Are you ready for Electricity and Natural Gas to increase too?

[509]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

OK, so what this says, is that the famously low rates in WA or western WA all these decades/generations, were not sustainable. System maintenance and upgrading were not factored into the rate structure. This is the same issue facing California's PG&E, a privately-owned utility company. So the unusually low rates in WA were had at a cost to future generations.

PG&E OTOH has no excuse, since they've been charging high rates all along. Now that they've been required to put some of their equipment underground, like in "modern, developed" countries, as a result of lawsuits after their equipment burned down several towns, they have no $$ to do that with. In both cases though, it's the current and future ratepayers who'll have to pay.

There sure aren't going to be any federal funds to help out with that, after several administrations have starved the federal budget to provide tax cuts for people who don't need them. And it's not just the West Coast that needs help upgrading their electricity infrastructure; we keep hearing about rickety, antiquated systems on the E Coast, too, that are vulnerable during storms.

The problem is the people we keep electing to public office that regulate the private utilities. Remember the Democrats and Governors Inslee and Newsom BOTH shifted priorities for private utilities from maintenance to green energy projects.

This has been going on for over 30 years now and it is time for western Washington ratepayers to pay for their elected officials stupid priorities. For example, the Democrats have been overiding local zoning in eastern Washington to put up Industrial Wind Areas in the name of climate change.

I am fine if you believe in the tooth fairy. BUT the Industrial Windmill Areas did NOT displace fossil fuels, they displaced carbon free hydro produced by county owned dams on the Columbia. How STUPID can you be, to replace hydro with windmills???

City of Seattle spent a little over 25 million for salmon mitigations on the most important river for steelhead and salmon in Washington state, the Skagit. This compares to billions spent by eastern Washington PUD's and BPA!!! Forty percent of BPA's budget is for endangered fish programs. The Skagit River dams are up for reliecensing. Do you think that city of Seattle will get to spend ONLY 25 million for Salmon recovery for the next 40 years on the Skagit??

But it gets worse yet. Chelan County PUD is offering to pay local government agencies and businesses to replace to outside lights with energy efficient and environmentally friendly lighting. That saves money, the environment, human health issues and allows the PUD to continue to sell electricity to clueless areas in western Washington.

Compare this to city of Seattle. They replaced their inefficient streetlights with high power blue light LED's. Increased the brightness by a factor of four. You can see the glow from Waterville. In a few years, when the human health lawsuits start rolling in and the city of Seattle needs to pay for those lawsuits, what do you think it will do to electrical rates in Seattle??

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4375362/

These days President Biden and Governor Inslee are moving to removing the Snake River dams. That's fine. It will only cost 30 billion dollars to remove the dams, then more to restore the ecosystem, then much, much more to find new electrical generating capacity.

Care to guess what that will do to electrical rates in western Washington.

We have a problem in this country with electing people without a basic understanding of science or economics. And we wonder why the environment is totally trashed as the standard of living goes down for the average American.

I really don't care if your left or right, but for god's sake can we at least get some politicians that have a basic education in science and economics???

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by 509

The problem is the people we keep electing to public office that regulate the private utilities. Remember the Democrats and Governors Inslee and Newsom BOTH shifted priorities for private utilities from maintenance to green energy projects.

This has been going on for over 30 years now and it is time for western Washington ratepayers to pay for their elected officials stupid priorities. For example, the Democrats have been overiding local zoning in eastern Washington to put up Industrial Wind Areas in the name of climate change.

I am fine if you believe in the tooth fairy. BUT the Industrial Windmill Areas did NOT displace fossil fuels, they displaced carbon free hydro produced by county owned dams on the Columbia. How STUPID can you be, to replace hydro with windmills???

City of Seattle spent a little over 25 million for salmon mitigations on the most important river for steelhead and salmon in Washington state, the Skagit. This compares to billions spent by eastern Washington PUD's and BPA!!! Forty percent of BPA's budget is for endangered fish programs. The Skagit River dams are up for reliecensing. Do you think that city of Seattle will get to spend ONLY 25 million for Salmon recovery for the next 40 years on the Skagit??

But it gets worse yet. Chelan County PUD is offering to pay local government agencies and businesses to replace to outside lights with energy efficient and environmentally friendly lighting. That saves money, the environment, human health issues and allows the PUD to continue to sell electricity to clueless areas in western Washington.

Compare this to city of Seattle. They replaced their inefficient streetlights with high power blue light LED's. Increased the brightness by a factor of four. You can see the glow from Waterville. In a few years, when the human health lawsuits start rolling in and the city of Seattle needs to pay for those lawsuits, what do you think it will do to electrical rates in Seattle??

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4375362/

These days President Biden and Governor Inslee are moving to removing the Snake River dams. That's fine. It will only cost 30 billion dollars to remove the dams, then more to restore the ecosystem, then much, much more to find new electrical generating capacity.

Care to guess what that will do to electrical rates in western Washington.

We have a problem in this country with electing people without a basic understanding of science or economics. And we wonder why the environment is totally trashed as the standard of living goes down for the average American.

I really don't care if your left or right, but for god's sake can we at least get some politicians that have a basic education in science and economics???

Agreed, it's coming. A dim future of mandated electric cars with no power to charge them, work from home with no lights or computer, and when the rolling blackout lifts its $0.25 per KWH.