Local opinion: TEP is an existential threat to Tucson

Tucson faces a triple whammy of catastrophes that make replacement of TEP an existential necessity: ever-increasing energy demands and costs; rapidly increasing economic chaos worldwide; and the worst megadrought in 1,200 years, which could last until the next century.

It's crucial to Tucson's very survival to take immediate actions to keep most of our money recirculating in our local economy, preserve our precious water, and attain energy independence. Because we have no ability to make TEP follow through on these, we must replace TEP with a city-owned electric utility "Public Power" to achieve our goals.

TEP is a for-profit monopoly owned by a Canadian corporation with major investors who don't live here, so the millions in profits we send them annually are a massive wealth drain on Tucson.

As ratepayers, we pay for all TEP's infrastructure (generators, ugly poles, and lines), maintenance, and operations. Additionally, we send TEP's investors a profit of 9.5% of the cost of all TEP's infrastructure. Now TEP wants that profit raised to 10.5%.

The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), supposedly a public watchdog keeping TEP from taking advantage of us, instead acts like a TEP lapdog, allowing TEP to charge far more profit than the roughly 6% they should get, according to AZ Attorney General Mayes. Not surprising, since TEP massively funds ACC campaign ads, and lobbies to ensure the ACC is in lockstep with their corporate greed.

Because TEP's profit is calculated as a percent of its infrastructure costs, the more infrastructure it builds, the bigger its profit. That's why TEP keeps ignoring the giant fusion factory in the sky that sends us all the free energy we will ever need, and instead insists on building more fracked gas infrastructure, including a $5.3 billion pipeline from TX (which we will pay for). Gotta' hand it to TEP ... Their con artistry rivals the proverbial guy who could sell refrigerators to Eskimos!

Public Power will eliminate all profits and exorbitantly paid corporate CEOs and get the ACC's dirty fingers out of our energy pie!

Last year, a study by independent electric utility experts GDS Associates estimated that if we buy TEP and go with Public Power, by year 6, the average Tucson household will see significant savings on electric bills (~ $240 /yr). Savings will increase to over $1,000/yr by the end of the time period GDS studied.

Don't believe TEP's pseudo-study that tries to discredit the GDS. TEP is untrustworthy. For years, TEP met behind the scenes with massively energy-intensive and water-intensive data centers before the public found out about it. And TEP is still scheming with data centers to make the public think that air conditioning will keep data centers from requiring massive amounts of our water. But AC requires so much electricity that to meet their demands, TEP will use even more water to cool their generators than the data centers will use if they use evaporative cooling! And regardless of what happens at the site near the fairgrounds, TEP will still serve one of Marana's data centers.

TEP has drilled directly into our aquifer. By not going through our City-owned water utility, they pay us nothing for the 4.7 billion gallons it already uses per year to cool its fossil fuel and natural gas-burning generators. Note that solar and wind need no water.

Using our free fuel (sunlight) and advances in Iron-Air batteries that store up to 100 hours of electric power, we can now become completely energy independent. But TEP plans to buy more solar-generated electricity elsewhere and transport it here via lines (even though lines lose power along the way).

Only Public Power will enable the resilience we need. Some of our tax money can provide sliding-scale subsidies for every property owner to install solar panels and battery storage systems, so the rooftop of every dwelling, building, parking lot, etc., generates its own electricity and can sell any excess to the city. Our money stays here, our aquifer is spared, and we'll be entirely energy independent.