Across the country, electricity prices have jumped more than twice as fast as the overall cost of living in the last year. That’s especially painful during the dog days of summer, when air conditioners are working overtime.
Power-hungry data centers have been popping up all over, to serve the boom in artificial intelligence. The Energy Department projects data centers and other commercial customers will use more electricity than households for the first time ever next year. That’s a challenge for policymakers, who have to decide how to accommodate that extra demand and who should foot the bill.
The soaring price of natural gas is also pushing power prices higher. More than 40% of electricity is generated using natural gas. As more gas is exported as liquid natural gas, the competition from foreign customers is driving up the price utilities have to pay here at home.
Corporations phrase it differently: the charge “what the market will support”. There’s a magic point in an Excel chart where the markup is as high as can be while the sales remain high enough to be profitable. This is the point striven for: maximum profit at any human or environmental cost.
Don’t be silly. Women can just pop out more
slavesworkers and climate change is a hoax - floods, fires and hurricanes are a profit opportunity anyway.“Favorable market conditions”