Most of our electricity is generated using oil and natural gas. Unfortunately the prices of these fuels are subject to national and world market forces and are now at some of the highest levels seen in many years. Even coal prices (which account for about 10-20% or our electric generation) have seen double digit increases over the past year. New oil supply is getting more expensive to develop worldwide and some large countries, like China and India, are rapidly increasing their consumption of oil because they are in a period of rapid industrialization. Competition for domestically produced natural gas is also increasing because almost all the new electric generating plants built in the past ten years use natural gas as their primary fuel. Higher oil and natural gas prices are forcing utilities everywhere to collect more revenue, often through frequent adjustments to the fuel adjustment factor on your bill.