Environment & Energy

At peak rates in the summer, from 5-8 P.M. it's 54 cents a kilowatt hour.

Gotta pay for those batteries somehow...

Electricity costs less in the Los Angeles Water and Power District and the Sacramento Municipal Power District.

It irks me when people say solar and wind cost less than fossil fuels. Integrating these power sources into a reliable electric grid is EXPENSIVE.

Our electricity costs would be even higher if California wasn't able to source and sink large amounts of electric power moving water across the state. (We pump water uphill when electricity is plentiful, and generate electricity letting water flow downhill when it's not.)

Anyone who claims solar power is inexpensive has never lived with a totally off-grid system. The difficulties dealing with an intermittent electric supply are much the same at any scale, from a small home system to a regional electric grid.

Using the existing grid as a "battery" as many home solar enthusiasts proclaim is an accounting trick that raises the price of electricity for anyone who doesn't own a roof or land to put solar panels on.

I think the secret fear of many solar and wind enthusiasts is that if we replaced all our fossil fuel power plants with nuclear power plants there would be no good reason to connect solar and wind power to the electric grid.

It's not some kind of conspiracy that places like California and Denmark with aggressive "renewable" energy programs have some of the most expensive electricity in the world. In places like the United States with inadequate social safety nets, these high prices greatly increase the miseries of lower income people.