"TVA will sell less electricity in 10 years than it did 10 years ago. That is bonkers."
Why is this so crazy to imagine? There are so many drivers to increased energy efficiency. LED lightbulbs, LCD TVs instead of monitors, vastly improved efficiency standards/technologies for various appliances, fact you can do loads of stuff with a smartphone instead of watching a giant TV, etc etc, huge fall in heavy industry, small scale solar/wind generation actually appearing as a reduction in demand on the grid instead of 'increase of supply and corresponding increase in demand'.
I'd actually say it was more crazy if we expected it to continue increasing thinking about current trends, and I've heard this story of the utility death spiral for about 5 years so I don't think it is a sudden problem.
Why is this so crazy to imagine? There are so many drivers to increased energy efficiency. LED lightbulbs, LCD TVs instead of monitors, vastly improved efficiency standards/technologies for various appliances, fact you can do loads of stuff with a smartphone instead of watching a giant TV, etc etc, huge fall in heavy industry, small scale solar/wind generation actually appearing as a reduction in demand on the grid instead of 'increase of supply and corresponding increase in demand'.
I'd actually say it was more crazy if we expected it to continue increasing thinking about current trends, and I've heard this story of the utility death spiral for about 5 years so I don't think it is a sudden problem.