The Las Vegas Sun has published a column providing some local details about the effects of high electricity and natural gas bills on people in its territory.
Several people quoted in the article, however, (including a member of the Public Utility Commission and the Energy Information Agency) incorrectly imply that electric utilities are mere victims of an uncontrollable marketplace. The impression that they give is that electric utilities are simply passing on their fuel costs since they do not set those prices.
At the first level of investigation, that may be true, but the reality of the natural gas market has been apparent for a number of years. Atomic Insights published an article titled “Bandwagon Gas Market” almost five years ago, which predicted continuing increases in natural gas prices.
The North American natural gas supply is constrained and the demand has been increasing, largely as a result of the follow the leader mentality of the electric power industry. Since “everyone” was building gas plants because they were the easiest and cheapest, even more decision makers made the same decision.
When “everyone” begins to suck from the same straw, collapse is inevitable.
