In principle, a bill that says “you may not generate expensive power for state residents” is sound from a cost relief perspective. I can understand that. But the bill doesn’t say that, it outlaws the use of power sources that, today are expensive, but tomorrow, may not be. It’s therefore poorly written.
It also avoids the question of “should we be producing cleaner power even though it costs more?”, which has a more complex answer than I would have thought.
I (and Boing Boing, btw!) use Bullfrog Power to supply 100% renewable generation at a slight premium to normal energy costs, however our government, whom have been pushing renewables here for years, is in serious danger of losing power in large part to the perception that power costs have been pushing renewables over affordable power generation to the point where it’s affecting low-income families. Around here gas prices and hydro prices are two things that people get disproportionally upset about when they rise.
So, where I’d have probably said “We should be paying more for renewables as part of doing the right thing” a few years ago, I’m now not so sure. Having the public make that choice for themselves when they can afford to seems a viable option if more people would accept a 5-10% increase in power bills to do so.
Hopefully, it won’t matter in the long run anyway, given how quickly renewable prices are dropping relative to conventional generation methods.
