Last week, Real Clear Energy published an op-ed by America’s Power President and CEO Michelle Bloodworth outlining the dangerous measures taken by the Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate our grid’s transition to renewable energy sources.
The White House and the EPA have weaponized both regulation and legislation, especially the Inflation Reduction Act, to bring about the forced retirement of reliable, dispatchable energy sources. Unless something changes, this approach will place extreme strain on our electric grid, driving energy rates higher and increasing the risk of blackouts during extreme weather events. As Michelle Bloodworth writes,
“These experts also ignore repeated warnings from the nation’s leading energy experts about a disconnect between dispatchable retirements, growing energy demand, and the slow addition of equally reliable resources. Coal, for example, has a capacity value, or measure of dependability, between 86% and 92% as compared to wind and solar, that ranges from just 2% to 45%.”
Kentucky, which has long benefited from a reliable supply of baseload power, is among the states with the most to lose. Commissioner Mark Christie from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) explains the problem, and the solution concisely:
“If the fundamental problem we’re facing is we’re shutting down dispatchable resources far too prematurely, then the answer is to stop shutting down dispatchable resources far too prematurely.”
Read the full piece here: https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/06/a_precipitous_dash_to_a_grid_reliability_crisis_984481.html
