In 2024, prices jumped a whopping 800% for customers of PJM Interconnection, a “traffic controller” part of the grid that provides service in 13 states as well as D.C. For context, PJM operates the largest power grid in the U.S., with around 67 million customers—that’s more than 20% of the American population.

Here’s some quick context: Each year, PJM holds a capacity auction which sees power providers bid to meet the future demand in PJM territory, and it’s during this event that PJM “secures commitments” from power providers who will generate the future supply. As Reuters reported in July of 2024, amid a dwindling supply and an increase in demand, “Prices for power plants landed at $269.92 per megawatt-day, compared to $28.92 per megawatt-day” in 2023.

Now, according to a new piece by Laila Kearney at Reuters, prices are set to spike again, and the projection for this year is around 20%. If you live in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, or D.C., this could affect you.

Kearney revealed that the cause of the price increase can be blamed on AI demands:

America’s largest power grid is under strain as data centers and AI chatbots consume power faster than new plants can be built.

The grid as it is now is barely able to meet current demands, demands which are only expected to soar in just a few short years, and prices for consumers have increased more than nine-fold for more than 20% of the citizenry in less than two years…but politicians and lawmakers continue to order the closures of operational power plants for their “renewable” energy crusade.

Now to even have this debate it requires us to ignore the elephant in the room, and that is that oil, coal, and natural gas are far more “renewable” energies than solar and wind. Yes the sun will shine and the wind will blow, but the technologies required to harness those energies have much shorter lifespans (by far) than the traditional sources.

For reference, the average lifespan of an oil refinery is between 30 and 50 years, with some still around that date back to the end of the 19th century. (The average age is around 40 years.) On the other hand, solar panels typically last around 20 years, the inverter required to make energy available for household use lasts between 10 and 15 years, and solar batteries last between 5 and 15 years. On the other hand, wind turbines are decommissioned after about 20 years—if they even make it that long.

In the last fifteen years, hundreds of coal-fired plants have shut down, and since 2013, at least ten nuclear power plants have been decommissioned. In 2020 and 2021, two major nuclear plants (Indian Point-2 and Indian Point-3) in New York state closed (this was under governor Andrew Cuomo with Kathy Hochul as his lieutenant governor). The New York Times reported that this move forced reliance on unreliable wind and solar, so much so that Hochul now wants to build a new nuclear plant, because Indian Point is too far along in the decommission process to bring it back to life.

Their reasoning on why they dismantled a working grid? “Carbon emissions” and  “competition” from wind and solar. But what they should say is subsidized competition—which isn’t real competition at all. Are you really standing on your own in the market when you’re being propped up by taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars? I don’t think so.

Can someone please tell me why these people are allowed near the levers of power?

Image from Grok.