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They are correct. You will see in the coming years that electricity across the US is going to get substantially more expensive. There are several reasons for th
by jmyeet 1y ago
They are correct. You will see in the coming years that electricity across the US is going to get substantially more expensive. There are several reasons for this:
1. Data centers, primarily driven by AI. Why? Because they can (and do) negotiate deeply discounted prices AND either don't pay for the connection and required infrastructure or they only pay a portion of it. Who pays for the rest? Consumers. Who subsidizes the discounted electricity? Consumers.
2. Increased electricity use in an area tends to raise the prices for everyone. We actually saw this in the crypto mining boom (eg [1]). In short, in a region like upstate New York where it otherwise has access to cheap hydro power, the local provider will have a long term power supply contract for a certain amount of electricity. A big increase usually means they now have to buy power on the spot market, which can be much more expensive. This raises the average electricity price for everyone;
3. The administration is pushing a huge expansion in LNG exports. IIRC ~41% of US power generation comes from natural gas. A huge increase in LNG exports will inevitably cause a rise in natural gas prices for all domestic power producers. This is in part driven by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine but natural gas suppliers have seen (and pounced upon) an opportunity to drive up the wholesale price of natural gas;
4. The dam has really broke on contraining price hikes for pure profit purposes (eg [2]). If you look at the finances of any private electricity utility, you'll see that simply increasing shareholder profits is probably the biggest single factor in electricity price hikes;
5. While all this is happening and we're not really building new power plants (at least not enough to match demand), the administration has cut off renewables, which are key to meeting demand beyond any environmental concerns (which are real and true). Power usage spikes during the day. Well guess what? That's when solar power production happens. So adding significant solar power production to your electricity mix will decrease the baseline power needed from other sources;
6. Private equity has turned its eye to the guaranteed profits of electricitiy providers [3]. This will do absolutely nothing other than raise prices; and
7. Lip service is given to nuclear but it simply isn't the answer, primarily because the lead time for building a nuclear power plant is about 10-15 years. Plus it's one of the most expensive forms of electricity (in LCOE terms) and having a company safely manage a nuclear power plant in an era where regulation is being gutted doesn't seem like a great idea.
Not a single nuclear power plant has been built without government subsidy. Why not just subsidize renewables instead, particularly solar? Efforts such as small modular reactors to lower costs simply make no sense. Larger reactors are more efficient.
I think by 2030 a significant portion of the population will be paying $0.50/kWh or more for residential electricity.
[1]: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/when-cryptomining-comes-to-town-high-electricity-use-spillovers-to-the-local-economy/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/when-crypt...
[2]: https://cleanenergy.org/news/tva-executes-the-largest-electric-rate-increase-in-more-than-a-decade-while-providing-the-least-amount-of-information-of-any-major-utility/ https://cleanenergy.org/news/tva-executes-the-largest-electr...
[3]: https://jacobin.com/2025/08/private-equity-minnesota-power-takeover https://jacobin.com/2025/08/private-equity-minnesota-power-t...
- xyzzzzzzz 1y ago[flagged]
- bryanlarsen 1y ago> Fun fact, people in California are paying nearly twice the price for energy than the rest of the US. People in California are paying massive amounts for power distribution. The utilities themselves are paying very little for power generation -- for example, they pay 4c/kWh for a solar+batteries plant build in 2022. > but doesn't put out anywhere near the power of nuclear. We have > 250GW of solar and 97 GW of nuclear. Nuclear produced 779TWh and solar 303TWh in 2024. They are quite comparable. > If California wants to do solar, it can! Though it will likely go the way of the rail project, the firefighting org etc California already has a lot of solar and batteries.
- declan_roberts 1y agoDistribution is a separate line item on your PG&E bill. They have to bill you separately for the cost of electricity and the cost of delivery (maintenance of the grid) Your energy prices are extremely high for reasons apart from the grid.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoSure, but it's not high because PG&E is paying 4c/kWh for battery shifted solar power.
- AtlasBarfed 1y agoYour comment reflects energy policy from somewhere around like 1975? How can I tell someone on hackernews knows absolutely nothing about power generation economics? They say we have to go all in on nuclear. And that's assuming that the poster isn't being completely disingenuous. Nuclear is expensive, and there are no technologies that will reduce the price in the near term. Solar wind and battery storage is still on a economies of scale price reduction curve that no other form of electricity generation can match. Not coal, not natural gas, and certainly not nuclear. If you start building nuclear plants which best case come online in 10 to 12 years, with nuclear technology that already is not economical, by the time they come online that is another 10 or 12 years of battery, solar panel, and wind technology improvement and further economies of scale. Wind and solar have the ability to be organically grown and expanded. Solar can be placed practically anywhere there's a roof. Now do I think we should be researching nuclear, researching lftrs, and perhaps funding nuclear power plants to perform peaking in the grid? Sure. Do I think we should be shutting down existing nuclear power plants not particularly. I'd rather use those than natural gas and coal fired plants for grid balancing. Right now rooftop solar or residential solar is probably about the price of nuclear. In 10 years it will probably be half the price of nuclear. Anyway, the overall good news with this typically unhinged Trump announcement is it the economic reality is on the side of alternative energy proponents. Of course the government can screw things up, boy howdy. Do we know that now. But then Americans will just learn the brutal truth that other economies are going to drop the price of their electricity, which is one of the basic drivers of economic growth and competition. And the US will be left behind. Because it's not like we're entering a multipolar highly competitive world right? oh.