According to a state assessment of new rules released by the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ), President Joe Biden’s climate agenda is likely to cause millions of dollars in blackouts.
The North Dakota Transmission Authority and the company Often On Energy Research released a report in May that looked at the effects of the EPA’s house oil restrictions on the state’s power grid.
The EPA’s tight emissions standards, researchers reported, “is no technologically possible for anthracite- based power generation facilities”. According to state investigators, the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Rule, which was finalized this spring, will require the early retirement of trustworthy coal plants so that they can be replaced with intermittent, weather-dependent sources like wind and solar.
” Replacing the retired coal, natural gas, and nuclear units”, investigators said,” with the new wind, solar, battery storage, and natural gas facilities would cost an additional$ 381.9 billion through 2055 compared to the current operating costs of the existing fleet”.
” We determined the closure of anthracite- fired driven plants”, they added, “would increase the intensity of projected potential capacity shortfalls, i. e. rolling blackouts”.
Larry Behrens, the communications director for the electricity non- income Power the Potential, called less energy and higher vitality prices” two guarantees of Joe Biden’s energy failures”.
Behrens told The Federalist,” Sadly, the threat of blackouts is the logical result of efforts to replace reliable energy sources with intermittent wind and solar.”
The findings from North Dakota support assertions made by the 2024 Summer Reliability Assessment released last month by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation ( NERC ). The Atlanta-based non-profit warned that the power grid will experience severe stress in the summer with higher than average temperatures.
With the adoption of electric vehicles and the construction of new data centers straining parts of the system, demand is increasing in many areas at a rapid rate, according to NERC.
In a post on X, Silicon Valley’s tech giants developing artificial intelligence tools are threatening to overtake a power grid that is increasingly dependent on wind and solar, according to Alex Epstein, the author of Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas–Not Less.
” To function at its potential, AI requires massive amounts of power. E. g., state- of- the- art data centers can require as much electricity as a large nuclear reactor”, Epstein wrote. Between 2014 and 2023, the demand for electricity from US data centers has already doubled. According to Boston Consulting Group, demand from data centers could triple from 2.5 % to 7.5 % of our electricity use by 2030 due to the rapid growth of energy-hungry AI.
California’s electrical infrastructure struggled to deal with a summer heat wave, so in 2022, California regulators pled with residents to not charge their electric cars.
According to a heat bulletin from the California Independent System Operator,” the top three conservation actions are to set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, avoid using large appliances and charging electric vehicles, and turn off unnecessary lights.”
The request was made shortly after the California Air Resources Board released new rules to end gasoline-powered car sales by 2035.
The Department of Energy reported in April that turbine generation decreased last year despite increasing capacity, despite the Biden administration’s dependence on wind and solar to determine the reliability of the power grid. After accounting for less than 1 % of total output in 1990, wind power now accounts for roughly 10 % of the mix of U.S. electricity.
The Biden administration has stepped up on an aggressive climate agenda as the president seeks a second term despite the disruptions to the power supply brought on by intermittent renewables. In May, the White House delivered the administration’s largest attack on American coal yet, with a ban on new leases in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the nation’s most productive stretch of coal reserves. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R- Wyo., said the Biden administration’s decision to “eviscerate Wyoming’s coal production will impact every American’s access to affordable and reliable energy”.
Following the Department of the Interior’s ( DOI ) imposing “maximum protections” for 13 million acres of the western Arctic from resource development, new coal leases are now prohibited. President Biden’s electric car mandates, meanwhile, leave vehicle manufacturing supply chains dependent on China for critical minerals.
