Energy Poverty Arrives in California

According to the EU, energy poverty:

... occurs when energy bills represent a high percentage of consumers' income, or when they must reduce their household's energy consumption to a degree that negatively impacts their health and well-being.

This was happening in Europe thanks to "green" (read "anti-") energy policies long before Putin made it much worse.

And now, by the looks of it, it is arriving in California:

Southern California Gas Co. and Pacific Gas & Electric began warning customers in January that they would see higher bills after the wholesale price of natural gas hit record highs. But reality didn't sink in for many customers until their bills started arriving later in the month.

SoCalGas said the average bill in January for its 21.8 million customers was about $300, more than twice the average of January 2022 -- and homeowners with pools or many rooms to heat have reported being charged north of $2,000. PG&E has projected that bills in central and Northern California will be 32% higher this winter.

Both utilities say they don't profit from higher bills because the cost of buying the gas is passed on to consumers, with no markup. [link omitted, bold added]]

This story reminded me of an interview (embedded below) of industry executive Toby Rice by energy advocate Alex Epstein that I listened to about a year ago. What really stood out to me was how easily we could meet our natural gas needs and export -- if only governments would get out of the way of production and pipeline construction. (If I recall correctly, the second problem is the worse of the two.)

I highly recommend the interview as well as the Energy Talking Points page based on the interview that Epstein has posted.

One point among others:

"At the end of the day, you look at this and all of this could have been prevented." Rice says that with sufficient natural gas transportation infrastructure, the US could easily produce 20 BCF more a day and "alleviate these extreme situations that the world is dealing with."

The rest is worth reading and passing along, especially including Epstein's first paragraph:

As Europe and the world continue to experience a natural gas crisis, those most responsible for the crisis -- those who oppose the production and transport of natural gas -- are scrambling to blame everyone and everything but themselves. [bold added]

Case in point:

Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a federal investigation into the wholesale price of natural gas, asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to look into "whether market manipulation, anti-competitive behavior or other anomalous activities are driving these ongoing elevated prices" in the West. [bold added]

Of course he is...

-- CAV