Your utility bill is higher than it has ever been, and you see a compelling chart (perhaps in a local paper or on your nightly newscast) showing that your utility company has made record profits.

The mystery is solved! Grab your pitchforks!

Not so fast.

I’m reminded of the classic social media memes that go viral every so often about a CEO’s hefty paycheck in comparison to the wages they pay. Clever, but not convincing. Once you divide up that CEO’s salary amongst their workers, you realize the five cents added to each worker’s paycheck will not go very far.

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Similarly, a single chart about a company’s profits cannot begin to tell you about the costs of energy production, transportation and infrastructure.

The energy affordability crisis is complex. The bulk of the increase in your heating bill is because of increased natural gas prices – of which many utilities do not mark up the price. We are in the middle of the coldest winter in decades, which puts additional strain on energy infrastructure, requiring additional servicing, and all during a period of national inflation that hasn’t been seen in decades. Oh, and if you haven’t heard, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Gov. Jared Polis wrote recently the only real long-term solution is to go 100% renewable. Again, clever, but not convincing. Members of his party have shut down attempts to bring nuclear energy to Colorado and driven natural gas production out of the state, despite the fact it remains an absolutely necessary bridge fuel between coal and renewables.

Furthermore, as our legislature and governor continue pushing toward eliminating fossil fuels, energy providers have been asked to rapidly build and deploy infrastructure to support that renewable-based grid. If everybody bought an electric vehicle tomorrow and switched out their gas furnace for an electric one, our entire energy grid would collapse. Hence the need for new investment in renewable infrastructure, hence rate increases.

Meanwhile, those companies still have to maintain the current infrastructure as 70% of Coloradans have a natural gas heating system and 90% of new car sales are still purely-combustion gas and diesel engines. We’re not shutting down the pumps anytime soon.

Colorado should absolutely lead on renewables. I’m all for a diversified energy portfolio. But, I’m even more in favor of ensuring our homes stay warm in the winter.

Onions have layers. Ogres have layers (see: Shrek). Energy policy has layers as well. We’re asking our energy providers to rapidly build infrastructure to move us away from fossil fuels, while at the same time our federal government is devaluing our currency, we’re going through the coldest winter in decades and the energy market is caught up in a war in eastern Europe. Of course we’re going to see impacts on our energy bill.

Don’t oversimplify it.

Sage Naumann is a conservative commentator and strategist. He is vice president of communications at 76 Group and was previously the spokesman for the Colorado Senate Republicans. 76 Group works with utilities and energy providers across Colorado and the United States, but all opinions expressed here are Sage’s own. Follow him on Twitter @SageNaumann.