After a decade of solar and wind turbine subsidies, blue state governors now complain that electricity rates are too high.

Photo above - Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, in his 2022 campaign, promised to close electric plants which relied on fossil fuels. On Friday he sent a threatening letter to the electric grid operators because rates have skyrocketed since.

Do you live in Pennsylvania? Or New Jersey? Are you getting torched by skyrocketing electric bills? Don’t bother complaining to your state government. They totally agree. Even if they deny that they’re the reason. Yesterday’s great ideas (renewable power generation) is now an existential threat to some politicians’ reelection.

This would be a serious problem, and we probably should take the governors’ angst seriously. Except there’s nothing those governors can actually do. The government is responsible for this fiasco, from start to finish. The governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey are doing their best though. They’ve issued a joint communique to the electric companies. To ask the utilities “prevent customers from paying more than necessary.” Stop laughing. That’s what they did. See link at bottom.

It would be impractical (and expensive to) to halt offshore/onshore wind turbine farms still under construction. It would be political suicide to yank away the subsidies homeowners have enjoyed for installing their rooftop panels in the first place, and then selling the “excess” power back to the utility companies at sky high prices.

Please, before someone starts cursing me out, I definitely do NOT want to build new coal fired electric plants. I’m on the fence about tech companies buying up closed nuclear power plants and claiming they can rehab them and make them safe(ish). I’m not sure safe(ish) nuclear electricity is essential for building the next 5,000 Amazon and Google AI servers. All AI appears to do is write essays for school and office assignments and create deepfake “art”. If AI is so great, why can’t it do anything useful? Drive my car, file my taxes, and stop Russian election interference?

Governors Shapiro and Murphy (and the governors of California, Oregon, and every other state struggling with skyrocketing electric costs) I feel your pain. But instead of writing threatening letters, maybe politicians should put other ideas on the table too. Like suspending subsidies for electric sports cars that go zero to 60 in the blink of an eyeball. Like halting legislation that would force everyone to rip out perfectly good gas ovens and furnaces and replace them with electric appliances.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Electric bills are rising in Pa. and N.J. Governors want the energy grid operator to help cut costs.

jehova · 31-35, M

Hemp oil is the only way to fix the fuel issue domestic production of light petroleum from he hydrocarbon thc into fuel. Domestic production to reduce import of foreign oil. The constitution and declaration of indepemdance were written on hemp paper. Leissez faire(enough said). The native species to north america was extremely productive 300 barrells an acre up to 1938 when the marihuana tax act was passed. Fix that and America is saved by agriculture.

Thc is ethanol soluble newspaper was used as the filter hemp bud was on top of. Then ethanol (alchol) poured over it on the newspaper extracting light petroleum into the container below. The container then left uncovered. The ethanol evaporates. What is remaining is heavy petroleum oil. Was it just gasoline prior to evaporation? Also the resultant bud is squeezed in the newspaper to produce motor oil.
Problem solved.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@jehova weren't we supposed to all be driving on used McDonalds french fry oil by now?

Tastyfrzz · 61-69, M

Solar and wind energy are great but...only when it's available. It's not that dependable. You need a lot of expensive batteries and excess capacity. 3X to 5X.

I looked at putting some in at the farm. Ran a few simple tests. Decided that it was not economical. The neighbor tried running his place on solar and a year later was trenching in a cable to the pole.
I think you'd be better off buying a used prius, park it near the house, and using it as a generator.