The Magnolia State is booming. Since Tate Reeves became governor, more than $40 billion of investment has poured in — and hardly a week goes by without news of another mega deal.
This week brought fresh proof: Mississippi now ranks third in the entire nation for jobs created through reshoring and foreign investment — behind only Texas and South Carolina, and up from seventh just a year ago. First-quarter figures point to more than 12,000 new jobs from companies bringing production back to America and choosing to bring it right here.
So why are all these industries flocking in?
One key factor is energy — affordable, reliable energy. Data centers, factories and chemical plants shop for cheap, dependable power, and Mississippi has it.
Cheap, reliable energy is one of our greatest economic assets — and I want you to see exactly what it is worth to your own household. So, we built a new webtool: CompareMyPower.com. Put in your ZIP code and a few details about your home, and it shows what you pay and what you would pay in a different state.
Try it — the findings are striking
● Mississippi runs at about 16.8¢ a kilowatt-hour against 18.8¢ nationally, and barely half of California's 35.3¢.
● Almost every dollar on your Mississippi bill still buys actual electricity — generation and delivery — not a stack of subsidy schemes and program surcharges.
Where the wrong road ends
We only have to look at California — and across the Atlantic at Europe — to see where the wrong road ends. Britain, my native country, now has energy costs three to four times higher than America's, thanks to policies that restrict oil and gas drilling, ban shale gas and push heavily on intermittent wind and solar.
Britain has been overtaken by Mississippi in output per person. California made the same mistakes — cap-and-trade, forced retirements of reliable power plants, mandate piled on mandate — and its families pay for it every single month.
An advantage easy to lose
The lesson is simple: an energy advantage is easy to lose and hard to win back. Our job now is to protect cheap, reliable power, welcome new generation, and refuse to copy the mandates that made California and Britain so expensive.
Protect it, and we keep winning the data centers, the factories and the jobs. Follow California down the mandate road, and we throw it away.
Try CompareMyPower.com and see what Mississippi's energy advantage is worth to your household.
Douglas Carswell is the President of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and author of this post.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy sponsored this post.
12 comments:
One thing that Mississippi has that some states are going to be desperate for in the coming years is water. I believe the water table under Louisville area is one of the best in the nation. We need more lakes/reservoirs to conserve it, and more access to recreation by doing so.
Great work
Calculate your own energy cost from your bills and don’t believe the average numbers published by the utilities. I know how to greatly minimize my energy costs but it leaves my unit cost very high if you include the monthly facilities/connection charge. The guaranteed rate of return that the utilities in MS get is too high, and that is part of the problem.
Mississippi will have a population increase % in the ranks of the top 5% of the states over the next 5 years. This will be good economically, but socially? We will see.
This a joke right, Louisana has one Meta plant that they are investing 40 billion in. Landry has barely been governor 2 years and between A1 centers, steel plants and Carbon Capture, he has secured over a 150 billion in investment. Tater will always be a Tiny Tot!
Businesses come where they get
cheap resources. The holdout has been the availability of getting a workforce. With automation ramping up due to AI, our water and energy look attractive. The last thing needed is to sell our resources without getting much in return. The leaders need to learn to quit self ingratiating and visit other states to learn the mistakes and what works. They need to act like they are running this state and do their due diligence instead of selling it as a political favor. Other states do better because they do not waste their time on diversions and biases so they have more time to solve real issues. West Virginia would be a good state to research.
A little hard to believe what the power lobby and it's elected and appointed minions are telling us. NOTHING is free, it's being paid for by someone. I think the PSC is compromised, either by itself, the elected officials or legislated limitations on their authority. Would be interesting to see the results of a true and unbiased audit.
New data reveals where Americans face the highest cost-of-living
Mississippi is the 3rd least expensive state in the nation.
So, Dougie ,you again compare apples to...not even oranges but sodas! And, someone should tell you North Dakota has the cheapest electrical power followed by Nebraska, Utah , Oklahoma and Idaho.
.You completely overlook the role that geography, topography, population density and weather plays when comparing us to other states and stranger still other countries! Then there's the differences in state laws and state regulation!
You've forgotten we have a nuclear plant and a state population smaller than some cities in the places you use for comparison! We don't have the same energy demands as the places you use for comparison. Frankly, our bills should be much LOWER and states can sell their excess energy to other states.
You haven't lived here long enough to learn about how our states differ or how energy generation and usage and weather patterns differs in our states much less which utility companies are the most efficient!
Landry also spent 91 million on Lane Kiffin.
I wonder how that investment will work out for the pelican state ?
Tate is proof that some folks will fall for any damned thing being hawked by the snake-oil salesmen. That's what we get for puttin' a country-bookkeeper in our highest office.
While businesses are flocking to the state for cheap land, water and energy, the intelligent ones are leaving for higher quality life and higher civilization. What is being built does not require many skilled, talented Mississippians. Because that is what the state lacks. I myself have weeded people out while I visit this state since they are undependable and biased. I use AI as a substitute. I want to feed my elder care journals into my AI tools and build my last home. It will assist my children in my care so they don’t have to deal with the idiots I dealt with caring for my parents.
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