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American Energy Alliance 2020 Senate Scorecard

September 15, 2020 by Leave a Comment

This week the American Energy Alliance released its American Energy Scorecard for the United States Senate.  The AEA scorecard scores voting and co-sponsorship decisions on legislation affecting energy and environmental policy, educating voters on how their representatives’ vote and holding members accountable for those decisions.  This year’s Senate scorecard compiles 23 votes and 1 co-sponsorship decision from the full 6-year terms of the Senators up for reelection in 2020.  15 Senators achieved better than a 90% score over their full term of office.

The American Energy Scorecard is guided by the following core principles:

  • Promoting affordable, abundant, and reliable energy
  • Expanding economic opportunity and prosperity, particularly for working families and those on fixed incomes
  • Giving Americans, not Washington bureaucrats, the power to make their own energy choices
  • Encouraging private sector innovation and entrepreneurship
  • Advancing market-oriented energy and environment policies
  • Reducing the role of government in energy markets
  • Eliminating the subsidies, mandates, and special interest giveaways that lead to higher energy costs

All members are notified in advance that AEA plans to score an upcoming vote. The scored votes in the last three Congresses cover a range of energy and environmental policy issues: 

  • Five votes were Congressional Review Act resolutions pertaining to federal regulatory overreach
  • Six more votes sought to restrain regulatory adventurism or make clear Congressional authority over regulatory action.
  • Four votes opposed wasteful subsidy programs (wind PTC, solar ITC, the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing, and the Export-Import Bank)
  • Three votes pertained to efforts to limit resource development (Keystone pipeline, Alaska coastal plain drilling, and permanent funding for purchases of additional federal land)
  • Two votes were taken on nominations (Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator and Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court)
  • Two votes opposed efforts make energy more expensive (through a carbon tax and a national renewables mandate)
  • And one vote pertained to the massive attempt to reorder society known as the Green New Deal.

One co-sponsorship decision was scored, in this case scored against (meaning not cosponsoring scored positively).  This was the resolution supporting a Green New Deal, which sought to control every aspect of the economy through controlling energy decisions.

To see a full list of how senators did over their six-year term click here.

AEA applauds the 15 Senators who demonstrated support for affordable energy and free markets over their six-year term.

  • Sen. Ben Sasse
  • Sen. Dan Sullivan
  • Sen. Jim Risch
  • Sen. Bill Cassidy
  • Sen. Jim Inhofe
  • Sen. John Cornyn
  • Sen. Mike Enzi
  • Sen. Tom Cotton
  • Sen. David Perdue
  • Sen. Joni Ernst
  • Sen. Mike Rounds
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell
  • Sen. Shelley Moore Capito
  • Sen. Steve Daines
  • Sen. Thom Tillis

For more information on how these issues impact the election check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

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Unregulated Podcast #2: Tom & Mike on Trump’s Chances this November

September 14, 2020 by Leave a Comment

On the first episode back, Tom & Mike focus on President Trump’s electoral chances and everything that’s happened since last September.

Links:

• AEA’s 2020 election hub

• Check out McKenna’s latest at the Washington Times

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Biden’s Green Dream: Made In China

September 9, 2020 by 1 Comment

After years of planning, China now dominates the world’s production of new generation batteries that are used in electric vehicles and most portable consumer electronics such as cell phones and laptops. As the demand for electric vehicles grows, it is expected that most of them will be built with Chinese batteries, and most of those batteries will be lithium ion, which are also popular for cellphones and laptops because of their high energy per unit mass relative to other electrical energy storage systems. For the foreseeable future, the United States will be dependent on Chinese supply chains to produce the batteries that power America’s technologies. That will be particularly true if Joe Biden is able to implement his “clean energy” and climate plans that will transform our energy system, creating an even bigger role for batteries.

In 2019, Chinese chemical companies accounted for 80 percent of the world’s total output of raw materials for advanced batteries. China controls the processing of pretty much all the critical minerals–rare earth, lithium, cobalt, and graphite. Of the 136 lithium-ion battery plants in the pipeline to 2029, 101 are based in China. The largest manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries with a 27.9 percent market share is China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) founded in 2011. Its chairman recently indicated that the company developed a power pack that lasts for more than a million miles.

The Battery Supply Chain

In addition to rare earths, the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries depends on key materials like graphite, cobalt, manganese and nickel. In 2019, China produced 64 percent of the world’s graphite, having 24 percent of the world’s reserves.

China has only 1 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves, but it dominates in the processing of raw cobalt. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the source of over two-thirds of global cobalt production, but China has over 80 percent control of the cobalt refining industry, where raw material is turned into commercial-grade cobalt metal. Furthermore, China owns eight of the 14 largest cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and they account for about half of the country’s output. An American company once owned the largest DRC mine, but sold it in 2016 to China Molybdenum.

China is among the five top countries with the most lithium resources and it has been buying stakes in mining operations in Australia and South America where most of the world’s lithium reserves are found. China’s Tianqi Lithium owns 51 percent of the world’s largest lithium reserve in Australia. In 2018, the company became the second-largest shareholder in Sociedad QuĂ­mica y Minera—the largest lithium producer in Chile. Another Chinese company, Ganfeng Lithium, has a long-term agreement to underwrite all lithium raw materials produced by Australia’s Mount Marion mine—the world’s second-biggest, high-grade lithium reserve.

China mines only 6 percent of the world’s manganese, but refined 93 percent of it in 2019. Most manganese supply is concentrated in South Africa, followed by Australia and Gabon. North America produced zero manganese. Ukraine has a small operation, but it is not capable of producing feedstock for the battery supply chain.

Unlike the other minerals, the nickel mining industry is fairly evenly spread around the world and 35 percent of the chemical processing is outside of China; China controls 65 percent. Electric vehicles account for about 7 percent of overall nickel consumption today, but that would skyrocket under plans to electrify vehicles as proposed by Joe Biden.

Source: Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

Conclusion

China has focused on building capacity at every stage of the battery supply chain, thereby controlling the processing of almost all of the critical minerals. China’s approach recognizes that you do not need to own the raw material sources to control the global flow of trade in the supply chain. With Biden’s plans, the United States will be dependent again on key minerals for its energy system and this time the dependency will be with one country—China.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States imported 78 percent of its cobalt, and all of its graphite in 2019. It could take 20 to 30 years for the United States to catch up with China. It could also entail the development of new mines in the United States, which have historically been opposed by the same environmental groups and politicians who have urged the United States to electrify its vehicle fleet. It is clear that electrification of the U.S. economy and its transportation system will mean the “Chinafication” of these important parts of our economy.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

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President Trump Has Kept His Energy Promises; Biden Wants to Undo Them

September 8, 2020 by 2 Comments

On energy, President Donald Trump has Made America Great Again. In 2019, after 62 years, the United States achieved energy independence, meaning that as a nation we produced more energy than we consumed. In 2019, the United States produced more oil and more natural gas than either Russia or Saudi Arabia. In fact, in June 2020, the U.S. actually exported oil to Saudi Arabia! 

The oil and natural gas renaissance came about with the introduction of hydraulic fracturing, which the Obama administration tried several times to discredit, only to be unable to find any signs of water pollution from its use. Even under the Obama/Biden EPA, the science showed there was nothing to fear from properly conducted hydraulic fracturing. Presidential Candidate Biden and Vice Presidential Candidate Harris have both indicated during their primary campaigns that they want to ban the technology, despite Joe Biden reneging on that pledge whenever he visits Pennsylvania—the second-largest natural gas-producing state in the nation due to hydraulic fracturing.   

This post will analyze President Trump’s accomplishments vs. Joe Biden’s plan to undo them include:

Natural Gas

President Trump has made it easier to obtain LNG project approvals and to access federal land for oil and gas development. Under President Trump, LNG exports have been consistently authorized by the Department of Energy as part of the pursuit of American energy dominance. The approval process for pipelines has been simplified under the National Environmental Policy Act, which sets time limits on how long environmental reviews can take for federal projects. According to Energy Secretary Brouillette, “the Trump Administration is committed to expanding pipeline development that will unleash our abundant domestic energy sources while providing choice, affordability, and reliability to consumers.”

In contrast, Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden would block new access for exploration and production on federal lands, denying public land states billions of dollars in revenue for their schools and roads, along with the jobs created by these activities. Biden’s climate platform calls for “every federal infrastructure investment” and “any federal permitting decision” to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts. That suggests that Biden would make it more difficult to obtain LNG export authorizations and gas pipeline approvals, with extra layers of review and a greater likelihood that some projects would be rejected. Such reviews would also be subject to Biden’s emissions targets, which would phase out natural gas unless carbon capture technologies became economic. 

President Trump has also rolled back Obama-era methane regulations and is close to finalizing some of those reversals. Biden’s platform, in contrast, calls for “aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations.” This would likely involve numerical targets for methane reductions and require the use of very expensive and complex best-in-class technologies governing leak detection and repair which would add to consumers’ energy bills.

President Trump has continued to lease federal lands for natural gas development and his Administration has eased permitting requirements for leaseholders. In contrast, Biden has proposed banning new drilling on federal lands, which would slow down drilling activity primarily in tight gas formations in the Rocky Mountains, where most land is federal. 

Oil

Similar to natural gas, President Trump has continued to lease federal lands for oil development. Recently, his administration is moving forward with plans to lease land for oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—the 1.6 million-acre coastal plain on Alaska’s North Slope—that was authorized in a 2017 budget bill and on federal lands in Kern County, California, which will be the first drilling auction in the state since 2013 when they were halted due to lawsuits by state officials. In both cases, the oil and gas auctions will be held by this December. California has sued the Trump Administration to stop the lease sales there and Joe Biden has promised to block drilling in ANWR, if elected president. 

The Trump Administration has also revised well control rules established after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling accident and eliminated penalties on oil and gas developers for incidental deaths of migratory birds, expanding the treatment the Obama Administration had granted to wind and solar projects. President Trump also approved the Keystone XL pipeline, which required a Presidential permit to cross the U.S. Canadian border and which the Biden/Obama Administration had determined was “not in the national interest,” and his Administration rewrote the definition of which streams and wetlands are subject to Clean Water Act protections.  The Biden/Obama Administration had proposed that even lands where occasional puddles formed would be subject to the control of Washington, D.C.

Transportation

President Trump rolled back Obama’s fuel economy standards. The Trump rule rolled back a 2012 standard that was finalized on January 12, 2017—only 8 days before President Trump took office—under a required mid-term evaluation, which required automakers to sell vehicles with an average fuel economy of 54 miles per gallon by 2025, replacing the requirement with a standard of 40 miles per gallon. The Trump Administration rule requires automakers to increase the average fuel economy of passenger vehicles by 1.5 percent annually, compared with a 5 percent annual increase that the Obama rule required. The Trump Administration estimated that the rule would lead to 3,300 fewer fatalities and 46,000 fewer hospitalizations after crashes over the lifetime of vehicles through model year 2029. Consumers would see a $1,400 reduction in the total cost of owning a new vehicle, accounting for the higher fuel costs, and it would lead to 2.7 million additional new vehicles being sold due to increased affordability. Many believed the Obama standards were so strict automakers would be forced into making electric vehicles, regardless of market interest by consumers.

In contrast, Biden’s plan calls for transforming the energy sources that power the U.S. transportation sector in favor of electricity and renewable fuels for commuter trains, school and transit buses, ferries, and passenger vehicles. The plan includes replacing the current petroleum-based infrastructure with electric charging stations. The transformation will be enormously expensive. Electric vehicles currently are a niche market due to the higher cost of electric vehicles, their lower range, limited truck space, and other unfavorable attributes. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that Americans are wary of mass transit and prefer their personal vehicles.

Environment and Clean Air

President Trump announced that he will remove the United States from the Paris Agreement, which is beneficial to China and to developing nations that can grow their emissions and improve their economies using affordable and reliant fossil fuels, while U.S. consumers would see increased energy costs from the programs that the Obama Administration instituted to comply with the greenhouse gas reductions that Obama pledged for the United States without Congressional approval. As a result, President Trump’s Administration rolled back President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and replaced it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule—a far less onerous regulatory program for fossil fuel generation. Further, without the onerous regulations of the Obama Administration, the United States has enjoyed the largest absolute decrease in carbon dioxide emissions of any country since 2000 by just letting the free market work.

In contrast, Democratic nominee Joe Biden is calling for all fossil fuels, including natural gas, to be eventually phased out under a net-zero emissions economy. Biden is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050 and a totally carbon-free power sector by 2035. He will implement these initiatives with the help of Congress, which means that there will be new taxes or fees that will make Americans pay more for energy thereby forcing them to use less fossil fuels. Biden’s plan will only serve to make us more dependent on China, who is in control of the rare earth minerals needed in the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels as well as for cell phones and military equipment. China is also the world’s largest producer of batteries and produces the vast majority of solar panels. 

President Trump believes in clean air and in improving our nation’s air quality. In fact, the combined emissions of criteria air pollutants and their precursors, which are regulated under the Clean Air Act, has improved by 77 percent over the last 50 years, including 7 percent under President Trump. It is the criteria pollutants that the Asian countries are trying to reduce by building supercritical coal plants. China is building 200 gigawatts of new coal-fired plants and currently has more coal capacity than the entire fleet of all U.S. power plants.

Conclusion

The Trump Administration has made American energy independence a priority through an all-of-the-above strategy that includes oil and gas, strategic minerals and renewable sources such as wind, geothermal and solar—all of which can be found on public lands. President Trump knows America needs reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible forms of energy and is ensuring that we have access to them. Joe Biden’s policies would do the opposite, reducing reliability and increasing costs substantially.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

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Biden Bows To ‘Keep It In The Ground’ Activists

September 2, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Biden has pledged to stop new drilling on federal lands and waters, which would have severe consequences for the nation’s oil and natural gas industry. A federal ban on drilling would hamper oil and gas production across much of New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming—three of the nation’s largest oil and gas producing states, as well as offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, which produces 2.3 million barrels of oil and gas per day. For perspective, the U.S. owns 2.46 billion acres of subsurface mineral estate between its onshore and offshore public lands, which is larger than the entire landmass of the United States. All of this would be off limits to oil and gas exploration, leasing, and potential development. 

A drilling ban on federal lands and waters could cost the oil and gas industry up to 1 million jobs nationally by 2022. Offshore jobs in Texas could fall to 39,000 by 2040—down from 147,000 jobs in 2019. Revenues from oil and gas royalties, which are shared with the states, also would fall as drilling permits and leases expire. Oil and gas royalties from federal property totaled $9.3 billion in 2019, including more than $1 billion from offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In vast, largely rural western states where federal lands are concentrated, the loss of those revenues means less money for roads, bridges, schools, and senior centers. 

As a result, some firms are trying to secure as many federal permits as possible before November. Devon Energy, with about 20 percent of its acreage on federal land, is working to get drilling permits approved, targeting over 550 new permits by this autumn, covering 75 percent of its most prospective federal acreage. Federal permits are eligible for two-year extensions—usually a routine process under any administration—and the environmental assessments that underlie those permits are good for a period of five years.

Concho Resources, with about 20 percent of its acreage on federal land, has enough permits on its federal land in New Mexico for another 1 to 2 years of drilling. But, its planning includes the ability to shift capital to other acreage in its portfolio without significant impact to its capital efficiency.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.


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Biden Promises No New Pipelines

September 1, 2020 by 5 Comments

“Every federal infrastructure investment should reduce climate pollution, and require any federal permitting decision to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.”

— BIDEN/HARRIS CLIMATE PLAN

The statements above are an indication that Biden would make it difficult for developers to obtain federal permits to build fossil fuel infrastructure such as pipelines, forcing them to use more expensive, less safe and more environmentally hazardous surface transportation, which has already been permitted. It also calls into questions new infrastructure investments such as airports, highways, bridges, and other transportation assets. 

To slow the permitting process, Biden could require onerous and lengthy reviews to evaluate whether a project’s economic impact is outweighed by its potential emissions impact, i.e., he could make the process so burdensome and expensive for pipeline developers that they cancel the project. A spokeswoman for a group supporting Biden’s candidacy, for example, recently said this about a cancelled New Hampshire gas pipeline: “Prevent new infrastructure from being built is a win in itself.” This approach should be contrasted with China’s plan. China recently formed a $56 billion conglomerate to build and operate the country’s growing natural gas pipeline system.

As proof of Biden’s intentions, he has committed to rescinding President Trump’s permit allowing the Keystone XL oil pipeline to cross the Canadian border into the United States. This is despite the fact that moving oil by pipeline produces 42 percent fewer emissions than transporting oil by rail, which is how the oil is being transported in lieu of Keystone XL. Since 2008, the use of rail to ship oil had increased by a factor of 50, adding $5 to $10 per barrel in additional cost and greater environmental and safety risks. 

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

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“Scranton Joe” Would Cripple Pennsylvania Via Fracking Ban

August 31, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Both Biden and Harris have stated that they would ban fracking. Biden indicated that he would ban new hydraulic fracturing in his debate with Bernie Sanders in March 2020, although he would not admit to that declaration when campaigning in Pennsylvania this year. Also, in September 2019 during a CNN town hall event, Kamala Harris said “There is no question I am in favor of banning fracking.” Fracking accounts for about 80 percent of our abundant and low cost natural gas, used for heating, cooking, generating electricity and in numerous industrial processes.

Continuing to allow hydraulic fracturing in U.S. shale basins also requires maintaining the ability to drill, produce, and transport oil and natural gas, which would include streamlining the siting and permitting of pipelines and accelerating research and development that offers the potential to double wellfield productivity. But, Biden’s climate change plan proclaims “that every federal infrastructure investment should reduce climate pollution” and would require “any federal permitting decision to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.”

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

SPEAK YOUR MIND

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You Don’t Pay Enough For Electricity, According To Joe Biden

August 28, 2020 by 3 Comments

California set its first renewable portfolio standard in 2002 and currently requires 60 percent of its generation to come from renewable energy by 2030 with the next 40 percent of generation to come from zero-carbon sources by 2045. These non-carbon sources will likely be wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower. California is shuttering its last nuclear plant in the next few years and new nuclear cannot compete economically with these other non-carbon sources.

During a recent heat wave, California was forced to implement rolling blackouts because it had insufficient power to meet demand when its solar generation declined in the evening, Normally, it purchases power from neighboring states when this occurs, but those states did not have extra power to sell due to the heat wave. California got caught because it had retired many natural gas and nuclear plants, and did not have sufficient back-up power to fill in when its intermittent renewables could not find enough sun or wind to continue operating.

Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden, if elected, will be forcing the rest of the country into a similar plight with his “clean energy standard,” which requires 100 percent electricity to be generated from non-carbon sources by 2035. Whether it is even feasible on a national scale is doubtful, but it will undoubtedly be expensive to electricity consumers and to taxpayers.

Electricity Prices

While electricity production from fossil vs. renewable sources varies by state, the energy decisions that each state makes ultimately affect the price of generation and costs to consumers. For instance, Massachusetts had the third highest residential electricity price in the nation in 2019 mainly due to the lack of natural gas pipeline infrastructure, but also due to the premature retirement of fossil fuel generating capacity. California had the seventh highest residential electricity price in the nation in 2019 because of their zeal for carbon free and non-nuclear generating capacity. In 2019, 30 percent of California’s utility-scale electricity came from non-hydroelectric renewable energy, including 5.6 percent that came from industrial geothermal production, in which California leads the nation with 70 percent of U.S. geothermal production. Including hydroelectricity, 49 percent of the state’s utility-scale power was generated by renewable energy in 2019. (See graph below.)

Source: Energy Information Administration

Besides utility-scale generation, one million Californians have put solar panels on their homes—a requirement for newly built residences, despite the added cost. Some homes are installing battery systems, like Tesla’s, which cost about $10,000.

Other States Compared to California

California is not the only state pursuing an all carbon-free and mainly renewable electricity future. In New York, Governor Cuomo has called for the expansion of the state’s “clean energy standard” so that 70 percent of New York’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind by 2030, followed by 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040 and an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. New York is shuttering the Indian Point nuclear plant that supplies power to New York City—one unit was closed in April and the second unit will be shuttered next April. By shutting down just one of Indian Point’s two reactors this year, New York lost more carbon-free electricity than produced annually by every wind turbine and solar panel in the state. New York still needs to figure out how to replace their output.

One project currently under negotiation in New York is the Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line, which is expected to deliver 24,000 megawatt hours of hydropower daily through a transmission line that runs from Québec, Canada to New York City. However, environmentalists are calling for the city to scrap the project because of concerns about the environmental impacts of the transmission line that include the potential creation of new dams in Québec and the impact of the transmission line cable that will be buried into the Hudson River’s riverbed.

New York has the eighth highest average residential electricity price in the nation and shuttering Indian Point will only raise it. But, thankfully for consumers, not all states are following California’s and New York’s lead. The following map depicts the 43 states that have lower residential electricity prices than California and provides how much lower their residential electricity price is relative to that of California’s price. For example, New York’s average residential electricity price in 2019 was 6.7 percent lower than California’s in 2019.  California’s average residential electricity price was 32 percent higher than the nation’s average residential electricity price in 2019.

Residential Electricity Prices Relative To California

Source: Energy Information Administration

Note: The states depicted in black are California and the 6 states that had higher electricity prices in 2019 than California. 

Not all states are endowed with renewable resources, such as the southeast where wind resources are poor. As a result, one size does not fit all and using California’s electricity system as a pattern for the nation, as Joe Biden is doing, is not beneficial to Americans for it will only increase electricity prices in the 43 states that have lower prices than California.

Conclusion

Americans need to see where Joe Biden and his party platform are taking the nation with their Green New Deal Clean Energy Standard. Americans complain if legislators torque their gasoline prices, but they should also keep an eye on policies that will increase their electricity prices and threaten the competitiveness of their businesses because these will not only affect their pocketbooks as consumers, but also as taxpayers since Biden indicates he needs $2 trillion—to start! If energy is made too expensive in the United States for businesses to produce things domestically, they will move to places that do not have such policies, taking jobs and opportunities with them.  With American companies finally moving jobs back to our own shores, now is not the time to artificially increase the cost of energy in the United States.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

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Biden’s Bumbling Energy Scheme

August 27, 2020 by Leave a Comment

According to RBC’s Head of Global Commodity Strategy, Helima Croft (subscription required), “Joe Biden’s energy agenda would likely be pragmatic, by Democratic Party standards, with no wholesale assault on the traditional fossil fuel sector.” She notes that a Biden presidency would be a sharp departure from the Trump presidency on energy policy, but the shift away from fossil fuels may not be as seismic as some in the Democratic Party wish or the public anticipates. She also noted that there is no call for banning U.S. energy exports or fracking.

Biden’s “Clean Energy Standard”

Unfortunately, Ms. Croft is in la-la land. Biden’s so-called “clean energy standard” would eliminate the 62 percent of U.S. electricity generated by fossil fuels, primarily natural gas and coal over the next 15 years, increasing electricity prices for consumers, and costing taxpayers $2 trillion—to start! Wood Mackenzie estimates the cost of full decarbonization of the U.S. power grid to be $4.5 trillion, given the current state of technology. That cost would amount to $35,000 per household or about $2,500 per year over the 14 year period that Biden would have to implement the action should he get elected and take office in 2021. 

Clearly, Biden’s $2 trillion will not go very far, particularly since it is also supposed to fund energy efficiency improvements in buildings, more hybrid and electric vehicles and charging stations, an increase in public transportation including high-speed rail, and research and development in advanced nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration systems. That figure does not include the implied costs of economic dislocation, lost jobs and industries, which might be forced to move offshore to countries with less expensive and more reliable energy—those costs would have to be discovered along the way.  

Natural gas, wind, and solar are now the most common new generation fuels, but it took decades of renewable energy mandates and government spending on renewables research, tax breaks, and other subsidies to help make wind and solar technology reach this point. Even so, capacity factors for wind and solar power are half or less than what they are for coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, making the amount of generation from wind and solar capacity less than 10 percent of our generation today. For Biden to change the 62 percent of the generation currently from fossil fuels into renewable energy sources will cost far more than he states he will spend on his “clean energy” standard and other goals in the building and transportation sectors and cost American families thousands of dollars needlessly, if it even can be accomplished.

Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan should remind Americans of the failed program by the Obama-Biden Administration that produced bankruptcies of renewable companies such as Solyndra, which left taxpayers liable for $535 million in federal guarantees.

Conclusion

Biden’s positions on oil and natural gas have been all over the map, seemingly changing depending upon his audience. For example, in Pennsylvania—which fracking has turned into a major energy producer and which has become re-industrialized after decades of manufacturing decline—he said he would not ban fracking, despite his agreeing to do just that when he debated Bernie Sanders. And, to make matters worse, his running mate has also agreed to ban fracking. Biden-Harris could easily change back to their original proposals once elected. Clearly, if Biden gets elected, the energy industry will feel the impact and so will consumers and taxpayers. With the addition of California Senator Kamala Harris to the ticket with Joe Biden, the Democratic Party has carved its anti-oil and gas credentials into stone for 2020.

*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.

For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.

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More Climate Catastrophizing from Democrats on the Hill

August 25, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Senate Democrats are rolling out their own “climate action” document, much in the same vein as the “Climate Crisis Action Plan” released earlier this summer by House Democrats.

Senate Dems’ “Case for Climate Action” says global warming is “scary stuff” and that by following their plans Americans will have better technology, cheaper energy, and “things that simply work better.” California’s Democrat-controlled government has been in pursuit of its own climate action plan for two decades. Ask any Californian if that plan has yielded “things that simply work better” and you’ll get a laugh in return. The Senate Dems’ plan, like California’s Dem-orchestrated plan, would slow technological improvement by burdening companies with expensive red tape; it would result in much, much higher energy prices; and it would lead to significant standard-of-living disruptions like the rolling blackouts California’s shortsighted policies caused in August.

The Senate Democrats’ “Case for Climate Action” is detached from energy realities and from the daily concerns of Americans.

Among the many dangerous propositions in this documents, the following four stand out as asking for problems:

1) The biggest pledge is for a national “Clean Energy Standard” that would eschew affordable, reliable electricity from natural gas and coal. 

Senate Dems claim that a “completely decarbonized” electricity sector is “not only possible—it is the economically favorable choice.” This statement is deeply concerning. Fossil fuels provide close to two-thirds of our power today. Natural gas, a plentiful domestic resource, currently provides 38 percent of our electricity nationwide. Coal-fired power plants provide 24 percent. Nuclear makes up 20 percent. Hydropower contributes 7 percent and wind and solar combine only to make up about 9 percent of our electricity. 

The Democrats’ document says “clean energy” provides 38 percent, in reference to the full portion of electricity that comes from non-fossil sources. The document plays up the contributions of wind and solar when the lion’s share of that generation comes from utility-scale nuclear and hydro. They include nuclear and hydro when useful, but allude almost exclusively to further investment in the intermittent sources that are causing California its problems. This is a willful deception.

The document cites states that have significant geographic advantages in wind and/or generation (Iowa, Kansas, and New Mexico) as evidence that these technologies can play the primary role on the grid, ignoring that the most populous areas of the U.S. aren’t in the windy Great Plains or the sunny Southwest, but rather they’re in the Northeast.

2) Senate Dems claim they will “decarbonize” cars and public transportation, through electrification. Aside from the failure that has been electric vehicle (EV) policy, which has resulted in the subsidization of joy rides for the wealthy, the electrification of transportation would put unmanageable stress on the electricity sector, because the Senate Dems’ plan calls for the elimination of reliable natural gas and coal electricity.

Democrats (and some wayward Republicans) have been using every tool at their disposal to politically engineer our auto fleet. They have failed. Americans like vehicles with many different profiles. Some like low-range electric vehicles for buzzing around town. Most others prefer larger, more powerful internal combustion engine vehicles that can go greater distances on road trips and fuel up in a matter of minutes. 

EV policy to this point has been to hand more money to the rich in the form of credits and rebates. Those credits and rebates subsidize what is usually the second, third, or fourth car for wealthy people on the coasts. Senate Dems even admit “low-income households generally do not have access to government and utility programs that promote…electric vehicles.” 

Yet Senate Dems call for more of the same, extending and expanding EV tax credits.

3) “The Case for Climate Action” also talks a big game on job creation, overlooking the uninspiring results of the green stimulus enacted during Barack Obama’s first term just a decade ago. As David Kreutzer documents in The Washington Times, “The down-trodden are always invoked, but rarely helped by plans to reorganize industries and the economy.  The Obama-Biden Stimulus Package failed on its green-jobs promise but did not fail to deliver hundreds of billions to the well-connected.” Democrats, once again, are making promises they can’t fulfill. Genuine, viable, economically-valuable jobs come through market-driven, in-demand production, not political deals.

4) The Senate Democrats are perpetuating the Joe Biden campaign myth that an economy-disrupting anti-fossil energy crusade will somehow be a pro-American endeavor. The United States is the world leader in oil and gas. China controls much of the global trade in the components necessary for solar panels and wind turbines. The idea that abandoning some of our greatest economic strengths and geopolitical assets in favor of a politically-preferred alternative on the grounds that it will make our country stronger defies logic. China’s economy isn’t a model.

Conclusion

The Senate Democrats’ “Case for Climate Action” peddles the same tired wish list Big Green, Inc. has been after for years: more money for non-viable technologies that at best fill a niche role in our energy economy. The plan is dressed up as an investment in America’s potential, but it calls for the abandonment of our greatest energy strengths. 

The “Case for Climate Action” is a political document in an election year, not a set of serious recommendations for creating prosperity.

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