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I work on “the grid”. There is no one reason, but I can list the main culprits I see.
- Decaying infrastructure
- Negligible investment in transport infrastructure (people tend to focus on production, as does this meme, when it isn’t the biggest issue)
- Negligible investment in data management.
- Datacenter supply infrastructure creation is being wholly subsidized by end users. When the energy company goes to the legislature and says “we need 17 billion dollars or we won’t be able to supply the city with power”, they neglect to say that the entirety of that new capacity and all of the previous excess capacity the system had, is now going to power up new datacenters. The legislature approves and the cost is rolled into the consumer’s bill, if not entirely then definitely in part.
- Significant fuckery in billing and estimation. This I cannot go into detail on but I can remind all of you that you have the right to request proof of your detailed power usage.
My power company recently contacted me with an “exciting offer” where instead of billing me based on my energy usage they’d just bill me based on what my average usage was previously. I politely declined. I think I’ll keep paying based on something measurable instead of vibe based billing.
I just saw a new report in the break room giving suggestions for lowering your heat bill. Things like keeping temperature below 68. At no point did it suggest QUIT USING AI.
Bullshit.
You really think companies in America with monoplies would lower prices just because their costs went down?
I wish I lived in an America like that…
in AmericaAnd you can almost cross out “with monopolies” too because there’s a lot of tacit price-fixing in industries where there is competition.
Oligopolies, monopolies. Potato tomato, potato tomato
Not every area gets power serviced by a for-profit company. For those who don’t, my condolences.
You really think companies in America with monoplies would lower prices just because their costs went down?
So, theoretically, there’s a point at which induced demand through lower prices can raise profits. Having a monopoly on an elastic good only benefits you when you’re onboarding new clients at an escalating pace. Private energy companies looking to increase energy consumption overall may well take an upfront haircut on the retail price in order to encourage more people to adopt hardware that consumes the commodity.
But - over the long term - sure, the incentive is to capture more revenue in pursuit of higher profit. And that means raising prices faster than inflation.
That said, a public investment, could be pursued as a loss-leader. Public money invested in publicly owned utilities raises the availability of low-cost energy for private consumption. This is spent in pursuit of higher overall economic growth.
We’ve got representatives attacking the postal service for not being highly profitable. We aren’t at square one of investing in the public good even when it pays in the long run.
Stop calling it green and start calling it cheap/free if you want to make some progress.
Green? Like RADIOACTIVE? Like three mile island? Fool me twice, don’t get fooled again!
On the other hand, a few well-connected people would miss out on sizeable profits, so who’s to say which option is better?
Our utility bills would be cheaper if the government invested
So much of the price of a thing is bound up in the administrative overhead and profit extracted at every step of the delivery process. You can pull a kwh of energy out of the ground, in the form of a lump of coal or a liter of gas, for pennies on the dollar when it is eventually sold retail. And that’s before we consider the pricing impact of artificial scarcity that occurs under the ERCOT model of wholesale electricity auctions.
By contrast, the TVA system has kept prices below (often far below) the national market rate simply by operating at-cost as a public enterprise. Energy companies in socialist states - from Sweden to Iran to China - can even retail electricity at subsidized rates (below cost of production) as a loss leader intended to spur high value domestic energy-hungry industries like steel manufacturing and chip fabrication.
Getting to green energy now that the global economy is flush with dirt-cheap high yield solar panels and market-competitive lithium batteries definitely cuts the raw labor / machine costs of fossil fuel extraction. And they defer the tail costs of fuel waste pollution management as well as the associated ecological and human health knock-on effects. But even sticking to the old fossil fuel economy is cheaper under a public system when the costs of operation aren’t inflated by the demands of private administrators and investors.
“if systems needed for life, health, housing, education, and food were not allowed to profit and shareholders were held criminally responsible should they profit. “
This is partially true.
The real cause of the massive spike in power costs is AI data centers.
Laws need to be passed that not only limit what non green energy AI data centers can use, but place the burdedn of cost of their power entirely on the corporation
Utilities beholden to investor groups have been price gouging customers long before AI came along. We need governments that can competently govern and regulate.
We need utilities run at cost by a nonprofit entity, whether that’s the state or some other managing group. Profits should absolutely not be extracted on necessities like energy.
Costs are borne by all, but profits only for the few.
The real cause is DnD, computer games, and rock music.
You mean…Satan?!?
