If things couldn’t get any worse for struggling Americans this year, electricity prices reached a new all-time high in September. Residential electricity prices surged 20% since the beginning of the year, and will likely continue to increase significantly in the coming years.
And… to make matters even worse, adding more Green Energy of Wind & Solar, will also JACK UP the Electricity prices due to the increased costs associated with highly intermittent Wind & Solar needing expensive Natural Gas generating balancing power to offset the declines when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.
Unfortunately, a quarter of all Americans could face “Energy Emergencies” this winter:
If we get a very cold winter, power grids across the country could come under severe stress due to relying on a great deal more expensive Natural Gas Power. Unfortunately, since 2012, U.S. coal-fired power generation is down a stunning 70% as dozens of coal-fired plants have been retired. This has caused the price of Residential Electricity per Kilowatt Hour to surge this year as natural gas prices have exploded higher due to the Russian-Ukraine war.
What took years to increase, happened in just ONE MONTH as the Average Residential Electricity Cost per Kilowatt Hour jumped from 15.9 cents in August to 16.3 cents in Sept. From 2017 to 2020, it took three years to see a similar increase from 12.9 cents to 13.2 cents per Kilowatt Hour.
As the world hits the ENERGY CLIFF in the next few years, we should get used to much higher Energy Prices across the board. This is why owning Gold & Silver Bullion is extremely important. These metals will protect wealth during a time Energy Price Inflation will wreak havoc on most Americans.
Why Are U.S. Electricity Prices Surging Higher?
Two reasons… 1) Hitting the Energy Cliff, and 2) Transitioning to more Natural Gas & Wind-Solar Power. As I mentioned, U.S. coal-fired power generation has declined a whopping 70% in the past decade. The following chart shows the U.S. Power Generation by Source JAN-SEP 2012 versus 2022.
You will notice Coal-Fired Power has declined the most, with increases coming from Natgas, Wind & Solar. There wasn’t much change in Nuclear and Hydropower. By cutting inexpensive (yes, but polluting) Coal power and adding expensive Natgas, and highly intermittent Wind & Solar, we are setting up the U.S. Power Grid for a Disaster.
We can see the Net change over the past ten years (JAN-SEP):
U.S. Coal-Fired power generation for Jan-Sep 2022 is down 487 Gigawatt Hours (GWh) compared to the same period in 2012, while Natgas is up 315 GWh, Wind (+219 GWh), and Solar (112 GWh). Coal and Nuclear are the cheapest forms of Energy while Natgas, Wind & Solar are the most expensive. And… we cannot ramp up Wind & Solar without more Natural Gas balancing power.
So, I forecast that U.S. Residential Power rates will likely double in the next 3-5 years. And what happens when U.S. natural gas production PEAKS and DECLINES? We have retired so many Coal-Fired Plants, we can’t go back to burning coal because we don’t have the Spare Coal Capacity.
This is why it is essential for Americans to learn how to use less electricity in the future, or they will be paying a much higher Power Bill.
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Thank you so much, Steve, for the work,
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Here are a few numbers fron Central Europe:
While electricity prices for the company where I am employed will double next year to 24 cents per kilowatt hour, for me personally they will rise by 50% to 32 cents.
If this continues, a democratic form of slavery will eventually prevail, in the sirit of equality and under the sign of the rainbow for all ethnic groups and all orientations.
On a related note, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who enabled or supported the war in Ukraine, the Russia sanctions, and the blowing up of the two Nordstream piplines.
Good luck to folks who live in Phoenix Arizona. Summers are going to be extra brutal in the desert. Natural gas makes up 45% of the electricity generation in Arizona. Also the largest coal plant there (Navajo) was demolished.
Well, it is a bit ironic that phoenix will likely be kind of unihabitable by mid-century, if not sooner, because of all the CO2 we dumped into our closed environment. Also, temps will probably exceed the max set by boeing and airbus for their jets to takeoff and land at sky harbor, which will definitely change the nature of traveling to and from there. 127F for airbus and 126F for boeing. Even having a flat tire, without shade and a couple gallons of water might be a lethal event.
At some point, AZ is most definitely going to have water issues, which will directly affect the palo verde nuclear plant, which gets recycled water for reactor cooling from phoenix. So it will probably be a cascading series of environmental/weather and energy related events. A lot of folks will simply leave when the cost of cooling their home exceeds the cost of owning it I would think…and yet they were still bidding up houses there 3 months ago.
Some problems, sadly, don’t really have a solution. And this is probably one of them.
For real? They destroyed a coal plant, they didn’t just shut it down?
Yes. Many coal plants in the US that were shut down were/will be demolished https://www.powermag.com/explosions-topple-smokestacks-of-iconic-navajo-generating-station/
Back in the day, that would be July 2010, I purchased a 2 kW solar panel system. Part of my thinking was to save the world I guess, be the first guy on the block with a cool set of panels, but I was also expecting electricity prices to rise above 9cents a kW hr and I’d be partially shielded against those prices for the next 20 years. Maybe I was on the Mayan calendar and all this that we’re seeing now was supposed to be happening by 2012? Years went by and nothing much happened with the price of electricity. So now this current jump in just a year is pretty remarkable. This is just a bit of turbulence and I think we’re in for more changes coming soon.
Are your solar panels still working?
How about other hardware/equipment that you bought in 2010?
I don’t live there anymore but the guy who lives there now just had to replace an inverter I think. Panels still good and system still working OK as far as I know.
Since the government insisted on spending stimulus money, then I would have liked to have seen more effort go into solarizing individual homeowners. Try for decentralized energy production instead of centralized. Ditto for insulating homes and businesses.