I live in CA and as near as I can tell the power itself is not that expensive. Even if I buy my power from a third party green provider PG&E will charge something like 35 cents / kWh to deliver that power plus a monthly fee for the privilege of connecting to the grid. We have a fully electric house (not even a gas hookup) and solar panels and a good size battery. For the year we supply more power than we consume.
Great news. Thanks for this. I'd like to see a breakdown of what the data centers are storing and crunching. What percentage is consumer videos, photos, emails, i.e. legacy digital trash. What percentage is corporate. What percentage is AI. What percentage is the never-ending feeds on TikTok, Insta, Youtube, Reels. The more we understand, the more we can give policymakers some levers to pull, placing taxes and incentives in the right places.
It’ll take all this year for sodium-ion batteries to come out in enough numbers to haul their price down below that of LFP. The news of their lower-cost is after the production ramps up.
Frankly, it’s 2028 where things really start to change. So far, renewables growth from “nothing” to “noticeable” has been the story, except in Australia where it’s now “significant”.
By late 2028, the prices and consequent uptake will hit “significant” in Europe and even America, (at least in the south). By “significant” I mean “scaring the dominant power industries and changing their strategy”.
Watch Australia around late 2026 for an early peek.
I’m not qualified to refute the science, but the gist makes a lot of sense to me. I can also see how it wouldn’t gain much traction either, as it’s distasteful to both sides of the aisle, as well as nearly all corporate interests. Thoughts?
Disappointed that the article sidestepped the economic implication for CA ratepayers, who are at 33.6 cents per kWh, compared to 18 cents US average (Oct EIA data). It’s expensive to virtue signal.
Hi michael, I applaud you're taking on these difficult topics. I'm concerned that there might be some conflation between rising costs and the relative costs of various energy forms. It is easy to blame rising costs in the context of onboarding new energy supplies but that creates a question of correlation versus causation. Just because prices are going up when renewable energy is being expanded is a correlation and not necessarily a causation. Lazard has been tracking the levelized cost of energy for decades and it is considered an industry standard. Everyone involved in energy policy debate needs to understand what Lazard has done, creating a levelized side-by-side cost comparison between various forms of energy generation, found here: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus-lcoeplus/
Electricity prices are higher in California for reasons other than the cost of renewable energy. Why not instead focus on the fact that California utilities, other than LA county, are all publicly traded companies who's only concerns are to maximize profit. Could that be why rates are going up, because prices are set by utility commissions that are captured by their respective privately owned utilities? Maybe the answer is a national energy policy.
I live in CA and as near as I can tell the power itself is not that expensive. Even if I buy my power from a third party green provider PG&E will charge something like 35 cents / kWh to deliver that power plus a monthly fee for the privilege of connecting to the grid. We have a fully electric house (not even a gas hookup) and solar panels and a good size battery. For the year we supply more power than we consume.
Great news. Thanks for this. I'd like to see a breakdown of what the data centers are storing and crunching. What percentage is consumer videos, photos, emails, i.e. legacy digital trash. What percentage is corporate. What percentage is AI. What percentage is the never-ending feeds on TikTok, Insta, Youtube, Reels. The more we understand, the more we can give policymakers some levers to pull, placing taxes and incentives in the right places.
It’ll take all this year for sodium-ion batteries to come out in enough numbers to haul their price down below that of LFP. The news of their lower-cost is after the production ramps up.
Frankly, it’s 2028 where things really start to change. So far, renewables growth from “nothing” to “noticeable” has been the story, except in Australia where it’s now “significant”.
By late 2028, the prices and consequent uptake will hit “significant” in Europe and even America, (at least in the south). By “significant” I mean “scaring the dominant power industries and changing their strategy”.
Watch Australia around late 2026 for an early peek.
Michael, I appreciate your aims (which are noble). In a thread of The Honest Sorcerer, I came upon this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365849668_The_largest_elephant_in_the_room_aerosol_masking
I’m not qualified to refute the science, but the gist makes a lot of sense to me. I can also see how it wouldn’t gain much traction either, as it’s distasteful to both sides of the aisle, as well as nearly all corporate interests. Thoughts?
Disappointed that the article sidestepped the economic implication for CA ratepayers, who are at 33.6 cents per kWh, compared to 18 cents US average (Oct EIA data). It’s expensive to virtue signal.
I've written about electricity prices and renewables aren't the issue.
https://www.distilled.earth/p/why-are-electricity-prices-rising
Hi michael, I applaud you're taking on these difficult topics. I'm concerned that there might be some conflation between rising costs and the relative costs of various energy forms. It is easy to blame rising costs in the context of onboarding new energy supplies but that creates a question of correlation versus causation. Just because prices are going up when renewable energy is being expanded is a correlation and not necessarily a causation. Lazard has been tracking the levelized cost of energy for decades and it is considered an industry standard. Everyone involved in energy policy debate needs to understand what Lazard has done, creating a levelized side-by-side cost comparison between various forms of energy generation, found here: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus-lcoeplus/
Electricity prices are higher in California for reasons other than the cost of renewable energy. Why not instead focus on the fact that California utilities, other than LA county, are all publicly traded companies who's only concerns are to maximize profit. Could that be why rates are going up, because prices are set by utility commissions that are captured by their respective privately owned utilities? Maybe the answer is a national energy policy.