We warned you

Headline in the L.A. Times two days ago:

U.S. electricity prices may be going up for good

Experts warn of a growing fragility as coal-fired plants are shut down, nuclear power is reduced and consumers switch to renewable energy.

According to the Times, this past January a fifth of all power-generating capacity in a grid serving 60 million people was lost as utility operators had trouble finding enough natural gas to keep electrical generating plants running. The reduction in supply caused the wholesale price of electricity to skyrocket--to more than 40 times the normal rate. The higher prices resulted in residential customers getting bills two or three times normal.

The Times blames the polar vortex (which of course is really global warming except colding), but also

...a more fundamental problem. There is a growing fragility in the U.S. electricity system, experts warn--the result of the shutdown of coal-fired plants, reductions in nuclear power, a shift to more expensive renewable energy and natural-gas pipeline constraints. The result is likely to be future price shocks. And they may not be temporary.

One recent study predicts the cost of electricity in California alone could jump 47% over the next 16 years...

"If you take enough supply out of the system," said one expert, the "price is going to increase."

The Times writer seems fond of that word "fragility."  It's almost as if the author wants you to think our grid is just...getting old and "fragile."  Ya think the Times writer will ever connect this...um... "fragility" of our electrical generating system to Barack Hussein Obama's promise to make it impossible for a utility to build a new coal-fired generating plant?

Wait, that's not exactly what Obie said:  The exact quote was "Oh, they can build one but we'll make sure they'll go bankrupt."

Nope, no mention of Obama at all.  Though it could just possibly have some connection to some faceless bureaucrats at some agency that all Democrats love:

New emissions rules on mercury, acid gases and other toxics by the Environmental Protection Agency are expected to result in significant losses of the nation's coal-generated power, historically the largest and cheapest source of electricity.

Already, two dozen coal generating units across the country are scheduled for decommissioning. When the regulations go into effect next year, 60 gigawatts of capacity — equivalent to the output of 60 nuclear reactors — will be taken out of the system, according to Energy Department estimates.

The federal government appears to have underestimated the impact as well. An EPA analysis in 2011 had asserted that new regulations would cause few coal plant retirements. The forecast on coal plants turned out wrong almost immediately, as utilities decided it wasn't economical to upgrade their plants and scheduled them for decommissioning.

To summarize:  Before Obama's first election to the Residency he was videotaped promising supporters he was going to make it virtually impossible for utilities to burn the lowest-cost fuel.  Your lying mainstream media all knew about this but deliberately chose not to warn you.

Conservative bloggers posted copies of the video, and warned that the absolutely certain consequences of making it unfeasible for utilities to burn coal would be much higher prices for electricity.  Hell, Obama himself said in that same speech that "Electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket."  But the Democrat media overtly decided not to broadcast or print that--since it would presumably have made rational people at least a bit less eager to vote for him.

We warned you that utility operators were saying that proposed tighter EPA regulations on coal-fired powerplants would make many of them uneconomical, and that the operators would have to shut these plants down.  We'd lose electricity and jobs, and the price of electricity would rise as operators scrambled to buy it from other sources to keep their customers' lights on. 

Of course Hussein's lackeys said that forecast was simply a scare tactic by da eeevil Republicans.

So now--six years into Obama's rule--California has all but phased out coal-generated electricity. The two nuclear reactors at San Onofre have been decommissioned.  And new state rules on using ocean water for cooling--rules passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature--will force an additional 19 gas-fired generating plants along the coast to shut down by 2020.  (Yes, I know this is the fault of state Dems, not Obama.)

But hey, no problem!  Does anyone believe for a second that Obama and the Democrat congressional delegation will let their crucial California base suffer brownouts for their own stupidity?  Hell no.   The feds will pass a law that other states must sell electricity generated in their state to California, so the editors at the Times can continue to support politicians who promise to eliminate more electrical generating plants.

And before you laugh and say that's ridiculous you should know there's already a federal law that in the event of an oil or gas shortage, states that produce oil and gas will be forced to export their products to other states even if their own residents are forced to do without.

I can't decide if the writers and editors of the Times are too stupid to grasp the causal connection here or if they do understand it and are being deliberately deceptive.  Regardless, it would be nice if the editors of the Times had to live with the consequences of their actions. 

But of course Buraq and congressional Democrats will see to it that they continue to be as comfortable as always.