“Net Zero Nonsense Will Raise Pacific Northwest Energy Costs 450% by 2050 with No Environmental Benefit”, by Jim Willis

“The effects on your monthly electric bill are going to absolutely devastating,” says economist and report author, Jonathan Lesser. “The average person is going to see their electric bill balloon 450%

Net Zero Nonsense Will Raise Pacific Northwest Energy Costs 450% by 2050 with No Environmental Benefit

SEP 23

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Guest Post by Jim Willis at Marcellus Drilling News.

Net-zero energy policies in the Pacific Northwest will produce staggering (“crippling”) costs to individuals and businesses without providing any meaningful environmental benefits, warns a monumental new research report from Discovery Institute’s Reasonable Energy program.

“The effects on your monthly electric bill are going to absolutely devastating,” says economist and report author, Jonathan Lesser. “The average person is going to see their electric bill balloon 450% by 2050. Small business owners won’t escape, they’ll see their bills going from an average of $600 a month today to almost $4,000 in the next 25 years.”

Although this report looks at the Pacific Northwest, it is highly relevant for the entire country, including the Marcellus/Utica region. The Left Coast is a slow-motion train wreck and a preview of things to come. The economies of California, Washington, and Oregon are on the brink of collapse and will collapse if these insane policies to electrify everything move forward. If you live in any of those states, leave before your home and real estate is worthless because nobody will move there.

One of the nuggets from the report: “A typical residential customer’s bill will increase by 450%, from about $110 per month today to over $700 per month in 2050.

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Net-zero energy policies in the Pacific Northwest will produce staggering costs to individuals and businesses without providing any meaningful environmental benefits, warns a monumental new research report from Discovery Institute’s Reasonable Energy program.

Authors Jonathan Lesser and Mitchell Rolling find that Washington’s and Oregon’s plan to reach zero energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will double existing electricity demand at the cost of $549.9 billion, a burden which would be shouldered by Pacific Northwest households and small businesses. The plan will include requiring all new cars and light trucks sold to be electric by 2035, replacing all fossil-fuel space- and water-heating systems with electric heat pumps, and replacing existing fossil fuel generation with wind turbines and solar photovoltaics.

The report shows that prices for virtually all goods and services will dramatically increase, and jobs will be lost as businesses relocate to other states with lower-cost energy.

Renewables Only Scenario – Projected Retail Electric Rates, 2024 – 2050

Should Washington and Oregon reach their goal, the resulting decrease in world temperature would only be 0.003?C (or less than three one-thousandths of a degree centigrade), a reduction in global temperature that the report calls “far too small to be measurable.”

By contrast, the cost to meet growing electricity demand with natural gas and nuclear power would be $85.9 billion, one-sixteenth of the cost of supplying that electricity with renewables.

Natural Gas / Nuclear Scenario Projected Retail Electric Rates, 2024-2050

The report concludes that the two states would be best served by abandoning these goals, focusing instead on providing reliable and far less costly electricity from new natural gas and nuclear plants.

Praising it as a “groundbreaking report,” Discovery President Steve Buri says the report “answers the most basic question about Washington and Oregon’s plan to move to a Net-Zero economy: What will it cost businesses and consumers? Sadly – and not surprisingly – it’s a question that those promoting the new ‘green economy’ either cannot or will not answer themselves.”

Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to advance a culture of purpose, creativity, and innovation. Dr. Jonathan Lesser is an economist and serves as Senior Fellow at both Discovery Institute and the National Center for Energy Analytics. Mitchell Rolling is a co-founder and Director of Research at Always-On Energy Research.

Read the full report here.