Comment by analyte123

7 days ago

The US does not lag behind in energy. Industrial electricity prices in most places in the US are competitive with China, or even cheaper.

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analyte123

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ehnto  7 days ago

Apologies, I meant ability to deploy new generation. You're right that areas of the US are cost competitive.

This can change quickly though, so it's not that big of a deal. If AI energy demands push the Gov to deregulate/fast track new plants, or the industry decides to build out their own generation renewables.

zx8080  7 days ago

Links please.

  • analyte123  7 days ago

    IEA’s chart for “final electricity price for large industrial customers in energy-intensive industries” [1] shows the US cheaper than China, but this is using data from Texas as representative. I’m not sure how they back this representation up, or how different this is from GPP “business” prices. So “most places in the US cheaper than China” may be wrong, but certain states or regions are at least competitive.

    [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2026/prices

    • mapontosevenths  6 days ago

      This is very misleading and almost certainly deliberately so.

      Texas is the only is State that doesn't participate in the national grid (90% anyhow). Their prices are lower because they dont abide by the regulations that they would be required to if they did. Like weather proofing infrastructure.

      This is also why their grid crumbles every time it gets cold, or hot, or... Tuesday.

      See the 2021 grid failure for a particularly bad example. In that instance somewhere between 250-700 Texans died to keep their prices low.[0]

      [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

  • mapontosevenths  7 days ago

    This seems to show that even with China taxing industrial electricity to subsidize household electric bills it's still 30% cheaper for industrial electricity in China. [0] Those same taxes make household electricity about half the price of US power.

    If I had to wager why, I'd say it's due to embracing solar on massive scales recently. Only a few years ago the US was competitively priced.

    [0] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/compare_countries/USA/Chi...