Originally posted May 18, 2023.
The energy crisis is coming. And coming fast.
Isaac Orr, an energy analyst at the Center for the American Experiment, recently passed on this information to the Spectator:
A Fragile Electric System
“By requiring carbon capture or hydrogen burning, two technologies that haven’t even had multiple successful demonstration projects, let alone mature supply chains, the Biden administration is essentially signing a death warrant for fossil fuel plants.”
Last year, reports the Spectator, coal and natural gas plants provided about 60% of the electricity Americans consumed. “That’s around 2,518 terawatt-hours.”
Ninety percent of that is 2,266 terawatt-hours, or “more than ten times the amount of juice now being produced by all of the solar panels in the country,” writes energy expert and author Robert Bryce.
“It’s also more than five times more than what’s being produced by wind turbines, and nearly three times more than what’s being generated by all of our nuclear plants.”
In other words, explains the Spectator, “the EPA’s draft rules would undermine the physical reliability of the American power system as we know it to foment a transition to wind and solar — a speculative game now being played with the highest stakes possible.”
Furthermore this is happening despite recent evidence that natural gas consumption has increased along with renewable energy generation in California.
No developed nation has ever run its electricity system on wind and solar, yet the EPA may now force us to give it a shot.
Uncalled for Hubris
This hubris comes as all four chairs of the agree that the country is facing a reliability crisis. “The United States is heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability,” FERC commissioner Mark Christie said in testimony to the Senate given a few days before the EPA debuted these rules. According to Christie and his colleague James Danly, coal and gas plants are retiring more quickly than they can be replaced, making the entire electrical system more fragile.
Mark Christie, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, recently testified to the Senate, “The United States is heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability,” Chrisite testified a few days before the EPA debuted these rules.
According to Christie and his colleague James Danly, coal and gas plants are retiring more quickly than they can be replaced, making the entire electrical system more fragile.
An Elevated Risk of Supply Shortfalls
And it’s not just FERC commissioners who are sounding the alarm, alerts the Spectator.
In its most recent Long-Term Reliability Assessment, the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the non-profit tasked with overseeing the reliability of North America’s bulk power system, said that most of the country is at an elevated risk of supply shortfalls. California and the Midwest are the exceptions: they’re at high risk.
The EPA draft rules would take the scythe to coal plants in the Midwest, leaving it more dependent on its mid-Atlantic neighbor PJM. But PJM is also expecting massive retirements. By 2040, it stands to lose more than a fifth of its installed capacity.
“For the first time in recent history,” reads the report, “PJM could face decreasing reserve margins should these trends continue.” PJM serves 65 million Americans spread out over thirteen states plus Washington, DC. It’s the largest wholesale power market in the country. Coal and natural gas make up more than half of its resource mix.
Read more about Democrats’ war on energy in:
- Want to Taste Last Night’s Spaghetti, Again
- The Federal Government Going Full Suicide Bomber Against America
- Mayor Adams Going Full Vegetarian
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