Indiana electricity costs rise amid data center boom

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, you have some uplifting news about electricity, and by uplifting,
i'm a thoroughly depressing facts.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
So we've talked about this, electricity costs rising nationwide could
get even higher. This, of course because of the explosion
of the data centers and powering more a I surging
power bills, way way way budgets are getting stretched. Everything's
more expensive.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Rod time out, timeout, timing out.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
You're saying these data centers are causing electricity prices to
go up. What breaking news.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
So wait a second.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, we're bringing these things into our communities. They're gobbling
up valuable farm land that's feeding a nation. We're giving
them special tax abatements we don't give to anyone else.
And then for all of that, we're not really getting
employees because they for the most part, don't employ people.
We're just getting rising electric bills.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
So the national average.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Did I miss something?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
No?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
You got it? You got it?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
You want to keep going?

Speaker 3 (00:58):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
No, I just I just I feel like they're must
be a you know, it's like the South Park episode
with underwear nomes, uh steal underwear something something profit Like,
there's something in the middle that I've missed here because
why would we be giving away tax incentives to people
that are making stuff more experience.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Expensive for people. Yeah. Yeah, So the national average for
a residential place electricity rose from sixteen dollars and forty
one cents to seventeen dollars and forty seven seven. What
was the numbers, sixteen forty one to seventeen forty seven.
Now that was nationwide. Yeah, So Indiana has seen an
eleven point five percent rise in our electricity costs. How much, Well,

(01:38):
we're the second highest in the Midwest twelfth.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, in the entire What was the rise, as you said.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
A percentage eleven point five percent.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Eleven point five percent.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
So that may not sound like much to you, but
think about if let's do the math. I mean, it
should sound like a lot to you. But if you
had one hundred and thirty dollars electric bill last month,
which depending on what you have in your house, that's
not at all out of the realm, or probably a
lot more for many people. But let's just let's let's
do a nice round number. Okay, let's say it's two

(02:07):
hundred dollars. If you have an all electric houst and
you got five to seven people in your house. That's
probably not outrageous. That's twenty dollars a month. Stravelate that
over twelve months, two hundred and forty dollars a year.
It's two hundred and forty dollars a year that just
disappeared for the exact same service you were getting the
year before.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Uh, not necessarily the exact same service. It could be
worse service coming up.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Am I getting less electricity?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well?

Speaker 1 (02:31):
You could?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I mean these AI data centers age.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Oh yeah, graining power. So not only do I get
more expensive electricity I could get let's to be determined
right now.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
What think about the segment we did yesterday where that
Austin Bonta, who's the mayor of Portage and Nipskoe who's
the power provider up there. They had this big rate
increase and his constituents are outraged, as they should be
over it, and so he expresses that sentiment and it says, hey,
we got to fix the system. We can't have these
rate increases over and over and over again. You know,
it's just like with food, right or the rent or

(03:01):
the mortgage increase. You're pricing people out of living. We
got to do something. Once he get he gets some
crappy text from Ed Soliday, who controls utilities in the House,
basically threatening to cut off funding increases to his city
if he flaps his gums anymore about the i U
r C and the rate increases. These are the people
running our state. This is how they view you. The consumer,

(03:24):
shut up and pay. The state logo should be shut
up and pay. The sign those signs, those ugly rotten
signs and big letters should say welcome to Indiana. Shut
up and pay, because that's all our lawmaker's view you
as now is somebody who shuts up and to shut
up and pay.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, obviously, these data centers, they cause huge immediate energy demand.
They need grid upgrades, and you know the utilities are
just going to be passing these costs onto consumers.