Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   10/10/2023

Gradual suffocation and submission

While Middle East conflicts are beyond the purview of Tuesday columns, please note: Jews claim persecution and never-ending efforts to eradicate their kind from existence; it turns out that a thinly-veiled campaign—a jihad, if you will—wishes to destroy Israel, the Jewish homeland. Being a bit paranoid doesn’t mean there aren’t those with serious intent out to get you.

As summer heat subsides, and overnight ventilation to cool the house transitions into “conserving” some daytime heat against nighttime chills, let’s examine our economically suffocating electricity rates, imposed without escape by PG&E. Your choice? Submit or do without.

Internet perusal of bills, energy usage, and daily temperature fluctuations reveals an often-shocking number at the “amount due” line. My hard-copy collection of PG&E bills goes back decades; my near-daily record of kilowatt-hours (kwh) used shows the vast variation from non-occupied, non-heated, non-watering winter usage of 15 kwh, to high-usage heat waves that caught us before heading to cooler climes.

The air-conditioning, watering and electronic diversions sent that number as high as 40-50 kwh per day. We tell fellow campers that we pay for a summer’s worth of camping by simply not using our air-conditioned Red Bluff home. Thanks for nothing, PG&E.

My oldest bills have a kwh rate of less than 12 cents; our current rate is about 3 times that, or 35 cents per kwh. That’s way beyond inflation. Our electricity rate in Bend, Oregon is a bit over 7 cents per kwh, plus a small connection fee, and has been for many years.

How can there be such a radical difference—7 cents vs. 35 cents per kwh? Of course, Oregon has large hydroelectric sources, dams that, like Shasta, crank out relatively cheap energy. California could have seen ahead decades ago that a growing population would need energy, and that there are many sources of such power in our own state.

No, politicians and a brainwashed citizenry are now beholden to radical environmentalist opposition to dams/hydro-power, oil, natural gas, coal (except for power from out-of-state coal plants) and even nuclear. Nuclear has the advantage of “scalability” up to keep those appliances running in the evenings when most folks use them (and solar stops).

Unfortunately, until the enviro-obstructionists and their “green” deep-pocketed benefactors—who never have to worry about mundane energy costs—are successfully opposed, your bills will only go up, and your reliability will only decline. In a state and nation with abundant energy waiting only to be extracted—you’ll be told to basically “sit down and shut up.”

Is California unique? Or is there a pattern between “red” and “blue” state policies? “Blue States Shock Taxpayers’ Wallets With Massive Residential Electricity Rates,” (Nick Pope, Daily Caller News Foundation). “Blue state taxpayers were hit with the highest residential electricity rates in June, outpacing most Republican-controlled states, according to data recently published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).”

The lesson is irrefutable: Democrat states like California have pursued, and institutionalized, foolish “green” climate-crisis-induced energy policies with inevitable skyrocketing costs. See above. Go to https://donpolson.blogspot.com/ for that article, not that you can do anything but grind your teeth and pay up.

This won’t help your equanimity: “California electricity pricing exploded in the last three years, far outpacing inflation,” (pv-magazine-usa.com, John Weaver) “Energy Toolbase’s latest analysis reveals, following six years of stable, inflation-adjusted electricity prices, California’s electricity bills have surged, increasing nearly three times faster than the Consumer Price Index.” (Also posted at my blog; charts and graphs included)

Here’s the real kicker: “Had They Bet On Nuclear, Not Renewables, Germany & California Would Already Have 100% Clean Power,” (Michael Shellenberger, Forbes.com). “Had California spent an estimated $100 billion on nuclear instead of on wind and solar, it would have had enough energy to replace all fossil fuels in its in-state electricity mix.” No, California is run by fools, idiots, ignoramuses, and enviro-zealots, utterly unconcerned with the hardships their policies impose on our mostly marginal-income population.

Speaking of which, Gov. Newsom has searched far and wide, and found the perfect replacement for our departed Senator Feinstein: A wealthy Black, lesbian, abortion-leader and all-around “Emily’s list” leftist nutjob: Laphonza Butler, or “The Complete Democrat,” (Powerlineblog.com). Having been a Regent of the University of California? Check. Moreover, she was an advisor to Kamala Harris’ 2020 crash-and-burn presidential campaign.

That she is a registered voter and resident of Silver Spring, Maryland? Not to worry, there’s an exemption for that—or is there? “Is Sen.-to-be Butler Eligible to Represent California? The residence question is closer than it might appear.” (Reason.com) You can read of her other bona fides qualifying her for California’s “fruits and nuts” Congressional delegation at my blog, donpolson.blogspot.com, “The Complete Democrat.”

Featured “national issues” at the blog: “Biden’s Net-Zero Policies Will Invite Actual Environmental Crises”; “Are you sure a changing climate causes severe weather?”; “Biden's Live Remarks About Israel Response Raise All Kinds of Questions About His Ability”; and “Why Biden’s border wall is worthless.”