There’s a game of disinformation that the two electric utilities play in Illinois.
Com Ed makes contributions to legislators in southern Illinois and Ameren gives money to state representatives and senators in northern Illinois.
I guess these power companies (pun intended) realize that few will know what Ameren supplies.
It’s electricity, just like Commonwealth Edison.
Com Ed is seeking special legislation which will raise everyone electric rates to keep its nuclear power plants open.
No tree was near this high power line on Crystal Lake’s Main Street next to Best Buy. Just a power line Com Ed couldn’t keep up.
Just as it sought special legislation to force us to pay for the installation of smart meters, which, of course, will allow it to lay off meter readers.
The other excuse for the smart grid legislation was that the high power lines were inadequate.
How anyone bought the argument that a monopoly who was granted that monopoly in order to deliver electricity should get more money from its ratepayers because it has not kept its delivery system up to date is beyond me.
But the Illinois General Assembly fell for the pitch.
Here’s hoping we won’t have our rates raised again because of legislative action.
And that the $1,000 reported by Treasurer Mark Daniel will not influence Wheeler to vote for any bill that will raise our electric rates.
I have been in communication with both my State Rep., who is Wheeler, and my State Senator Pam Althoff.
Have you contacted yours to tell them you will not think kindly if they vote for any bill that will raise our electric rates?
Recalling Ms. Wheeler’s ringing, and almost patronizing, endorsement of Sheriff candidate, Andy Zinke, I’ll question her choices on every issue now.
She’s always been the “politician’, not the “representative” we expected.
Presuming the utilities only need to raise rates to gain on the bottom line is a bit simplistic.
They are threatening to close the nuclear facilities if the bottom line doesn’t go up.
This enlists the immediate support of communities teetering on the edge of disaster financially due to state policies for anything which will allow those jobs to remain.
They want regulations relaxed for all types of power stations to allow for a reasonable growth in supply with less onerous costs to ease the pressure to raise rates.
They want property tax relief, as all residents of Illinois do.
They want reasonable oversight without the fear due to a lack of tort reform in Illinois.
They want the subsidies for wind, solar and all “alternative” energies stopped.
Although these utilities are monopolies they actually want what any business in Illinois wants…
Reason, balance and control of the marketplace by dampening competition.
It is up to the representatives to balance the needs vs the wants and come up with middle ground which will make sense.
Unfortunately this state seems to believe all producers, including the utilities, are the golden geese which, if torn to shreds, will yield all the gold in their bodies now rather than waiting for each egg to be laid over time.
Ameren and ComEd have some valid points and some valid intersections with the interests of the citizens and businesses of this state.
To support them without critical thought is stupid but to denigrate the support of reasonable tax/tort/regulatory/subsidy reform is equally as idiotic.
Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Do we have wise enough leadership to recognize when and how to use this principle?
This is news?
Really?
What she had for breakfast must be next.
Skeptic?
It’s called graft.
And had we all payed attention to it, say fifty years ago, we may not have been so ‘dumbed down’ by this time in history!
Closing nukes is a blessing in disguise.
Nukes cannot compete with gas.
Nukes cannot compete with anything if you take into account the risk of meltdown, wuantify that risk, and charge insurance premiums to the operators.
The nuke in Byron is of the same vintage as the ones still smoldering in Fukushima.
I realize that the power density of windmills is low, nukes produce a lot of energy, etc.
I know the objections.
However, Illinois does not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to alternative energy sources.
Illinois can look at Germany which already closed all its nukes.
Germany is at a higher northern latitude than Illinois, yet it now makes roughly a quarter of its electricity from solar panels.