Fewer Than One-Quarter of Americans Trust Their Utilities
Here’s an article based on a survey of Americans, and, frankly, most of its findings are unremarkable. But one thing that would raise any reader’s eyebrows is the amazing lack of trust that we apparently have in our utilities to inform us of energy-saving (i.e., expense-reducing) opportunities.
Perhaps this is further evidence that it’s finally time, after more than a century of experience with the regulation of electric power utilities, for us to pull these anachronistic and byzantine laws up by the roots and re-write them to deal with our current expectations in this arena. In particular, we want them selling us less power, not more. We want them procuring that power from clean sources that may not be the least expensive. And most importantly, we want the cost equations to contemplate all the factors associated with our health and well-being; e.g., we don’t consider nuclear power a bargain if it leaves us with waste that must be hidden somewhere for the next 500,000 years. Coal’s not a deal if it ruins our environment and our lungs. It’s really not rocket science; in fact, it’s just common sense.
What’s needed to get utilities to use renewable energy is a truly revenue neutral carbon tax, where the money raised is returned equally to every US citizen or legal resident. To really work, a carbon tax needs to be very large, enough to double the price of gasoline. The US public would go ballistic if this money was kept by the government for other expenses. With a truly revenue neutral carbon tax, poor people, who don’t own cars or air conditioners, would actually make a large profit, while wealthier people would end up paying more in taxes. Hence, a truly revenue neutral carbon tax would be a progressive tax, while a carbon tax, without the money being returned to the people, would be very regressive.
Perhaps to encourage utilities to encourage customers to use less not more energy we need to reward them for that behavior with some other form of subsidy or tax rebate. Utilities need to arrange to insulate customers’ homes and install solar collectors on their customers’ roofs. Laws need to be passed to make that profitable for them.