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Mothballing producing power plants when you’ve got little in place to replace them is insanity.

Like in California.

I missed an opportunity to buttonhole one of our PSC Commissioners at a Herschel Walker event a few weeks ago. I need to start writing those guys.

I think most of our coal plants are burning natural gas. I hope they can still burn coal if need be.

"The latest reports from the Energy Security Board and the Australian Energy Regulator confirmed the costs of new wind, solar, batteries and transmission projects will ultimately be passed onto consumers who have already been hit with record high power prices this year..."

and

"Higher power prices are here to stay, for at least the next few years, even if renewable energy may drive down prices in the longer term..."

and

(regarding California) "Mothballing producing power plants when you’ve got little in place to replace them is insanity."

All 100% true. But there is a way to bring the cost of power down. And that's with the free market. Forget how the libs are pushing green energy at the utility level. And when it comes to home solar, also ignore them when they promote putting your excess power onto the grid (as leaders in both Australia and California have done).

If you install home solar but don't put power onto the grid, you're basically a normal power user as far as the grid goes except you consume a lot less power from the grid. If everybody who could do that did it (i.e. most home owners in Australia, most of California, and the southern half of the U.S.) there'd be a lot less demand for power from the grid. Less demand = lower prices.

And it makes the electrical power industry more of a free market. It may not be 100% free market (it wouldn't work for renters or condos), but it heads us in that direction.

If my non-solar neighbors and family members don't like their power service from the utility they have no recourse. The same with me but that's only for the 5-15% of my power I have to buy from the utility. With the other 85-95% of my power: if I don't like how my solar inverters operate I can buy one from a competitor. The same with my panels and my batteries. Likewise we can learn from each other (i.e. one reason I didn't get a supposed "worth the cost" Tesla Powerwall is because of problems other people had).