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Consumer Reports has hopped on the electricity affordability bandwagon. Makes me nervous.

OK, some folks asked: why does the stampede toward electricity-affordability as a political issue make me nervous? This probably warrants an essay or something, but I'll try to summarize. Basically: we need to electrify the economy. That will involve a grid 2, 3, even 4X the capacity of ours.

In other words, we desperately need to be investing in electricity infrastructure. That means spending a lot of money. It probably means electricity rates rising. Those rates rising is fine & good *if* it means we're spending less on gasoline for transport, natural gas for heating, etc.

Obviously we don't want bad or counterproductive spending. We don't want higher rates purely to satisfy hyperscalers' demands for speed. We don't want piratic profits for utility executives. We need the sector to invest smartly & efficiently. But we do need it to invest!

My worry is that a mania to bring down electricity rates will result in a bunch of slopulist policies that have the effect of choking off investment in the grid & thereby stymying further electrification. I worry we'll start to see "rising demand for electricity" as ipso facto a *bad* thing.