First place to go to get up to speed on this is Tommywonk’s place, where he notes that they are retreating to that tried and true tactic of basically just making shit up.
But in addition to the point that Tommy makes — that they are making wild claims without showing how they get there — you can see that the grind starts in the very first paragraph:
- Why just focus on rates charged to industry? Residential rates are higher and residents don’t get a chance for any of the commercial discounts.
- Industries unlikely to locate here? Tell that to Fisker and the folks re-firing up the old Valero plant.
- And where did they get that figure of industries being charged 50% more than the national average? Recent EIA data shows that Delaware’s electricity rates to industry is 38% higher than average and a bit cheaper than our regional counterparts.
Since CRI is relatively new, it has been in interesting to watch them try to establish themselves. They’ve gotten some funding from and are networked with the State Policy Network, which is funded by folks with petrochemical interests (among others). They are trying to be the local Heritage Foundation, without getting much traction for their assigned movement conservative policy ideas. I hope that part of the reason for this has to do with the fact that much of what they are cranking out doesn’t have much basis in reality. Like this crazyness here. (They do better at working specifically Delaware issues, but caveat emptor still applies.)
Energy policy is vitally important to Delaware in ways that the funders of the CRI are probably threatened by. We produce no fossil fuels (this is a good thing) and wind energy will reduce our reliance on fossil fuel and nuclear fuel electricity. And the U of D is ground zero of some very exciting work on alternative energy development AND delivery. These are real long-term assets for this state, with great promise for us to be at the forefront of the alternative energy business. What we can’t afford is spending time re-debating what we already know — moving forward to capture what we can of this business is the job now.
We’ll see what the rest of this series has in store. Maybe the work will be more lucid than this. I’m not holding my breath though.