MAJOR REPORT BY NEW ENGLAND THINK TANKS: FREEZING IN THE DARK?
Providence, RI – With New England state governments committed to reducing their carbon emissions at least 80% by 2050, residents and businesses can expect electricity rates to double, along with rolling blackouts, according to a new joint report completed by several of the region’s leading think tanks. The study concludes that weather dependent renewable energies — like wind and solar — simply cannot meet regional demands for electricity.
“The government’s assault on Ocean State families continues as Rhode Island politicians recklessly place our state on a path where residents may soon fear freezing in the dark,” said Mike Stenhouse, CEO of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity. “As our report clearly portrays, without any cost-benefit analysis or planning to expand our electric grid’s capacity, and in their zeal to follow a false narrative, Ocean State lawmakers are creating a major self-inflicted crisis.”
Led by Always on Energy Research (AOER), a research organization dedicated to ensuring that every state in America has affordable, reliable energy, the report, The Staggering Costs of New England’s Green Energy Policies, was commissioned by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy in New Hampshire, the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation in Massachusetts, the Maine Policy Institute, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom, and Prosperity, and Yankee Institute in Connecticut.
“Compliance with the New England Decarbonization Plans would cost $815 billion through 2050,” the report concludes. “New England families would see their electric bills increase by an average of $99 per year. Commercial businesses would see their costs increase by $489 per year. Industrial (manufacturing) customers would see their electric bills increase by an average of almost $5,280 per year.” The report shows that on a per-capita basis, the cumulative cost of the plans increases expenses for each person in New England by an additional $2,061 in 2030, $15,552 in 2040, and an additional $51,914 in 2050. All these increases will make New England more unaffordable.
Although the organizations support the goal of achieving a cleaner environment, the report finds that switching primarily to weather dependent “renewable” energy is not entirely feasible for the electrical grid of ISO-New England — an independent, not-for-profit corporation responsible for keeping electricity flowing across the six New England states. The study concludes that ISO-New England may be unable to coordinate electricity to power the region within 11 years, warning that “[i]f each of the New England states adheres to the same renewable-intensive path, a blackout scenario could be dire indeed.”
According to the study, powering New England without interruption during a year in which wind and sunshine are plentiful would require 225 gigawatts (GW) of renewables — or equivalent to power generated by 12,000 wind turbines and 129 million solar panels. Even more renewables would be required to power New England in a less sunny or windy year.
New England is responsible for less than 0.4% of global emissions; it is unclear just how much cleaner the environment will become in exchange for the costs that have been imposed on the region and its people.
Ultimately, the report finds that the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions under these plans exceeds the benefits of doing so, especially because in many cases, “green” policies have been enacted without any effort to quantify the environmental benefits they will secure. This raises the very real possibility that New England states are imposing net harm on their economies by imposing policies whose costs outweigh their benefits.
TO READ THE FULL REPORT, CLICK HERE.
By artificially and exorbitantly increasing the cost of electricity and restricting its supply due to poorly planned over-reliance on renewable energy sources, many families will face the grim prospect of either being unable to afford their electric bills or suffering from a brownout or blackout during below-freezing winter nights—all for virtually no environmental benefit.
“Lastly, as our report illustrates, the charging of hundreds of thousands of EVs in our state would likely overload our electrical grid and lead to electricity shortages, leaving residents to fear freezing in the dark,” concluded Stenhouse. “Rhode Island’s zero-emissions energy strategy is unresearched, unaffordable, unattainable, and unsafe! This report must be a wake-up call to all lawmakers that our Ocean State requires a more reasonable energy strategy”
Rhode Island’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandate is perhaps the most ludicrous of all green-energy delusions. Under the incoming Trump administration, federal mandates and funding for EVs will soon disappear. There is no justifiable reason for Ocean State lawmakers to continue their obeisance to California’s EV mandate, which would increase the cost of buying a vehicle and deny motorists a choice in what they drive.
