Hoosier Daniel Lee recently noted the policy choice to limit natural gas and coal, combined with mandates for low-energy wind and solar, is making the Midwest energy grid significantly more expensive and unreliable. Federal regulators are also attempting to quash local opposition to eyesore wind farms as they force utilities to increase unreliable power.
“The Environmental Protection Agency is scrambling to enact the administration’s climate agenda,” Lee notes. “Rules and regulations currently being written could take local opposition out of the equation, giving state officials cover in overruling obstructive local wind-farm restrictions. Davos attendees may like this, but some Hoosiers won’t be happy.”
It’s a pattern happening across the United States. In early 2022, New York’s power grid operator predicted increasing blackouts as environmentalist regulations cut supply and the state shuts down power plants. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned the West and Midwest should expect to see the same thing for the same reasons. In fall 2022, New England’s power grid operator told customers to expect blackouts if cold weather became severe, because of natural gas shortages.
“A number of states have enacted mandates to eliminate carbon emissions from the grid in the coming decades, and the Biden administration has set a goal to do so by 2035,” The Wall Street Journal noted last year (h/t Aaron Renn). The Journal gave multiple horrifying examples of the political choice to degrade U.S. energy affordability and reliability, such as this one:
Within the footprint of the Midcontinent Independent System
