It’s shaping up to be a winter of discontent.

Temperatures are dropping. Heating bill prices are rising.

Energy prices in the U.S. are at or near multi-year highs, according to a new federal report. And the increases are predicted to span across energy sources:

• The nearly half of American households that heat with natural gas will spend 30% more than last winter.
• The 41% heating with electricity will pay 6% more
• The 5% heating primarily with propane will spend 54% more
• The 4% that heat with heating oil will spend 43% more

While the boldface numbers on your bills may be depressingly easy to understand, the reasons as to why they may be higher are not. This even as finger pointing among elected officials for rising costs – in gasoline, food and other products – has been going on for months.

But why are heating bills in particular are growing more expensive?

"At a very high level, it's due to a mismatch in the short term supply/demand dynamics," Varun Rai, associate dean for research and professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas told Spectrum News. "So how much people are wanting to use energy as well as how much is available?"

Rai offers three main reasons for that mismatch:

It may be repetitive to note, but apart from its deadly spread, the pandemic also upended the global economy – and its devastation is still very much rippling.

But part of the reason why we are paying more has to do with good news: that we emerged faster than expected. 

“What we have seen is the situation with the pandemic has started to improve through much of America and in many parts of the world, and demand for goods and energy has made a roaring comeback,” he said. 

“But the more important point there is that that comeback has surprised analysts as well as producers, and it's that surprise element that basically really fuels this mismatch.” 

That is, there wasn’t enough preparation for producing more energy, because it wasn’t expected.

The old adage is follow the money; in energy, the money is flowing to renewables. 

“Global power investment is set to increase by around 5% in 2021,” according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, “with renewables accounting for 70% of generation spending, and rising spending on grids and storage.” 

Investments in renewable power have steadily grown; the same can’t be said for other sectors, including oil, gas and coal.

That trend is likely to continue; world leaders in Glasgow have been pledging to green the world’s energy sources, although some argue, not at a pace that will stem the worst effects of climate change.

Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have complained that President Joe Biden’s environmental decisions – like nixing a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, and halting leases in the Arctic – mean higher prices. 

Wyoming Sen. John Barasso, for one, slammed "President Biden’s radical, anti-American energy agenda" and asserted that "it is hurting our economy and people in every state of the union are paying the price and feeling the pain today."

“It's a lot more complicated than that,” Rai counters, noting longterm investors have been reluctant to fund such projects.

“In the short run, yes, fossil fuel is a very big part of our energy system right now," Rai said. "And that's why we have so much emission and the issues associated with that. In the long run, we are headed in a different direction.”

Recent extreme weather, from wildfires to deep freezes to floods, has complicated reliable energy delivery.

“All of this puts a deep strain on the supply infrastructure, both for production of energy as well as transport, moving it across long distances," Rai said. "And this really complicates further the demand and supply equation.”

Democrats have noticed the pain. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently traveled to upstate New York to tout a federal assistance program.

In August, the Biden Administration called on OPEC – the cartel of oil-producing nations known as the  Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries – to pump more, a move that Republicans criticized, even as former President Donald Trump did the same. 

Differences among politicians notwithstanding, Americans are facing a chilling new reality, at least for the next few months: “We are expecting energy prices to be higher this winter,” Rai said.