Daren Bakst has been telling us for years that government renewable-energy mandates would force up electric bills.
Read this morning’s News & Observer, and you’ll learn that Daren’s prediction was accurate.
Jeannette Bray keeps her home thermostat
at 65 degrees. Some weeks she shuts off the heating upstairs and
bundles up in layers of clothing.Still,
her energy bill from mid-December to mid-January came to $682.09 for
electricity and natural gas heat. The $436.84 portion for electricity
covered the lights and other basics.“I’m never comfortable,” Bray said. “You’re just cold all the time.”
In a sidebar to the main story titled “The End of an Age,” we learn:
The era of cheap energy is coming to an end. In the coming years, Raleigh-based Progress Energy and Charlotte-based Duke Energy are expected to ask state regulators for rate increases as the utility companies build power plants and tap clean energy resources.
Why is this “the end of an age”? Are we running out of resources? Are we reaching the point at which it’s getting too expensive to find the materials that generate our energy?
No. We’re reaching the end of the “era of cheap energy” because government said so.
If utility customers really believe “their heating bill are outrageous,” as the headline to the main story suggests, imagine the outrage they’ll feel once they realize their bills are climbing because their elected leaders decided we all should pay more for energy.
Click play below to hear what Daren had to say about renewable energy mandates in July 2007:
