-done/

...."Wholesale electricity prices in ERCOT for all hours (peak and non-peak) in day-ahead trading averaged $22 per megawatthour (MWh) in 2020 compared with an average of $38/MWh in 2019."...

...."Wholesale daily electricity prices rose considerably from April to May at all selected hubs except the Northwest (Mid-C). Prices more than doubled in Texas (ERCOT), from an April high of $116/MWh to a May high of $274/MWh on May 13. New 12-month high daily prices were set on May 20 at $153/MWh in the Mid-Atlantic (PJM), at $120/MWh in the Midwest (MISO), and at $115/MWh in Louisiana (into Entergy). The high and rising wholesale electricity prices are the result of both hot weather, that covered most of the country with the exception of the Northwest and Upper Midwest regions, as well as high natural gas prices."....

$22 to $274 = 1245% increase...

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/wholesale-markets.php

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46396#:~:text=Wholesale%20electricity%20prices%20in%20ERCOT,of%20%2438%2FMWh%20in%202019.

Utility companies are not going to support anything that threatens their grip on the short hairs of the public,the perpetual money machine.

In Hawaii,the utilities have started charging customers for putting excess power onto the grid,claiming that the public is using:"Their poles,wires and equipment" to distribute the excess power.They forget who paid for "Their Power poles,wires and equipment"

The utilities have great political power,and will not support anything that threatens their bottom line,even if it means the eventual destruction of the planet,as long as they can feather their nest as long as they are alive; To paraphrase D G Farragut: "Dam- the torpedoes,full speed ahead."

"They"* refuse to accept distributed power,where everyone generates their own energy, and will not go quietly into the bright light of the future.

-----------------------------------------

*"They": in this instance,means the utilities(in case someone does not understand the usage of the word "They")

My electric utility also separates the generation and distribution charges. On the last bill, the generation charges were 44% of the total. Thus, offers to give a discount on the generation will affect only 44% of the total bill.

The doubling of customer's rates would encourage more people to be independent of the grid..eventually leading to centralized power going the way of the blacksmith.

If my rate increased by 50% I would install solar cells with Edison Iron batteries,and wind generators,and use them to reduce my usage from utilities.

High peak demand and KVAR is a large part of the grid design,they have to build for the worst case,maximum usage.That is why industrial users are charged for demand peak,KVAR, and KWH.Peak demand,and KVAR sets the price for the rates,and does not decrease for the entire billing period.Even if the peak only lasted for 20 seconds.

By harnessing the available energy from thousands of private storage available,they could drastically reduce costs,and importantly,increase profit.

Not a free lunch,just packing a lunch for later.

But then we lose the efficiency of scale when everyone generates their own power. Large power plants can be more efficient overall than several smaller power plants.

Thanks to Smart Meters, we could see demand factor starting to show up on people's electric bill. That's a real cost to the utiility and it was only due to the fact that before Smart Meters, there was no practical way to measure demand factor on so many residential customers, so "we" were given a free ride on demand factor.

Most residential customers would not want to distribute their consumption to level it out, but we may get there some day. People will have to accept the loss of convenience of burning power anytime they want to save some money, but other people won't care about the extra cost and they will burn the juice anytime and any amount they want.

People using solar to reduce their consumption but not inject excess power back onto the grid would be O.K., but some kind of demand factor is necessary to ensure the grid is sized appropriately.

Distributed power is a dying technology,and it will not go quietly into that dark night.Alternate methods will be found.

Tesla was working on world wide free electricity,and when he died,lots of his notes,many trunks full, disappeared and have never been accounted for.

Who knows what he was working on?

I read somewhere that he intended to use the Earth's magnetic field to couple the ionosphere to ground based receivers.Sorry I cannot remember the source.I am aware that conspiracies abound every where,but the lost trunks claim is substantiated by many sources.

The thought of free energy terrified the vultures and his ideas will never be brought to light.

It will be impossible to eat the elephant whole,it must be done one bite at the time.

Comparing various methods of energy storage, and CO² generation...Nuclear always comes out way ahead, and when we look at the scale of energy storage needed, you can see that none of these other methods is going to meet demand, and the cost, is prohibitive..

It's time to ease up on the oppressive stifling regulations that are inflating the costs and holding this necessary technology back....

SE: Many years ago I heard that nuclear designs were also saddled with extremely large safety factors (fear factors.) This resulted, of course, in very expensive infrastructure around the actual reactor. Do you know if these SFs have been relaxed back to normal/reasonable levels? I hope so, but I don't hear/see anything about this design aspect.

From 2017....

..."Nuclear power is among the safest, but also the most regulated forms of energy in world. As measured by harmful emissions, workplace injuries or fatalities on the job, nuclear has a sterling safety record, but the regulation imposed on the industry generates incredible costs and deters new reactors from producing zero-carbon energy.

Based on a review of publicly available 10-Ks, the American Action Forum (AAF) found $15.7 billion in regulatory liabilities for the industry, or $219 million per plant. These were largely related to long-term costs associated with disposing of waste. Annual ongoing regulatory costs range from $7.4 million to $15.5 million per plant, mostly related to paperwork compliance. Combined with regulatory capital expenditures and fees paid to the federal government, the average nuclear plant must bear a regulatory burden of $60 million annually.

These figures have profound implications for the industry’s bottom-line. Based on a review of per-plant profitability, there are at least six plants nationwide where regulatory burdens exceed profit margins. In total, AAF found 15 plants where regulatory burdens would exceed the nominal corporate tax rate in the nation. There is little doubt regulatory costs are one factor contributing to the retirement of nuclear facilities across the nation."...

..."the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission—established in 1974—has effectively shut down the growth of nuclear power in the United States."...

https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-7639c7e88642

https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/putting-nuclear-regulatory-costs-context/