Short answer: Nope.

Anyone who’s been paying attention to the advocates for electrifying our economy – everything from cars and trucks to home heating – you have heard over and over again that fossil fuel prices are “volatile,” and yada yada yada (for the Seinfeld fans) therefore bad. As an example (the only example they offer as it turns out) at the outset of the Russia/Ukraine war gasoline prices spiked to around $5 per gallon. True. But today gas is less than $3 a gallon almost everywhere but northern Vermont and the price is dropping.

But back to that spike…. Yes, it makes sense when two major oil producing nations somewhat unexpectedly go to war, threatening supply while increasing demand, prices will jump. And they did. It sucked. Then the prices came back down even as the war persists.

Electric rates, on the other hand, have been steadier for sure. Steadily going up. And up. And more up. They do not seem to stabilize downward. Ever. Especially when government is artificially driving up demand with mandates and subsidies for electric vehicles, heat pumps, etcetera while crashing supply by taking reliable nuclear and other fossil fuel generators off line just ‘cuz.

In fact, across the country electric rates have increased 27 percent over past four years between 2021 and 2024, and then by 11 percent more over the first nine months of 2025 (source: Institute for Energy Research). That’s the national average. It’s even worse in Blue states (like, cough cough, Vermont) that have renewable energy mandates artificially driving up costs. In Vermont, our Public Utilities Commission predicts that electric rates will go up by around 25 percent by 2030, or 4.6 percent a year, which is significantly higher than the current rate of inflation.

That’s bad enough. But now we can add to this historical upward electricity pricing trend the new technology that is hitting our economic pool like a Sumo wrestler doing a cannonball: Artificial Intelligence. Could AI be to electric rates what the Russia/Ukraine was to oil prices? While it won’t be as quick a shock as AI and the data centers needed to power this phenomenon will develop over a longer time frame, it’s still happening pretty darn quick. And it is likely to last longer than the 2022 oil price spike. Any way you slice it, it doesn’t bode well for already shaky political promises that spending more for electric cars and heat pumps today will save a lot of money in the future.

Governor Scott mentioned this in his December 10 press conference, noting, “The cost of electricity has increased, so it’s a concern…. Even if [data centers are] built in the region, we share power amongst those of us in New England, and certainly we get a lot of power from Canada…. You see the big companies like Amazon and so forth buying some of these [power] plants because they’re going to be running these big data centers. That impacts all of us because we need more power as we electrify [and] move away from carbon emissions, so it’s something we have to be wary of and make sure our grid is upgraded, and that we’re providing power at a cost people can afford.”

Yes to that whole making sure our grid is up to speed and making sure we have affordable power part, which is easier said than done (and, needs to be said, IS NOT the current energy policy in Vermont), but about that “as we electrify and move away from carbon emissions” line…. Are you really sure you want to keep going down that road? Because when it comes to keeping my house at a temperature compatible with human life during the Vermont winter, I really don’t want to be competing with Amazon, Google, and Meta for the stuff I need to do so. This won’t just be a question of cost (frightening enough), it will be a question of supply, and will there be enough of it to go around?

If the power does go off for an extended period of time at my house because a bunch of Tik Tok influencers need it to create deep fake videos of polar bears taking over Time Square or some such thing to get clicks, I want to at least be sure the vehicle I need to get south runs on petroleum.

With electricity demand increasing to fuel AI technology – and driving up the cost of electricity – the sensible policy to pivot to at this point is A) increase supply with as much new baseload, low-cost electricity as you can, such as nuclear, as quickly as possible, and B) until that happens, lower demand by diversifying as much of the economy away from dependency on electricity as you can — good candidates being transportation and home heating.

It was always a supremely dumb idea to put all of our eggs in one electric basket. But to keep doing so now when the largest, most powerful companies on the planet are looking to cook up an omelet worthy of Guiness World Book of Records, it’s downright imbecilic.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com