Why Your Energy Bill Has Gotten So Expensive (and What Can Be Done About It)

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In almost every part of the country, the amount people pay for electricity has gone up faster than the rate of inflation and it will likely continue to rise, according to the Energy Information Administration. So what’s ballooning your utility bill? We’ll talk with energy and policy experts about the increasing demands posed by data centers, the aging electricity infrastructure, and the new barriers to expanding renewable power plants. But the picture isn’t all grim; we’ll explore the steps we can take to make California’s electrical grid more sustainable. Guests: Costa Samaras, director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, trustee professor of civil and environmental engineering and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University Michael Wara, policy director for the Sustainability Accelerator at the Doerr School of Sustainability, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and senior research scholar at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, forum listeners. It's Alexis. Did you hear that forum is launching a video podcast? It is true.
0:07.0	Each week we'll drop a video recording of a recent forum episode on the KQED News YouTube channel.
0:14.0	We can't wait to bring you into the studio for our conversations on Bay Area Culture, California News, and beyond.
0:21.2	Our first few episodes are out now.
0:23.1	Just visit YouTube.com slash KQED News to see it all.
0:28.0	That's YouTube.com slash KQED News.
0:33.1	Summer's here, and it's time for your kids to have fun in the sun,
0:36.2	but it's also a great time to nurture growing minds.
0:39.7	Million Bazillion, a podcast from Marketplace, teaches your kids about something that impacts all of us, money.
0:45.4	From a fun explainer on tariffs, yes, it's possible, to why some athletes make so much money.
0:50.7	Million Bazillion tackles big questions with easy to understand answers. Listen to
0:55.4	Million bazillion all summer long, available wherever you get your podcasts. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:19.1	Our energy system is at a crossroads.
1:22.1	Coal's share of our country's electric mix has fallen nearly 70% since 2004. Renewables have exploded,
1:30.4	but so has natural gas, another fossil fuel. Under Joe Biden, Democrats passed legislation
1:36.6	to drive the country towards a low-carbon future, but the Trump administration's big budget bill
1:41.6	kills off some major incentives. At the same time,
1:45.1	electricity bills continue to rise. We're going to look at our energy system from both the climate
1:49.7	and consumer perspectives. There's massive utilities generate electricity has changed tremendously. The ways we use electricity have also evolved.
2:21.0	There's massive new demand from data centers, especially those used to run AI systems.
2:26.3	And then on top of those technical realities, our energy system is also massively politicized,
2:31.7	from grid transmission projects to nuclear power to rooftop solar.
	...

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